Happy Fun Wasteland Adventure (A Fallout: New Vegas log)

[Ythan]

Fun fact, turns out this game is memetically popular with trans folks.

[Mitillos]

Alright, I think it's time to do the thing Ythan indicated she was eagerly awating.

Daniel was a more even-tempered man than Joshua. He was not consumed with anger, but he was also consumed with the patronising, moralising attitude that Joshua had, as well. The two tribes seemed willing to follow the two Canaanites wherever they led... A misplaced sense of respect, perhaps, but unlike Joshua and Daniel, Kelsey understood that this was their mistake to make, not hers to prevent. She did try to give people a few hints that absolute trust in someone might be foolish, but she didn't push the point any harder than that. After all, she was more interested in finding her way out of the valley and getting back to the Mojave. She found Zion grating, possibly due to the influence of Joshua, Daniel, and even Caesar, the one who had sent the White Legs here...

Daniel introduced Kelsey to Waking Cloud, a very sad-looking young midwife in the Sorrows tribe, who was willing to be Kelsey's guide in Zion for the tasks the Canaanites wanted Kelsey to carry out for them. She would need to carry these out, whether the plan was to follow Daniel out of Zion or to follow Joshua and take the fight to the White Legs. Given that some of these tasks would involve significant risk, Kelsey knew this would go better if she first earned her respect. She decided to ask her about the tribe's signature weapon. Waking Cloud was wearing a gauntlet fashioned from the hollowed out paw of a Yao Guai. When asked about this, Waking Cloud was taken slightly aback, but then instructed Kelsey to talk to the tribe's shaman, White Bird. The old man was sitting in a cave of his own, overlooking the Sorrows camp from atop a waterfall. He was cooking something and did not seem surprised to see Kelsey. Before she could speak, he turned to her and told her that she would need to receive sacred visions of truth. He instructed her to bring him three sacred datura roots to make tea for her. As it happened, she had randomly picked up a few on her way here, so she wordlessly handed them over. Looking nonplussed for a few short moments, White Bird took the roots and put them in the pot over his campfire. He then took an earthenware mug, dipped it in the water, and proffered it. Kelsey took it and said she didn't understand what she must do. He replied "Take drugs. Kill a bear." He looked expectant, so she downed the bevera-

Wobbly!

Whoosh!

ZOOM! ZOOM!

Geckogeckogecko

flameflameflame!

gecko

mantis

gecko

mantis

gecko

mantis

gecko

mantis

mantis

lalala!

White

Legs

White

Legs

!

MURDER! DEATH! KILL!

giggle goggle gaggle

ZOOM! ZOOM! ZOOMY-ZOOM!

CARNIVORE PLANTS

FLAAAAAAAAAAAAME!

ZOOM! ZOOMY-

vomit!

Lalala!

ZOOM! ZOOM! ZOOM!

MURDER! MURDER! MURDER!

BEAR

ON

FIRE!

Plasma! Plasma!

FOUR

BEARS

ON

FIRE!

Plasma! Plasma!

---

Later, Kelsey regained consciousness, just as she was handing the enormous Yao Guai's paws to White Bird. She was still feeling weird, so she fell asleep and by the time she woke up, he had made a gauntlet for her, calling it She's Embrace. He thanked her for putting the Ghost of She to rest and said that the Sorrows would always remember and respect her as a great hunter and protector. Waking Cloud certainly seemed a lot less distant, so Kelsey decided that this was alright and she'd put that experience behind her post-haste. The two of them left the camp, to carry out Daniel's tasks.

Lol, the sorrows fight with their bear arms. And now, so could we. In theory. We won't, for two reasons. The first is that Kelsey hasn't been training her Unarmed skill much, since there is no point to do so, as she fights with ranged weapons. The second is that this is an underwhelming weapon. If I were playing a punchy character (which I intend to, for my evil run), I would go to the Gun Runners, buy an upgradeable power fist and all its modifications, and have a much better weapon much earlier.

