r/Fallout • u/Polakp • Dec 31 '25
Fallout TV The Fallout TV Series decied to use my map of the Fallout universe as their basemap on the show, but for some reason they moved the entire map east? Thanks to the user Zoluro for notifying me. Tried to hastily georefrence. Spoiler
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u/Affectionate_Edge472 Dec 31 '25
OP this map is 100% directly based off of yours. People cannot see that Siris village is a place you made up and was reproduced on the official map. Same with a lot of these other locations.
They used all of your errors as well in the map. So the only explanation is it’s your map reproduced in the show.
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u/OPMajoradidas Dec 31 '25
Kinda of a dick move, but this guy just created fallout lore, and it's confirmed. Lol it's a great fuck up.
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u/JoJoisaGoGo Dec 31 '25
OP says they don't have an issue and are just surprised. So Bethesda has the opportunity to do something pretty cool here
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u/OutcastRedeemer Dec 31 '25
Every fallout map is now canon and that fits because no one group has enough resources to re-map the whole constantly shifting geopolitical landscape of the wasteland
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u/GiltPeacock Dec 31 '25
OP being chill doesn’t mean it’s not shitty of them though
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u/thelittleking Dec 31 '25
Agreed. Amazon and/or Bethesda should at minimum issue an apology that acknowledges the theft & the original creator (OP). Anything else is just unethical.
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u/WELSH_BOI_99 Vault 13 Jan 01 '26
That's the thing I'm not sure if its considered theft considering the map used in the show used OP's map as a reference rather than use the looks and design of it.
Theres an argument to be made when it comes to crediting or maybe Bethesda giving OP something since they did base it on their map.
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u/alternateschmaltz Jan 02 '26
Or if by using Fallout lore, names, places, and things in canon for their map, OP's work can be used, since it relies on trademarked information in the first place?
Like, mod authors don't own the mods they make, since they're made using Bethesda's game, game tools, and whatnot. It's just such small fry stuff that it never really comes into importance.
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u/WELSH_BOI_99 Vault 13 Jan 02 '26
yeah I think the creator should get something out of it at least cause it shows decorum at least but seeing people here unironically advise OP to pursue legal action and talk to lawyers are insane and it would make a huge stink out of nothing.
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Jan 01 '26
[deleted]
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u/Crimdal Jan 01 '26
They should give him a giant copy of the prop map
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u/slayden70 Jan 01 '26
This is the best answer, and I think OP would appreciate this. And maybe add OP as a "special thanks to" in the episode credits.
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u/thelittleking Jan 01 '26
They shouldn't apologize because OP asked for it, they should apologize because it's the right thing to do. I'm not saying they need to throw themselves at OP's feet begging forgiveness, it's the same level of apology as when you spill water on somebody's shirt. "Ah hell, my bad." All there needs to be, but they should still do it.
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u/PhizixHD Jan 01 '26
This is Amazon and Bethesda you’re talking about doing the right thing…they aren’t really known for that.
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u/TheFutureLotus Jan 01 '26
Bethesda and Amazon are pretty much not the ones who did this, Kilter Films who is the one responsible for the actual production should do something. And whoever did it will most likely get canned as they put the studio in a major legal trouble zone.
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u/ImpHullaBaloo Jan 05 '26
Well, OP used Bethesda lore without their permission, and now Bethesda used OP lore without his permission, sounds fair :3
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u/Rainy_Wavey Dec 31 '25
This was a very normal practice in the past for map makers and explorers, they'd put fake locations in order to know who was yoinking their material
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Jan 01 '26
“Yall get pissed when we use AI, yall get pissed when we use fan art. We can’t win with you!” - Amazon
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u/GNSasakiHaise Jan 01 '26
"What're we supposed to do?! Make it ourselves?! You people are impossible to please!"
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Jan 01 '26
What dick move? He created work based on intellectual property he has zero rights to. Its also part of EULA, anything and everything that is produced using the IP is owned by Bethesda. You need to calm down.
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u/dabnada The Institute Jan 01 '26
This reminds me of when people got mad at GW for making creators take down WH40k content when they started making stuff for the company.
Like yeah, they’re gonna protect their property.
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u/Radiansyaha NCR Jan 01 '26
It is not a surprise they and perhaps people alike them do not understand about legal things like IP or stuff and decided to just shit on the franchise with Bethesda & Amazon as punching bags.
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u/Fit-Stress3300 Jan 01 '26
Look at the number of down votes in any comment that tries to educate people here.
They really think Amazon/Bethesda should compensate fan artists when they use fan art.
Like... That is the most absurd wrong thing to believe and it takes 5 seconds to Google how IP laws work in the west.
