I just finished Fallout 1 and had some questions about the endings. First of all the sound just cut out when it was talking about the master and scrolling across the picture of the desert (bug?) so I was wondering if it said anything important. Second, two of the endings I didn't really understand. I helped the blades take over the Boneyard by doing the gun runners' quest, killed the master with help from the followers, destroyed the mutant base (technically with help from the brotherhood, even though the fighters they sent sucked), and for some reason the ending said that all the followers were killed by the mutant army. This mutant army also, according to the ending, destroyed the Hub.
Okay, so where did these guys come from if I destroyed their base and their master? Is there some separate army I'm supposed to find? And how was Shady Sands and Junktown allowed to prosper with this rampaging army that destroyed two cities bigger than them?

Its a matter of timing. If you complete specific quests within their respective "magic number" of days, you prevent certain events from taking place. Take Necropolis, for instance. The first two times I played Fallout, I prevented the army from invading based on my timing...but the last time I played, I played differently and Necropolis was wiped out by the time I got to it.
Its like the tag line "There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's"...there really is no wrong way to "win" Fallout. Its so packed with decisions based on your playing style, you're not likely to get the exact same ending stories on each & every town every time you play it.
Fallout is a beautiful thing. Your choices really do effect everywhere you've been (and haven't been).

The only quest I took in the Hub was when I killed the deathclaw. I never saw this mutant army and it was never mentioned anywhere except at the brotherhood (which really didn't make any sense because I was the one who was mentioning it and the only thing I saw was a handful of mutants stationed outside of the military base). Leading up to the end of the game, I killed the master and blew up the church (with help from the followers), went to the Hub to pick up some rockets and stimpacks, and then went and destroyed the military base.
I didn't really spend a lot of time exploring the wilderness or doing a bunch of quests so unless the "magic number" of days is incredibly low (I finished the game in about half a year game-time) then I think I ran into a bug. Because, really, where did the mutant army come from? The Hub and the Boneyard were fine before I finished the game. There wasn't an excess of mutants in the military base, and there were only a handful in the church (the cloaked ones and the ones with the master). I wasn't running into a bunch of mutants while travelling. So where exactly is this army so I can stop it from invading?

Around 180 days to finish? The numbers 88, 100, and 150 are stuck in my head, but I can't recall what each of them is for...different deadlines for different places, iirc. Its all a matter of "if you don't successfully finish doing such-and-such by day such-and-such" then it happens.
But if you skipped places & quests entirely (such as Necropolis), then you would've missed it. My first 2 games, the Necropolis mutant inhabitants (looked like ghouls) were there when I visited. My 3rd game, the Super Mutants (look like Incredible Hulks) had already taken over the place & were there.

Here's what I did. I went to vault 15 but couldn't go down the elevator. So I went to Shady Sands and bought some rope. I didn't find the water chip in vault 15 so I went to the only other place on my map (raiders camp). I joined the raiders :( but they didn't know anything about the water chip. I went south to junktown, where the leader of shady sands said it was, and ran into this guy who marked all these places on my map. He said necropolis used to be a vault so I went there. The ghouls where there and there were some mutants guarding the water shed. I got past them by bluffing the head mutant and stole the water chip. I brought it back and the vault leader said to get rid of the mutants because someone was making them (I couldn't ask him how he knew this... was he involved??). Then I went to shady sands, raiders, and junktown and asked about mutants, but no one had any idea. In Junktown I helped Killian defeat Gizmo. I then went to the Hub and got rid of the deathclaw attacking the caravans and found the dead mutant, and talked to Harold the ghoul who had actually been to the place where they make the mutants. I went the boneyard but couldn't defeat the mother deathclaw there, so I went to the brotherhood. The brotherhood sent me to the glow vault. After I brought the information back to them they told me to check out the mutant base, so I did, and reported back to them. The only option I had there was to say assault the base or I need more time... so I chose more time. I went back to the boneyard, defeated the deathclaws, and helped the blades take over the town. I went to the church and defeated the master (killed him, then the place blew up). I couldn't find anything else so I went back to the brotherhood and said I would go destroy the base. I did, game over, and................ as you can see there was nothing about an army. Maybe something sticks out and you can see what I did wrong here.
My endings were:
Junktown prospers under Killian
Shady Sands becomes "something" republic (?)
Ghouls die of thirst in necropolis because I took their water chip
Hub overrun by mutant army
Boneyard overrun by mutant army
Me kicked out of the vault
The last three just don't make any sense to me. Okay, I can kind of understand the rational behind the "kicked out of the vault" one because it's kind of a twist ending, but seriously what's with that mutant army appearing out of nowhere??

Getting kicked out at the end happens no matter what, it is just a twist ending. But there is a small window of opportunity that lets you initiate combat mode & one-shot-kill the bastard for kicking you out. ;-)
re: Hub/Boneyard being overrun, it was just a matter of taking too long to finish the game. The Mutant Base had already sent out their armies & taken them over. To my knowledge, there's no way to catch them in the act, it just "happens"....although it would be interesting to find the exact day for one of the towns & just stay there the entire time (a couple days before & after). Wonder if the programmers took that into account? Hmmm.

Well, you can always do this!
[url=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne-aB9Z4cCw[/url]

If I remember correctly, there is no way to save the Followers of the Apocalypse from being destroyed by the mutant armies. They are the main group in the Boneyard opposing the super mutants of the cathedral, so they are on the Master's short list. I've read that there was originally supposed to be a quest to root out one of the Master's spies in the Followers of the Apocalypse (I believe that the spy was supposed to be the ghoul in the basement). Completing the quest would enable the Vault Dweller to save the Followers of the Apocalypse. However the quest was left incomplete or largely removed, making it physically impossible to save the Followers of the Apocalypse from the super mutant armies. At least that is what I've heard. If someone knows better, please correct me. It was no big loss as far as I'm concerned. The unmerciful slaughter of such naive peace preachers fits well into the backdrop of Fallout.
I've read that it is possible to save the Hub, but I have never been able to get the successful ending. I always thought it was tied to correctly solving the Missing Caravans quest, but every time I do that I get neither the good nor the bad ending for the Hub. This makes me think that perhaps the survival of the Hub is reliant upon correctly completing the Missing Caravan quest and completing the game before a certain timer expires.
However when I play the Hub, my first task is always to work for Decker and complete all of the contract killings. I don't know if working for Decker has anything to do with saving the Hub, but I can't resist the money and weapons those quests bring. Also, why kill the Children of the Cathedral for free when you can get paid for it?
I used to want to find a way to kill the Regulators without having to kill Zimmerman. But the fact that not all quests have perfect happy endings is just one of the many things that make Fallout great.