The "take drugs kill a bear" dialogue line only appears if you have Wild Wasteland enabled. Normally, White Bird gives a bit more detail about the task. Anyway, yeah, he has you take drugs, your screen gets a few annoying effects fading in and out, you go find this one enormous flaming bear, take it down to half health, it spawns three fake clones of itself and then you kill it. You loot its paw, take it to the shaman, and the drug effects wear off.

I use mafSilver (the only reasonably good theme, I will be taking no questions about this), and the colours I chose make some of the text unreadable for me. I suspect there is no theme that won't cause a problem with at least some of the text.

Next time, we will carry out Daniel's tasks.

[Ythan]

ZOOM! ZOOM!

[Ythan]

mafBlack gang also

[Mitillos]

The tasks set by Daniel were mostly straightforward. Kelsey would have to make sure the yao guai wouldn't interfere with the Sorrows' plans, clear the way from whatever traps the White Legs might have set up, weaken the White Legs' combatants, and retrieve a map that would allow the Sorrows to flee to the east.

The last task was fairly easy. The cave in which the map was located, situated just southwest of the Sorrows' camp, was mostly safe, with just a few mutated venus flytrap plants posing any threat. Kelsey couldn't understand why the Sorrows hadn't simply recovered the map themselves, but Waking Cloud explained that the place was taboo to them. In fact, the young woman was only willing to go into the cave because Kelsey had to and only if she promised to be respectful of this sacred place. Not wanting to argue religion with the Sorrows, Kelsey did her best to carry out this task as fast as possible.

Moving further south, Kelsey and Waking Cloud came to a staging area the White Legs hat set up. Three war camps, each with a few heavily armed warriors, some wardogs, and their ceremonial war totems. Waking Cloud suggested stealing the totems to demoralise them, but Kelsey didn't feel like wasting time sneaking around. After all, the White Legs might decide that Caesar's favour was a more powerful help than the totems. Wasting no time, she took the initiative, and killed all the White Legs in the area, as well as two giant geckos that wandered near the fight.

East, across the river from the war camps, was a central path between the Sorrows and the Dead Horses. A scouting party of White Legs had set up some bear traps were patrolling the area. Once again, Waking Cloud wanted to avoid confrontation. She suggested letting the scouts move and disarm the traps once they were out of sight. Kelsey explained that they would just set more traps once they found out their traps were gone. It was becoming clear to her that the Sorrows were very good hunters, but were severely lacking in combat against other humans. Thankfully, Kelsey did not, as the White Leg scouts learned to their great albeit brief surprise.

The last task involved a large cave the Yao Guai nested in, further east. This was also close to the path connecting the two tribes, as well as the trail east, so if the bears decided to come out and hunt, they would cause serious problems for the Sorrows. Kelsey didn't feel like exploring the entire cave to make sure it was clear, so instead she brought some explosives along. She would place them in select locations in the caverns, to make sure that the bears could only exit into areas that were too far from the action to cause problems. Waking Cloud was surprised that for this last task Kelsey opted for stealth, but decided not to question her about this.

On the way back, Kelsey tried to learn more about Waking Cloud. She didn't share a lot, but she did mention she was anxious to rejoin her family. When the White Legs invaded Zion, the children, elderly, and sick evacuated, including Waking Cloud's three children. Her husband volunteered to guide the evacuation, but this was some time ago and the hunters who stayed behind have had no news. When the two of them got back to the Sorrows' camp, Kelsey asked Daniel about the previous evacuation. He tried to pretend he didn't have news, but Kelsey could tell he was lying and pressed him on this. He revealed that the evacuees were intercepted by White Leg warriors and her husband died to allow the rest to flee to safety, but asked Kelsey not to reveal this information to Waking Cloud, for fear she would not be an effective intermediary between himself and the rest of the Sorrows. Barely able to mask her disgust, Kelsey told him she had a right to know. He questioned who she was to decide to place this burden on her, completely missing the irony of his decision to hide the truth. Kelsey said as much to him and he reluctantly agreed that Waking Cloud should be told. Kelsey immediately found her again and told her what had happened. She was incensed at Daniel's presumption, but agreed that she needed to concentrate on the problems with the White Legs and that confronting Daniel could wait until later.