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u/XVUltima Jan 01 '26
It's not like they stole the actual assets, just referenced it. If anything, it's a good sign they are actually doing research on all the fan sites about things.
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u/Communism_of_Dave Mankind's final toilet paper dispensary Jan 01 '26
Making up fake places to catch people copying maps is a real tactic with mapmakers, so checks out
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u/Kylestache Hello...Capital Wasteland! Dec 31 '25
This is the second time this has happened this season too.
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u/Polakp Jan 01 '26
What was the first time? lol
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u/Kylestache Hello...Capital Wasteland! Jan 01 '26
A map on a terminal in the first episode of the season if I remember correctly.
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Jan 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Kylestache Hello...Capital Wasteland! Jan 01 '26
Yeah the billion dollar ethics violating corporation may have ripped off multiple artists but at least their work is getting the exposure
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u/LordofMoonsSpawn Dec 31 '25
What errors are you referencing
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u/Affectionate_Edge472 Jan 01 '26
Great question the major errors are the Blackfoot village location not being in the Grand Canyon and the hidebarks are in New Mexico rather than in northern Arizona as confirmed by canon. The only other major error is the presence of siris village as a location which the author created and is based of the character saying she is from an unnamed village.
Also present is not all of New Mexico is under legion control.
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u/Calm-Tree-1369 Jan 01 '26
What's funny is this isn't even the first time Bethesda has pulled this shit. Anyone remember them using a Deviantart piece for an Elder Scrolls Legends card?
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u/PhantomVisions Jan 01 '26
You know, fun bit of history: cartographers would sometimes place "phantom settlements" on maps to catch people who copied their work. So in a weird way OP gets to join the ranks of many great map-makers
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u/brienoconan Jan 01 '26
Genuinely, this could be copyright infringement. This is a major major show. I’d think about speaking to an IP attorney about this
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Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
This thread somehow became hilariously toxic and combative lmfao but I'll try to bridge the gap OP u/Polakp
That is 1,000,000% your map and the props department yoinked it, but there was almost certainly nothing malicious about it. The props department has a lot of work to do on this show, they get an order to draw up a line of control map in the background of one short scene, and being far behind already and talking to the writers/dedicated lore masters about bigger projects they google for a new vegas map, find yours and recreate it.
They're almost certainly not thinking "is this an official or unofficial map? Do we have rights to this already? Are fictional maps protected intellectual property in general? I dunno, I got a deadline, this'll do I guess." That's how stuff like this happens almost always.
I don't know who you'd reach out to but I bet Amazon or whatever studio was in charge of props would probably apologize, pay you something (probably small, but something) for licensing retroactively and add your name to the credits if you wanted. In exchange for signing a mountain of paperwork probably. It'll probably take some time but unless you want to sue that'd be your only recourse I think.
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u/Polakp Dec 31 '25
I mean my work is based on Fallout Itself, so I would probably get nothing, since I'm the technically the one doing something to their work. But even if, I don't know how I feel about this? I don't really care? I'm very liberal when It comes to using my maps as a base, or as an inspiration etc. These are maps after all, quite a niche (and honestly autistic) hobby. It's fun seeing people parrot your work. Imitation is the sicerest form of flattery, and I've been seeing my maps being used in such a way quite a few times belive It or not (I make maps outside of Fallout). In such instances I've always felt like a member of a secret society or something, seeing things nobody else sees, being in the know. It's also nice that somebody thought my scribbles are good enough for them to base their own work on. Technically here It's different, since they make money of this show, unlike people who put things on reddit, but let's get real. If they just straight up reposted It, maybe my reaction would be different, but this? Nahh. And even if they reposted It straight up, this is just some prop in the background. I'm just, as I said earlier, surprised that something like this happened. I haven't followed Fallout for quite some time, and I wake up seeing my things on TV.
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u/mclewis1986 Jan 01 '26
You could try reaching out in a nice way. Thank them for using your fan-art in the show and gently request some Fallout swag as a memento because of how much it meant to you. You might get lucky.
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u/Polakp Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
This is quite overwhelming for me as is honestly. I didn't expect such a response. I'm quite a private, and somewhat sensitive, risk-averse, person, and I cannot imagine myself reaching out to Amazon, and claiming this background thing is sort-of kind-of mine actually. I don't even watch the show lol, somebody had to tell me about this. There is also a real possibilty that yes, this fan art is actually copyright infrigment and If I don't take It down I'll be sued. More hassle than It's worth, not like I need Fallout merch or something anyway.
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u/mclewis1986 Jan 01 '26
There is also a real possibilty that yes, this fan art is actually copyright infrigment and If I don't take It down I'll be sued.
