One of the raider tribes from the Mojave Wasteland popped up in season 2, episode 1 of Fallout.
The Great Khans made a cameo in “The Innovator”. Turns out they have a massive bounty on The Ghoul’s head and they want revenge.
The Ghoul tries to use this to his advantage by devising a plan. He has Lucy turn him, so can she free him by shooting the barbed rope around his neck. Then he’ll take the caps and call it a day.
Unfortunately, Lucy tries to negotiate The Ghoul’s freedom by using diplomacy to talk down the Khans. When the Khans threaten to kill her and Dogmeat, she finally shoots the rope.
The Khans’ cameo serves two purposes. One, it gives the show an excuse to play Marty Robbins ‘Big Iron’ as The Ghoul massacres the Khans like the badass he is. Two, it sets up one of the main character arcs for this season. Lucy is still reluctant to kill or resort to violence. Which is in direct conflict with The Ghoul’s ruthless nature and the harsh reality of being in the Wasteland.
Outside of that scene, who are the Great Khans?
The Vault 15 Origin Story
The Great Khans trace their roots back to Vault 15 in Southern California. Vault 15 was a social experiment designed to pack people with wildly different ideologies into a single space then see what happened.
What happened was exactly what you would expect.
Factionalism tore the vault apart. Over time, several groups left rather than stay trapped together. Three of those groups became raider gangs: the Khans, Vipers, and Jackals.
Early Defeats and Reinventing Themselves
The original Khans modeled themselves after historical Mongol warriors, adopting a nomadic raider identity. They attacked settlements like Shady Sands, which would later become the capital of the New California Republic (NCR).
That decision nearly wiped them out.
In Fallout 1, the Vault Dweller destroys the Khans. Survivors regroup as the New Khans, only to be crushed again decades later by the Chosen One in Fallout 2.
Most factions don’t survive that kind of repeated defeat. The Khans did, but it changed them. Each loss hardened their worldview.
By the time they fled east toward the Mojave, they were already a tribe defined by grudges.
Arrival in the Mojave
Around 2270, the Khans reached the ruins of Las Vegas. Mr. House and his Securitrons forced them out as part of his plan to stabilize the Strip and elevate the Three Families.
They settled at Bitter Springs and turned to chem production. They started raiding NCR caravans as the Republic expanded into Nevada. The NCR saw them as a threat that needed to be dealt with. The Khans saw the NCR as yet another force trying to erase them.
Bitter Springs and the Point of No Return
In 2278, NCR forces attacked Bitter Springs. Due to bad intelligence and poor coordination, non-combatants like women, children and the elderly were killed alongside fighters.
Survivors fled to Red Rock Canyon, carrying trauma that would define the next generation.
The Khans in Fallout: New Vegas
In New Vegas, the Great Khans occupy Red Rock Canyon under the leadership of Papa Khan. He is proud and stubborn as he embraces the old ways of thinking. His bitterness toward the NCR drives nearly every decision he makes.
Others in the tribe see the cost of that bitterness. Regis, his second in command, understands that the Khans can’t keep living on hatred alone. The game allows the player to push the tribe toward several possible futures.
They can be absorbed by bigger players. They can die fighting. Or they can leave the Mojave in search of something new.What makes the Khans so interesting is that Fallout refuses to paint them as one-dimensional villains. They are morally gray who represent how brutal and unforgiving the Wasteland is. They keep fighting because it’s the only thing that keeps them alive. By the time they realize this mindset is also hurting them, the wasteland has already moved on.