By that point, Joshua had also arrived with plenty Dead Horse scouts. It was time to decide whether to evacuate or take the fight to the White Legs. Both the New Canaanites agreed that, since they each favoured a different course of action, they would listen to the unbiased outsider's opinion. It was up to Kelsey to decide what to do next.

And next time, she will. Which is utter bullshit. The tribes should be deciding this stuff for themselves. Doesn't even have to be democratically, given that these religious assholes are allergic to equality. There are such things as tribal elders, tribal councils, and so on. Whatever, we'll fix their problems, if only because the way home is held hostage behind them and Kelsey isn't about to massacre the entire valley for it. Even though she very easily could. And this is the real evil option here, which the game doesn't advertise. You could skip all this shit by killing people. An expedient solution, which the player can take to avoid having to do the more socially responsible thing of offering something of value (work) in exchange for the thing of value she needs (the map to leave). Even at its worst, New Vegas is a better roleplaying game than pretty much every other game with a moral choice system out there.

Waking Cloud's sidequest is also a (minor) choice. You can tell her the truth and risk her getting angry at Daniel, lie so that she is temporarily mollified, or agree with Daniel to not bring the topic up. Here, again, Daniel shows his paternalistic, arrogant, and selfish attitude. He lies to us and himself that his lies are for the benefit of the Sorrows, but in reality he's just treating the tribe like children. Anyway, the decision affects what happens with Waking Cloud at the end of the DLC (just as Follows-Chalk's interest in experiencing life in civilised lands affects his ending). In this case, she will forgive Daniel, and take another husband, from the Dead Horses. And make him stay close to home. If we had lied to her, she'd turn bitter and cause problems between the Sorrows and the New Canaanites.

Not really much to say about the tasks Daniel sent us to do. You can do one of two things for them (other than getting the map he needs), but there isn't much meat to them either way. What might be slightly more interesting is something I avoided talking about: Randall Clark. He was a soldier who lived around the time of the nuclear war and took refuge there after the nukes fell. Eventually, he became a figure of worship for the Sorrows, who believed him to be the god that the New Canaanites (i.e. mormons) worshipped. A lot of caves in Zion have his makeshift camps in them, including his logs, so one can learn a lot about him (and even find his remains), but honestly... I wasn't very interested in his story. I guess I'll mention that when a bunch of Vault dwellers from Vault-22 had escaped to Zion, a woman in the group separated from the rest because the men mistreated her, only to get caught in one of Clark's bear traps. And then she became his wife. After he nursed her back to health, but still.

[Ythan]

Ugh I'm so excited to be back home can't wait to see what you pick. Got a hunch.

[Mitillos]

What's your hunch?

[Ythan]

I predict evacuation!

[Mitillos]

Correct! Of course, I already said I'd do that, back in post #69, but still. :þ

Kelsey realised that the Sorrows were hunters, not warriors. She believed that an assault would lead to too many unnecessary casualties. And for what? So that Joshua could indulge in his bloodlust, while claiming that his religion's moral code justified anything? If his plan involved using the strengths of the Sorrows in some way, perhaps by teaching them guerilla tactics to use against the White Legs, maybe Kelsey could see the wisdom in it. But as things stood, she did not consider that option a reasonable one. Not that Daniel's plan was much better. When the White Legs managed to catch up to the Sorrows again, would they continue running? Eventually, there would be no more places to run. She tried explaining to Waking Cloud that their priorities should be on creating strong defenses and improving their combat skills and technology. Then, they would be able to either negotiate peace or defeat the White Legs, from a position of strength. Annoyingly, Daniel and Joshua could easily help them with this, but neither of them seemed remotely interested in doing so.