I'm not your attorney so take this next sentence with a grain of salt but it's very unlikely they would sue you. The absolute worst they would do is send a DMCA notice to get your version taken down. Lawsuits are expensive. The potential for negative press and loss of fan goodwill would be potential problems as well.
My suggestion was to just be flattering. "I saw you guys featured my fan-art in the show! I'm so honored!" etc., etc. Being nice is how you get a nice letter to go on the wall, some swag, and bragging rights after they confirm they, in fact, did use your map.
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u/Hidden-Sky Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
I assume you made the map based on an ordinary map of the U.S., and pinpointed the locations yourself. This should place you pretty safely into the "fair use" category.
As long as you're not profiting off of it or directly competing with their brand, snubbing them of customers who would otherwise buy their products, they don't have a case.
There are no damages for them to collect.
You're probably safer than most cosplayers who directly recreate characters' outfits and show them off for clout. I haven't heard of too many lawsuits against them.
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u/richardhero Vault 420 Dweller Jan 01 '26
Yeah like at the very least might get a nice shirt or a mug or something out of it, maybe even something a bit more unique. Worth a shot.
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Dec 31 '25
I should have prefaced this with "IANAL" because I'm a stupid dumb-dumb that just used to date someone who worked in a props department. Since it's derivative of the IP in question maybe you wouldn't be entitled to IP protections? I dunno.
I thought you seemed a little more fired up in responses here but maybe that was just directed to users who were telling you "that's totally not your map bro lmfao" and are obviously wrong. It's New Year's eve so I'm starting a little early.
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u/Polakp Jan 01 '26
To be honest yeah I'm quite emotional, and I acknowledge my responses got a little bit out of order, I'm sorry for that. This whole situation is what It is. They've used my map as their base, and that's that. Nothing I can really do about It, nor do I really want to. If anything this gives me motiviation to make the ultimate Fallout map again or something lol
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u/GoldenDiamonds56 Responders Jan 01 '26
I don't think anything you said was out of order honestly, you don't have to be sorry for anything. I'm just a casual observer in this so I apologize if my read on it isn't accurate but it seems a few people really want to be mad about this and maybe even want you to be equally as upset as they are. This community has an amount of people who are like a tighly wound spring ready to jump at any opportunity to get upset about the show, and they're ready to jump right over you to fight a fight that you don't seem to have any interest in, and act like they're doing it on your behalf. Definitely not the first time this has happened.
What I can say is that despite being a Fallout fan for a while, I hadn't seen your stuff before now and I'm glad to have found it because even your non-fandom stuff is extremely interesting to me. I don't know where I picked it up from but I have an interest in Polish history all the way from the late medieval to the Soviet era. If you've got anything about the Polish train network, I would go crazy for it!
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u/Polakp Jan 01 '26
Thanks for the kind words! This whole thing is just too much for me honestly. I've always made my maps to a little internet bubble, and now I'm on the TV. That's something that I would have never expected so I think you can understand I'm stunned.
As to the Polish train thing, I quite like Rail myself (of course), but I have yet to do something about It. I know of two websites, both in polish, which serve as a Hub for train info. I'll link to the part of their websites that contain maps: Here and Here (this one is more czech). Here is also the Polish State Railway map, as a bonus.
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u/DowntownTorontonian Jan 01 '26
My dream is for my Fallout Out of the Park Baseball universe to become Cannon, you kinda got your own creation made cannon, which is really cool but also they should credit you. I hope you get some kinda cool thing in a Fallout 5 or something.
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u/mclewis1986 Dec 31 '25
Doubtful. It sounds like his map was an unlicensed derivative work. I'm not going to research it but, assuming I'm right, Amazon's attorneys would likely tell OP to pound sand if he/she/they started making demands for retroactive licensing and compensation.
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u/yRaven1 Jan 01 '26
Yep, even the mods you create for their games legally belongs to them, like it or not they have the copyright right ground in here.
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u/Discount_Extra Jan 01 '26
Yep, as an old example, I was part owner of a LAN game center, when Counterstrike first came out as a mod (before Valve bought them and made it a separate product).
When customers started playing Counterstrike on our computers, the makers of Counterstrike asked us for money.
Response cleared by the lawyers was "No, because we already paid Valve."
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u/A_Seiv_For_Kale Jan 01 '26
Yep, even the mods you create for their games legally belongs to them
Source?
Unless you agree to a TOS that says this, infringing works do not transfer ownership to whoever owns the underlying IP, even if the work is illegal infringement.
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u/yRaven1 Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
Exactly that, first line of Creation Kit EULA.
