yeah... I bought Fallout 3 as a birthday present to myself on Wednesday... sorry. But I'm writing the post now, so it will be up soon.
To Bowen's questions: You can certainly attempt to communicate. That would be a very noble thing to do. Keep in mind that the creatures, which you may soon discover are not human, nor from the planet earth, did just see you come through a portal that was also built by some non-human, possibly alien creatures. and those two non-human races may be at war...
Oh, wait, you didn't know all of that yet, so you couldn't keep that in mind. Ooops.... Cat's out of the bag.