When Kelsey told the Canaanites her opinion, Daniel was delighted and Joshua was annoyed. They seemed to expect this, however, because the entire camp was ready to go at a moment's notice. Daniel left with the Sorrows, but Joshua joined Kelsey. He requested that they go interfere with the plans of the White Legs, if only to help the Sorrows' escape go more smoothly. Kelsey shrugged and agreed. Their first target was an old ranger station very close to the Sorrows' camp, which the White Legs had converted to a combination storehouse, watchpost, and prison. The goal here was two-fold. Kill the White Legs before they could spot the Sorrows escaping and letting the rest of their tribe know, and release three Sorrows prisoners held there, so they could join the rest. This proved extremely easy, due to Joshua's combat presence. He rushed the White Legs, ignoring the bullets hitting him, and easily killed them with his .45s.

Their second target was a bridge to the south-east, leading to the trail the Sorrows would need to use. The White Legs regularly patrolled and trapped this bridge, so they'd have to kill the patrols and disarm the traps. This proved a little harder to do, because of interference from geckos, some yao guai that were trapped outside their cave, and even some cazadores. The five-way battle was hectic and violent, but between Joshua's pistols and Kelsey's plasma rifle, in the end they were the only ones left alive. Crossing the bridge, they arrived at the burial mounds of the Sorrows. Several White Legs had taken it upon themselves to desecrate the area. Some Sorrows hunters had noticed this and were sneaking around, preparing to attack them. Kelsey wasn't about to let her previous efforts go to waste, so she snuck to their hiding spot and told them to rejoin the escaping convoy, promising to stop the White Legs. They were disappointed, but agreed to this, so Kelsey and Joshua set about killing the White Legs.

By this point, the Sorrows had made it past the bridge and were on their way to the tunnel they would use to escape. Unfortunately, the White Legs expected this, so a warband led by their leader, Salt-Upon-Wounds, was in a stand-off with the Sorrows. Kelsey and Joshua started shooting at them from a distance, at which point Salt-Upon-Wounds shouted that he would kill all of them and earn the approval of Caesar. Kelsey aimed her plasma rifle at his head and shot him once. His warriors stared in fear as he melted into a green puddle, but not for long, as Joshua's bullets made sure they would never again be afraid of anything. Joshua removed Salt-Upon-Wounds' helmet and power fist and offered these to Kelsey. He also gave her his armour and pistol, and offered her a copy of the scripture of his religion. She refused the last item instead getting the map back home from Daniel, and leaving for the south.

And the first DLC, Honest Hearts, is over. At the end, you also get Follows-Chalk's headdress (a baseball cap sporting a number of tribal adornments), as well as Daniel's outfit and hat. The only item I find useful in there is Joshua's armour, but I won't really be using it. We're going to get some armour I prefer pretty soon anyway, so all of these items will be stored in ED-E.

So, what happens if you decide not to evacuate? Well, there are no sidequests, you just go on a massive killing spree with Joshua, towards the southwest of the valley. Eventually, after killing dozens of warriors, you find Salt-Upon-Wounds, who is being threatened by Joshua and begs you to make him stop. You can either talk them down and have the White Legs leave, let Joshua kill Salt-Upon-Wounds and let the rest go, or kill the leader yourself. Then you are given the same items and leave for the Mojave.

In both cases you are treated to a slideshow, telling you the consequences of your actions and the future of the tribes and people you met. Most of the time, either the ethics of a choice or the outcome in the ending slides will be enough for me to decide what I think the best course of action is. Not so in Honest Hearts. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are no good options, there are no good outcomes in Zion. Here, one really has to decide what they themselves believe is the best of a bad situation and go with it. At least we gave Waking Cloud some peace of mind.

[Ythan]

I can't wait to get back to civilisation lol, you were entirely right.

[Mitillos]

Honestly, the problem here was all the "civilised" people. Caesar manipulating the White Legs so they'd handle his personal vendetta against someone nobody cares about any more, Daniel treating the Sorrows like children, Joshua using the situation as an outlet for his anger and feelings of impotence...

Well, that's the problem, internally. As a player, my problem was that I personally found Zion boring. Usually in New Vegas, you have some idea of what you are doing for each quest. In Honest Hearts, you can switch your brain off for a few hours, following the arrows on the map, and the only time you might get confused is during the drugs thing. I think this makes this the least enjoyable of the DLCs. There's two more that are alright, and one I consider really good. I'm just not sure how to do a write-up for it, because more than half of it is dialogue. Maybe I'll try to find a youtube video again, like with No-Bark.