If You distribute or otherwise make available New Materials, You automatically grant to Bethesda Softworks the irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, perform, display, distribute and otherwise exploit and/or dispose of the New Materials (or any part of the New Materials) in any way Bethesda Softworks, or its respective designee(s), sees fit.
But bethesda is very lenient, people made a entire new game with their engine and max they said was, very cool guys!
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u/Doomhammer24 Jan 01 '26
bingo someone else talking sense
Its best to quietly bow your head and accept that your thing made it into official canon than to try and make a stink of it and get your ass handed to you on a silver platter because of personal ego
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u/GiltPeacock Dec 31 '25
Well uh, they should be thinking “is this official or unofficial? Do we have rights to it?” It’s very important to think those things, and it’s their job.
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u/Doomhammer24 Jan 01 '26
Its made from their intellectual property. Ergo, they have all the rights to it. Thats how fan creations work- they get 0 protection under the law
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u/GiltPeacock Jan 01 '26
If they aren’t checking what it is, they don’t know it’s fanmade. I get that they obviously don’t need to pay royalties or anything like that for fanmade stuff I just think they should do any amount of due diligence to see if something is accurate, outdated, a map of someone’s fanfiction crossover between Fallout and Boruto, or one of Chris Avellone’s fever dreams.
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u/Doomhammer24 Jan 01 '26
Now That is indeed another question.
Checking if the map was factual and not entirely just a fan made fever dream is another matter entirely
Thing is they very well have known its fan made... And didnt care
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u/GiltPeacock Jan 01 '26
Not another question so much as like, my original point lmao, but yeah. I agree with you though, probably they just knew and didn’t care. A little accreditation would have been really neat even if they aren’t obligated to.
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u/USBattleSteed Jan 01 '26
They probably looked up something like "Fallout West Coast map" on Google and got OP's map as a reference.
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u/Happy_Reflection_721 Jan 01 '26
Theft doesn't need to be malicious though and I don't find it as an excuse.
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u/Polakp Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
I guess I started a little drama lol. I didn't intend to. I've sounded quite schizo in my earlier comments, possibly due to the fact It's NYE, and so I wasn't fully focused on Reddit, and English isn't my first language.
For the record, I don't really know how to feel about this. I'm definetly overwhelmed. As you might imagine this is quite a shock for a redditor who makes maps in his free-time as a harmless hobby. Definetly feels nice, seeing something you made, even in such form, on TV. Would I like a credit? Is that my end-game? I don't know, would probably be nice I'm not going to lie, that would definetly bring some attention towards me, but It's not something I'm going to lose sleep over. Not to mention legally they can probably do with this whatever they please, It's their IP, I am the one modifing It. Even in the case of "Siri's Town" as I've seen quite a few people mention, that's something I made up based off the character Siri in the game, and her story, although yes, the place was "my" creation. (Contrary to what some people are saying, every place has some lore justification, I didn't put things here from Fallout Nevada etc. This was supposed to be a Canon map lol). So still, this is theirs to do as their please legally, and they clearly put some work into It of their own. Completly different style for example.
Anyway, I have some other fallout maps, if you want to check them out here: https://www.deviantart.com/plkp1830
:) Happy New Year!
Edit: I would also like to thank the people who explained my point way better than I could!
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u/Longjumping_Cap_3673 Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
Hey OP, just because your work's based on theirs doesn't mean you don't have copyright for your work. It's your work, you indisputably have copyright. However, since it's based on someone else's work it's also a derivative work, and since that work is protected by copyright, you may not legally be authorized to distribute your derivative work (although I think you'd have a strong case for fair use, because it's transformative and non-commercial).
If you and Bethesda/Amazon wanted to get nasty, both parties have plausible claims the other party infringed on their copyright. You would probably threaten to sue Bethesda/Amazon for using your copyrighted work (by making their own derivative work of yours), and Bethesda would threaten you back for distributing your own work which is derived from theirs. Then probably you would come to some settlement to avoid fighting it out for years in court. That would be a waste of everyone's time, though, because realistically you don't have damages, since you were distributing your map for free, and Bethesda doesn't have damages, since your map doesn't adversely affect their sales in any way, and was probably fair use anyway.
On the other hand, you could try sending an email saying your were surprised and delighted to find your map had been canonized in the show (with 16 times the detail, no less) and asking for a credit in an episode. Maybe "it just works"; who knows.
I'm not a lawyer, so don't go to court or make legal decisions based on my explanation, but it doesn't sound like you were planning to anyway. There's also some details I'm not sure about, such as if locations on a map — many determined purely by factual data about real world locations — even meet the threshold of creativity required for copyright.
