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In other news: my space lasers are as real as can be, and if and of you bandits are listening to this, it means you're next
Is Atom an actual real canon thing in the Fallout universe?
I believe so.
Non-Canon Original Fallout Material
But bethesda owns the rights, so I'm going to get a nark quoting me on it anyway
No, Atom is not real and no they don't worship the bomb.
The Children of Atom believe that when an atom is split, all the particles that get released are entirely new universes being created, and the same applies to any matter caught in an atomic blast (they don't differentiate between the two, they think that all the atoms split I guess), and Atom is the god that presides over that creation. The bombs are literally nothing but totems, much in the same way Christians pray towards crosses. They're not praying TO the cross, they're praying AT the cross, as they believe it's a symbol of their god.
Their faith, however, is totally false. Not only does it not work with how radiation works in the Fallout universe, but both games continually prove that their beliefs are completely baseless. Take the Aqua Cura scam from Fallout 3 for example. They believed that they were blessing people with the power of Atom, but even they admitted by the end that literally the only thing they were accomplishing was poisoning people.
And yes, some of them have developed a mutation that allows them to survive in radioactive areas, but it is not a divine blessing nor is it universal. It only occurs among Children of Atom (as far as we know) because:
A: only the Children are stupid enough to live in a bomb crater for extended periods of time (it's like a result of the excessive amounts of Radaway they used to have to take mixing with their DNA and maybe a bit of airborne FEV)
B: Bethesda stopped giving a ♥♥♥♥ about the lore when they made this game so they wanted to concoct a half-assed excuse as to why these nutjobs could live in the Glowing Sea.
The only god proven to exist in Fallout, besides ones from cut content or cancelled games, is the Lovecraftian one that the Swampfolk and the people at Dunwich worship.
Point A: The only way to test it is to expose people, but from what we've seen there aren't legions of dead attempted Children of Atom, which is what you'd expect from that. Their success rate is unnaturally high.
Point B: Ghouls have existed for ages if all they wanted was someone living in the Glowing Sea. Bethesda is willing to create new lore as needed, and the Children of Atom are a fairly logical development for a world ravaged by nuclear war; people come to worship the great power they've seen.
There's at least as much proof for Atom as there is for the swamfolk's god, so why treat one as plausible, but not the other?
And this is Fallout, targeted mutations are hardly a sign of divine intervention. Most of the refugees in Nuka World turned into Ghouls, that doesn't mean that a god decided they should (except maybe Godd Howard). Most humans turn into Super Mutants when exposed to FEV, that doesn't mean that they have a patron deity. All it means is that the Children, with one of their many rituals and practices unique to them, have stumbled across some combination of things that has caused their bodies to process radiation. Again, I suspect that they have probably started producing some kind of natural Radaway or something, since they take so much of it.
We don't *see* the ones who wash out, that doesn't mean that they don't. Remember, the Children believe that death by radiation is a blessing, so anybody who went into the Glowing Sea or wherever and died from the rads were probably given some kind of honored burial (or strapped to a mini-nuke and turned into a bunch of new universes).
The Children of Atom existing is a logical development, yes. I'm not refuting the Children of Atom's realism as a group. I'm saying that they pulled that mutation out of their ass as an excuse to include them all the way up in Boston (much like how they shoehorned in Super Mutants, despite it being unlikely that CIT could get their hands on FEV samples [since as far as I know they, unlike Vault-Tec, had no government deal]). A town of Ghouls would have been a much better option, and I feel like they ruined the very concept of the Children of Atom by giving them that change. Death by radiation is their ultimate goal, those who lived to tend to the flock were seen as those who were making an honored sacrifice to guide others to their salvation, not as those blessed by Atom. Ghouls in particular were considered forsaken by Atom because of their immunity to radition, denied his gift in exchange for the ability to help others attain a divine state.
There are three entire "questlines" (one actual quest, two unmarked event chains that I consider to be quests [one of which I guess could be rolled into the actual quest]) that say otherwise. Everything involving the Children points to Atom not being real, and the cult just being a bunch of religious nutjobs worshipping radioactive suicide.
The Dunwitch Building, Dunwitch Borers, and the quest regarding the book given to you be Obidiah Blackhall on the other hand make it very undeniably clear that the god of the Swampfolk is very definitely a real entity.
Actually, that's not true for super mutants; FEV has a high failure rate.
As for the Children, they don't seem to take Radaway at all, since most of them don't need it, and they use an alternative brew for the worshippers that do need something. They can't be taking all that much of anthing, anyway, since they'd die before collecting enough; it's potentially able to offset minor exposure, but not intense radiation (so they won't be sitting on top of a nuclear pile, or hiding out in the Glowing Sea, just because they have some anti-rad medicine).
We don't see their bodies, or any signs of their burial (especially not an honoured one), or any suspicious craters, or even any mini-nuke usage.
As I recall, the Children don't believe generic death from radiation is a blessing, just the explosive nuclear kind.
It's never identified as a mutation, and their extensive spread could be either a sign of success, or of divine inspiration.
As for "ruining" the concept of the Children, I'd say it's quite the opposite, since as we see in the Nucleus, it creates a realistic dilemma between continued worship and sublime destruction, while also allowing them to survive long enough around radiation to exist as a group.
The Children of Atom have a real, tangible benefit that applies unnaturally widely, the Island is blessed by the fog (in a way that happens nowhere else), and they've got the Mother of the Fog (an invulnerable shadow figure that pacifies all enemies).
When you look at most of the Dunwich/Swampfolk stuff, it's covered by hallucinations (including audible hallucinations), while the ghouls and worshippers themselves don't have any obvious reliance on a special power.
It is using the Children of Atom to spread its influence over the waste. Not sure if Atom and Ug-Qualtoth are the same being since they both seem to deal with radiation.
I dont think they are since the Children of Atom seem to have 0 interest in either Dunwich spots or their artifacts The Krivbeknih and the Kremvh's Tooth.