But yeah, fuck Zion, hooray for the Mojave, where a courier can actually do good.

[Mitillos]

Apologies for the long absence. I was distracted by other things.

The White Legs kept their word. Kelsey's journey back to the Mojave was without incident and soon she was reunited with ED-E and Veronica. She decided to make her way from the Vegas general area towards the southeast, picking up whatever jobs needed doing along the way. Their first stop was camp McCarran, as Kelsey knew that the director of the science department had some work for her. When they arrived, Veronica was surprised at the number of NCR soldiers milling about. Then again, she knew that the Brotherhood had lost Helios to NCR's superior numbers, so this was not particularly surprising. Hildern was no less pompous than the previous time they met. He asked Kelsey to search Vault 22 for some data on food production, to help avoid shortages. This seemed straightforward enough, but as Kelsey was leaving, Hildern's assistant told her that others had been sent there previously and didn't make it back. One of these missing people was Keely, a ghoul working as a researcher for the OSI. The assistant, Angela Williams, was anxious to have Keely return safely, so she asked Kelsey to keep an eye out for her. Promising she would, Kelsey returned to Hildern, to ask him why he had not mentioned the previous attempts and the danger entailed by the task. He foolishly tried to claim it didn't make a difference, not realising that this would normally have resulted in him getting punched by both women standing in front of him. He was lucky, however, as something he said triggered another audio log in ED-E's memory banks. This second file was intended for scientists at Navarro and informed them that ED-E contained a large number of data on several subjects of research. Hildern seemed about to suggest that they leave ED-E with him, but seeing Kelsey's look, he thought better of it and kept quiet.

The group left McCarran and made their way towards Novac. From the sounds of it, Vault 22 had been used for botanical research, so there was probably plenty of food there. From Williams' description, Keely also sounded like a very tough and capable ghoul, so she'd probably be fine, even if they didn't make a beeline straight for her. Besides, she felt guilty about tricking Manny, so she wanted to go and deal with the feral ghoul problem, if she could. Stopping only to trade for a few items and supplies at the 188, they made their way through Novac and towards the mountains just west of the small town. The moment they were out of hearing distance, a feral ghoul started rushing them along an old disused road. It didn't make it far before ED-E had burned it to a crisp, but it was still disconcerting. It seemed to have no sentience left and it was still radioactive. After two centuries, most ghouls were emitting at the level of normal background radiation, so this was very unusual. More unusual still, the amount of radiation dropped after a minute or so. Continuing along the road towards the REPCONN test site, they were attacked by several more of these feral ghouls, as well as a nightkin, hefting a thick pole of rebar with concrete on the end, and using it as a makeshift hammer. For some reason, he was not invisible, despite the preference nightkin had for using stealthboys at all times.

Eventually, the group made their way to the test site. A large sculpture of a rocket dominated the area in front of the old office building. Across from it was an enormous dome, evidently covering the launchpad. They made their way inside and found a nightkin fighting three feral ghouls. All four of them were incensed at the interruption and attacked Kelsey, but thankfully Veronica was now strong enough to kill all of them with one punch each. Once they were dispatched, an intercomm on a nearby wall crackled and a voice instructed them to come to the top floor through the rocket construction area on the east side of the building. This meant fighting several more feral ghouls, but at last they had found someone willing and able to speak, so they made their way there.

Alright, we're at REPCONN's test site. This quest will take a while, so this is a short post because of that. I hope to have the entire thing be covered in the next post.

The comment about the number of NCR soldiers was the second trigger we needed for Veronica. A third one will be coming in the very next post, and then we canfinally find out what that's all about. Similarly, ED-E has revealed both his hidden audio logs, so now we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop on his storyline.

Not much else to say here. Vault 22 can wait, and it will. We'll be dealing with the REPCONN test site and afterwards we'll be making our way to the southeast of the Mojave, to see what's going on there.

[Ythan]

Oh hype I need to read this later.

[Ythan]

Never mind I read it lol. I love Repconn! I'll leave why for next time.