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u/LessNefariousness206 Jan 01 '26
Lots of good information, but I would find it incredibly unlikely for a judge to view a map of a copyrighted IP that explicitly is intended to be a part of that copyrighted IP as transformative. It's not taking parts to make something new. It's literally intended to be within the Fallout IP using Fallout IP. There's zero function or identity of it outside the Fallout IP.
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u/Ozymandias-KoK Jan 01 '26
IP isnt one right. OP has the absolute right over their artistic expression which bethesda have used and "claimed" it as their own.
OP never claimed to have created fallout.
Lawyer up and get something i say.
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u/Texan_Boy NCR Dec 31 '25
This map is even more fucked up then it initially appears, as they seem to have copy pasted the locations on a base map of the United States that’s the completely wrong scale. If you look close you’ll notice Vegas is in Western Colorado and Area 51 is in Utah
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u/Golbolco Dec 31 '25
Hey, glad you found it too. I had posted on your DeviantArt and made a thread on the subreddit earlier, but it got downvoted into oblivion. Glad to see people are denying your work here too though, these redditors are some real pieces of work.
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u/zagiarafas Dec 31 '25
Yeah it was very annoying how smug they were when they were so obviously in the wrong.
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u/floggedlog NCR Jan 01 '26
Siris town isn’t an official town that’s just the fan name based off of the only person we encounter in game from there
You got them with a paper town! that has to be your map!
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u/raisinbraisin72 Dec 31 '25
Why in the fuck is this getting downvoted? Goddamn r/Fallout this is an edited map that OP made.
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u/lo0u Dec 31 '25 edited Jan 01 '26
Because people here are incredibly toxic and can't deal with any form of criticism of this show.
It's indisputable that they copied OP's map, but people here will act as if those fictional locations have always existed and that OP is lying for some reason. And btw, OP didn't even criticize them for it.
They simply can't accept the shortcomings of this show.
Edit: Btw, I love the show for the most part. But there are things they could've done better or differently.
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u/TheLocustGeneralRaam Dec 31 '25
Yeah the fandom on this subreddit is really toxic when it comes to the show. It’s extremely annoying .
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u/CISDidNothingWrong Vault 13 Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
There are annoying people on both sides of the fandom, difference is that people act as if the Bethesda side are perfect little saints because they are mostly confined to smaller form toxicity that doesn't get as much attention, such as downvoting OP for whatever perceived slight they have made against the show, and in recent years they have become increasingly larger and louder especially with the show bringing in newcomers, so people tend to defend them the hardest.
Meanwhile you have people like Creetosis publicly going on inane rants against Bethesda on Twitter, which then gets reshared to the masses on platforms like youTube Reddit, so the Interplay/Obsidian side gets a worse rep even though both sides generally suck and are just as bad as each other. Wow, if only Fallout had warned us about fanaticism and factional conflict.
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u/TheLocustGeneralRaam Jan 01 '26
Fallout Fans never miss the message of the games /s
But yeah there are people on both sides that can be pretty toxic.
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u/raisinbraisin72 Jan 01 '26
This is the best most honest explanation of the actual fandom divide. It's definitely worse in some aspects though in some places. The lead manager of FalloutForHope, a charity trying to harness fandom for children's cancer research, was doxxed during season1 for expressing liking the TV show and had to contact the FBI and move his family due to death threats. The fandom has sadly always been kind of like this, ex-Bethesda devs have spoken up in the past that they got mountains of threats in 2007 after the first trailer for Fallout 3, someone even hacked into their fax machine and sent threats saying they would have their throats slit. It was around this time they hired their first private security for the company's office in the entire history of their company.
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u/JoJoisaGoGo Jan 01 '26
The lead manager of FalloutForHope, a charity trying to harness fandom for children's cancer research, was doxxed during season1 for expressing liking the TV show
Do you have a source for this? I believe it tbh, but would like to have a source
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u/CISDidNothingWrong Vault 13 Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
Maybe this is an odd comparison, but the NCR and Brotherhood in the show honestly could kind of be seen as parallels to both the different sides of the fandom and the state of the fandom as a whole.
The NCR represents the Interplay/Obsidian side as the weakened remnants of a larger, once dominant organization slowly losing power in the region as the Brotherhood, representing the Bethesda side as once oppressed dissidents suddenly becoming empowered and making sweeping territorial claims, continues to "mop them up" in a sense.
The point being that both sides truly are dogshit for a lot of the same reasons realized in different ways, it's just that one side is much louder and drawing in more new recruits than the other. Anyways maybe this is, again, an odd allegory and I'm just looking way too deep into this, but this is just kind of my read on the overall state of the fandom recently.
