Super Mutant

Super Mutants are a fictional race of posthuman beings from the post-apocalyptic Fallout video game franchise. The Super Mutants were first introduced in 1997's Fallout as the results of human experimentation with a strain of the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV), a genetically engineered viral mutagen which transforms the subjects into a hulking monstrous humanoid form. Within series lore, Super Mutants tend to be depicted as savage and innately violent beings who, as a result of their transformations, lost a substantial amount of intelligence and often have cannibalistic tendencies. While Super Mutants tend to form their own factions or societies and are usually hostile to civilized humans, some have chosen to live peacefully alongside humans in settlements across the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Among the most recognizable and integral elements of the Fallout intellectual property (IP), Super Mutants have appeared in every media of the franchise, and have been the subject of numerous fan mods of Fallout series games. Certain individual Super Mutant characters have been well received by critics for their characterization, although the role the Super Mutant race have played throughout the history of the franchise have been the source of contention for some commentators. Super Mutants are first introduced in the first Fallout as part of an ambitious effort by a grotesque mutated being known as "The Master of the Super Mutants", to create a single, perfect "master race" and remove inequalities which have been the cause of strife among humans. The FEV, an artificially-created virus by a defense contractor and research corporation contracted by the American government, was originally meant to protect against various forms of biological warfare. Subsequent games in the Fallout series feature other antagonistic factions that employ different strains of the FEV to create Super Mutants. For example, Vault Tec, the technology company which built the nuclear fallout shelter facilities called Vaults, deliberately exposed the occupants of Vault 87 to a modified strain of the FEV as part of an unethical experiment called the Evolutionary Experimentation Program.