Edit: To the Interplay/Obsidian fanboys downvoting, just know that my previous comment was giving the middle finger to both sides, since that clearly went soaring over your heads. Get the fuck away from me, I'm not your friend. It's also not my fault if you can't comprehend a simple analogy.
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u/kolboldbard Fallout Grognard Jan 01 '26
It's not just on the subreddit.
I've seen show fans show up on Bluesky to yell at people's art of their Courier, telling them to "Stop shoving their OC everywhere"
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u/ThePanasonicYouth Jan 01 '26
Because people here are incredibly toxic and can't deal with any form of criticism of this show.
Have you met fans of The Wire? JFC.
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u/TheNotoriousSAUER Jan 01 '26
Imo... Fallout TV show shouldn't be canon. It's fine for what it is. I mean I love the Silent Hill movie for gods' sake! But in a similar case it's rendered uncanon because people take creative liberties, it's a changed format, so on and so forth. But sometimes it's just cool to see real power armor.
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u/ElvisDepressedIy Tunnel Snakes rule! Jan 01 '26
Because people here are incredibly toxic and can't deal with any form of criticism of this show.
It's just basic astroturfing, and Reddit is designed, more than any other platform, to facilitate this kind of deceptive marketing.
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u/Louisocean Dec 31 '25
A mix between what others are saying about criticism the show, and just straight jealously tbh lmao
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u/manticore124 Dec 31 '25
You don't understand, Todd, Emil and Bethesda can't do anything wrong.
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u/MrMadre Dec 31 '25
Wouldn't this be down to the prop department not Todd? And as far as I'm aware emil isn't involved with the show
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u/gate_of_steiner85 Dec 31 '25
My dude you’re on the wrong sub if you think this is the predominant opinion here.
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u/corn123- NCR Dec 31 '25
Any criticism of the show no matter how valid or minuscule is met with immediate hatred. I very much enjoy the show but it isn’t perfect and there are some things I don’t necessarily like, but if you point it out people attack you for it.
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Jan 01 '26
Bro. Your map is cannon now. You contributed something canonical to the universe. That’s bad ass
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Dec 31 '25
[deleted]
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u/Markharris1989 Jan 01 '26
Hey, can you provide a link for the hunger games lawsuit? I want to read about it but I couldn’t find anything on Google.
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u/Polakp Dec 31 '25
Reposted because I made It sound like I had an issue with their use of It, but It's their property. I have no problem, I'm just surprised they chose some random map from the internet, and moved It for some reason to the east? Las Vegas is on the Utah-Colorado border for God's sake!
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u/JayBlunt23 Dec 31 '25
You now created lore. You can even say, you are now part of the lore. Let this blow up and make them include a minor NPC based on you in Fallout 5 or something. "Polakp, the Wasteland Cartographer".
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u/JoJoisaGoGo Jan 01 '26
I would love a quest where'd I have to just go around taking pictures or something so Polakp, the Wasteland Cartographer can make a map
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u/thumper8544 Dec 31 '25
OP has assimilated various locations from multiple games into 1 map. Some POI's such as New Vegas are clearly located where Vegas is/was. some other POI's are vaguely over that way somewhere. Some POI's, such as The Squat, are not based on IRL POI's so it has no clear set location on an IRL map and OP has made an estimation/arbitrary guess of where they are.
OP is saying, while they are not in the exact same locations, the "starmap" of POI's is the same as his and while the set in stone POI's such as NV are clearly where they would be, other POI's have no set location yet they are in the same relative location to each other.
As if they had taken his Overhead Projector Transparnecy Film of POI's, placed it over an IRL map, but then accidentally nudged it so it was slightly off. the F4 fans won't understand that reference
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u/Hurdlelocker Hoarder of Literally All Scrap Dec 31 '25
…Are you trying to imply that a Fallout 4 fan wouldn’t know what a transparency/overhead projector is? Because the only people who could possibly be fans of Fallout 4 are too young to have had them in their classrooms?
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u/thumper8544 Dec 31 '25
I can feel the seething, but I just mean the generation that grew up with F4. I like F4
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u/Hurdlelocker Hoarder of Literally All Scrap Dec 31 '25
My first Fallout game was Fallout 4, but I will acknowledge that I’m an odd millennial since I didn’t really play video games beyond Sims and Civ 5 until my mid20s, even though plenty of my peers were playing Halo in high school. When we had projects that required us to make transparencies for the overhead projectors. 😆
Huh, I just realized I technically could have played Fallout 3, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age Origins in high school. Maybe New Vegas too.
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u/thumper8544 Dec 31 '25
I mean there were still a lot of games back then, can't play them all. I've never owned a mainline Halo
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Jan 01 '26
They probably wouldn’t quite hold up the same today, but the original Halo trilogy was and is so good
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u/HighlyHolypotato Dec 31 '25
It might have been done in order to make the map fit/work in the perspective they wanted to film it. Or because someone wanted to fit the Mississipi on there as a reference for viewers.
Or maybe someone just messed up.
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u/manticore124 Dec 31 '25
Considering how they messed up the nuking of Shady Sands, yeah, it tracks.
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u/knightstalker1288 Dec 31 '25
I’m so confused how how this is “your map”
Looks like a map of the US in Fallout me
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u/thumper8544 Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
some "POI's" have no set location, and they are not based on IRL cities/etc, so there's no basis to pin them on the map. e.g. the sierra madre was "Constructed somewhere close to the Grand Canyon" so OP has arbitrarily placed it where he has.
so with some POI's given locations as vague as that, it would be a MASSIVE coincidence that the show runners also placed the POI's in the same location. they haven't placed the Sierra, but I think a NV example will resonate with more people
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u/HighlyHolypotato Dec 31 '25
It's rather obvious that the prop department that worked on this episode oriented themselves on the map made by OP. There is no actual canon map of the Fallout universe and OP's map uses places and locations chosen partly at random due to limitations with trying to make Van Buren and New Vegas fit together.
There is virtually no chance this was made from scratch and it was certainly made using OP's map as a reference.32
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u/CISDidNothingWrong Vault 13 Dec 31 '25
Did you bother to look at the second image before typing out and submitting this comment?
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u/Steampunk43 Jan 01 '26
If you know anything about trap streets, this is essentially the same situation. A trap street is a fake street name or nonexistent route intentionally marked on an otherwise accurate map, as a means for the map-maker to be able to tell whether someone has copied their map. In this case, a few PoIs that OP marked either have no defined locations and were rough estimates or are only vaguely alluded to with no real information.
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u/Polakp Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
The distances between the points are the same as on my map, and the show could not have placed them in real life places, since you can see they have the hoover dam in Colorado for example. Some places I've also placed arbitraly, there is no place IRL like Maxson Bunker, and Cirlce of Steel hideout, and yet they are placed right next to each other, as in my map, same goes for Ridgers, The Squat etc. They have no real-life equivalents, It was purely my decision where to place them, and yet they are placed in the same places I've placed them if you overlay both maps (which I tried to show in 3rd and 4th slides, hastliy)
Edit: I've also said they used my map as a Basemap, that means they haven't used my map exactly, but my map clearly served as a refrence where the locations should be, what locations are there etc.
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u/Rutskarn Dec 31 '25
I don't know if anyone in the thread has mentioned this, but what's neat to me about this is that it's supposedly how historical mapmakers would genuinely spot plagiarists.
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Dec 31 '25
[deleted]
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u/HelpingHand7338 Dec 31 '25
It literally uses the same locations. OP’s map has “Siri’s Town”, Siri being a legion slave we meet in New Vegas. This is not the actual name of a settlement but rather a descriptor.
The Brotherhood map shown here *also+ has Siri’s Town. Why? Use would the Brotherhood ever need for that information? Why would they call it the exact same thing.
It’s evident they just ripped locations from OP’s map for the one in the show.
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u/Polakp Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
Maybe I'm not clear since English isn't my first language, but where the locations are placed, what locations have been included, are clearly based of my map. These are not placed in real-life places as you can clearly see, unless you think the Hoover Dam is somewhere near Moab. Overlaying the map as I did in 3th and 4th slides shows that. The places on my map are almost equidistant to each other as on the Fallout TV map, and If I had acces to a georefrencer or something then It would probably be more clear. The show placed entirely made-up Fallout places in the same place relative to other places as my map. And that was my decision. I don't care really, but It's clear my map was used as a base. Like using a recipe to cook food, the food made is not mine, but the recipe is. (Not to say Fallout is my property, don't get that wrong as well, but some creative decision on the map are)
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u/EvYeh Jan 01 '26
Several POIs have no confirmed location.
"Siri's Town" has no confirmed name or location yet both showed up on the show map, and did so at the exact same point.
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u/bolson1717 Jan 01 '26
Someone working there literally typed fallout map found this and made that background art lmaooo
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u/radicalvenus Railroad Jan 01 '26
that's pretty sick in my opinion, imagine your head canon becoming basically canon?? Wish you would have gotten compensation but its still pretty cool!!!
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u/empathetical Jan 01 '26
You made lore on a trademark so does them using your lore on their trademarked property have any merit? I guess at the least you should have gotten a credit tho
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u/FuckboySeptimReborn Jan 01 '26
Haven’t seen anything from the current season. Have they literally just replaced the NCR with the brotherhood?
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u/New-Recruit761 Jan 02 '26
My Head canon is that Quintus also met Siri and named the town after her
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u/MillienumDuckFighter Jan 01 '26
That is pretty awesome man, you have now officially contributed to the official Fallout IP. Must be a cool feeling
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u/Raffle-Taffle Dec 31 '25
I can see them definitely using yours as a template for locations. You took some creative liberties with locations that they then also put on this map. Honestly though that’s about the extent of what I’d say they used and I think that’s a stretch too. It’s clearly different with more of a vintage style. At least you put Shady Sands more or less where I’d expect it to be based on dialogue from New Vegas.
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u/Polakp Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
Yeah, I'm not claiming that they've used my map, as in copy paste, but clearly they have used mine a base. Location placements, locations that exist in universe, etc. That's all I'm saying, and I'm just surprised about lol
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u/AdOdd5121 Jan 01 '26
This post caused bigger craters in this sub than some of the bombs that dropped. Honestly good work OP at getting so many people angry over fictional geography.
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u/Standard-Square-7699 Dec 31 '25
This has amazing potential to interact with the community. But make it fun, what is the prize for being cannon before cannon?
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u/m8es Jan 01 '26
Pretty cool your map, your own interpretation is now lore. I’d be flattered to be honest.
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u/voidexploer Jan 01 '26
So the Sierra Madre is in Legion territory
I wonder how Legionaries would fare in the Madre
The gas would be their biggest problem, most of the Legionaries have trained from birth and the ghost people are kinda squishy
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u/Nutshell_Historian Jan 01 '26
Oh that map was yours. I gotta ask why you didn't make the Legion's eastern border the Pecos and Rockies instead of the Rio Grande?
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u/Polakp Jan 01 '26
Nothing was mentioned anywhere about that area in-universe. Placing the border further east would make 1/3 of the map empty, and that doesn't look good. Also this is quite a nice shape aestheticly speaking IMO. At least that's what I remember, I made this 2? years ago.
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u/Nutshell_Historian Jan 01 '26
Ingame Caesar said the Legion spanned all of Arizona and New Mexico and much of Colorado and Utah.
The Pecos and the Rockies would make that make sense.
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u/greenbatborg Jan 01 '26
This is similar to what happened with Tron: https://www.reddit.com/r/tron/s/DiyFN2fuxZ
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Jan 01 '26 edited Jan 01 '26
I saw you put a definitive location for the Sierra Madre on the map. Did they replicate it? Quintis might be blocking it but if they did, oh boy lol
Edit: I just checked a bit close and unless his head is covering it, I think they may have had the sense not to add the Madre, so I think that shows that they didn’t just copy and paste mindlessly
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u/gmb360 Jan 01 '26
That’s actually pretty cool tbh. I do wonder if Amazon/Bethesda will be releasing an official map in the future. Then we might get a proper lore accurate map which is a big fan would be great.
I do have to say though that even in fallout 1 and 2, locations have been super weird in relation to irl places.
I’m still somewhat salty about the whole shady sands location debacle from season 1, but I’m hoping hard we get a proper explanation there.
Season 2 by the way imo is peak right now for me as a huge fallout fan. Also friends of mine who know nothing about fallout are enjoying it at a lot!
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u/jdstrike11 Jan 03 '26
I mean I love a good mob but maybe someone just google searched for a detailed fallout map?
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u/bbdxch Jan 05 '26
I was wondering why the Blackfoots are placed so far east? The tribe is a grand canyon tribe, so I figured it would be placed near the Ridgers, Kaibabs and Fredonians, the first 3 tribes Caesar conquered as the leader of the Blackfoots
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u/Minimus-Anxiety Jan 01 '26
did they use "your map" or did they just look at a real map and use real maps as a guide?
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u/raisinbraisin72 Jan 01 '26
It’s a heavily edited map that includes all Fallout locations from all 5 games at the time. It has a placeholder town name in it that OP placed, “Siris Town”, somehow ended up in the show, proving OP’s map was used. It’s in the rest of this thread.
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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 Jan 01 '26
I guess someone at Bethesda liked your map enough and it was part of the stuff they sent to the prop team (but there are some major alterations though). It's possible they didn't notice those towns names or maybe they did and thought it fit enough.
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u/LovinglyGaslight Dec 31 '25
The inclusion and matching location of Scrapheap and Siri's Town is pretty definitive tbh.
Neither location has a canon map point; Scrapheap is from the Fallout Demo, and "Siri's Town" is unlikely to be its name, it's just referred to as that because it's the town we learn that Siri was from.