[Cheetory6]

Keely also sounded like a very tough and capable ghoul

why thank you

[Mitillos]

Holy shit, a third person posted! Hello, Cheetory. Are you enjoying Kelsey's story? I hope everyone is, although so far "everyone" has basically been Ythan and my non-ms friend (and both apparently

are

enjoying it, so that's good).

At the top of the stairs and past a secure door, Kelsey found the man speaking on the intercomm. He was a short, balding man named Chris, speaking in a gravelly voice and apparently under the impression he was a ghoul, calling Kelsey a "smoothskin", with the inflection of a racial epithet. This explained why he had sought this place out, as the entire floor was full of ghouls, though thankfully none of them had gone feral like the ones in the surrounding area. Their leader was a glowing ghoul, named Jason Bright, either conveniently or ironically. He explained that he and his followers had congregated here to undertake a "great journey" that he had "seen visions of", sent to him by "the creator". Unfortunately, some "invisible demons" decided to take over the basement and were threatening the ghouls with death, thus preventing them from accessing the launchpad. A number of them were driven mad, from a combination of being stuck here for too long and the radiation that had changed them, and were confined to the ground floor. The "demons" had let a few of them loose outside, which is why they had caused problems for Novac. It was clear to Kelsey that these "demons" were nightkin; also that this journey was likely to lead to a great many deaths among the ghouls. However, both Jason and his followers insisted on going through with it. Given that the alternative was to let them all go insane and then be killed by either equally insane supermutants or the snipers of Novac and possibly other towns, Kelsey decided to help them out. Veronica was very interested in what Jason had to say about his group looking for some kind of "promised land", as this reminded her of her mentor in the Brotherhood, Father Elijah. She finally decided to tell Kelsey what had been on her mind for a very long time. She could see that the Brotherhood had to change its ways, if it hoped to survive in the wasteland. Other groups were doing much better, simply because they were willing to cooperate and share technologies, instead of hoarding them for fear of misuse. She asked Kelsey if they could go to the Brotherhood bunker soon, so she could try to convince the elder of this. Kelsey agreed to go there, the next time it would be convenient. For now, however, there were more urgent things to take care of, so she asked Veronica and ED-E to stay with Jason while she scouted the basement out.

As expected, the "demons" in the basement were nightkin. Their stealth-boys made them invisible, but anyone familiar with the technology and patient enough to sit staring, could spot the telltale shimmer that sometimes accompanied the mutants, as they moved too near a wall. Thankfully, Kelsey had brought a few stealth-boys of her own, so she was able to sneak past the mutants milling about and get to their leader. This particular nightkin, Davison, had two characteristics that stuck out. The first was that he was not using a stealth-boy at that moment. The second was that he had a brahmin skull on a desk, apparently calling it "Antler", talking at length with it, and even treating it like a superior. Clearly, the nightkin insanity had affected this poor soul, as well. Thankfully, he was lucid enough to explain that he and his companions were here looking for a large shipment of stealth-boys (hundreds of them), which they needed because they were close to running out. He said that if they could get to it they would leave, allowing the ghouls access to the basement. Unfortunately, they hadn't found it yet, and there was one room they could not access. A ghoul holed up in it with a bunch of powerful weapons and filled the place with traps, killing several nightkin who tried to go in. Kelsey didn't feel like fighting a large group of nightkin, so she agreed to try to get the shipment from this ghoul.

The ghoul turned out to be Harland, a mercenary who joined Jason's group as a bodyguard, in return for ammunition and "companionship with the fine-looking ghoulettes" who were willing to provide it. As it happened, he and one of said ghoulettes go separated from the rest of Jason's group (as well as each other) when the nightkin arrived, and were now trapped in the basement. He managed to set up a defensive position on a raised platform in this warehouse and used dozens of bear traps and landmines to keep the nightkin at bay. He was used to rough living, so he was fine with having to get sustenance from whatever vermin were unlucky enough to come through here, as well as setting aside a corner for relieving himself when the need arose. He was, however, more than happy to leave, if he could be reunited with his companion. He asked Kelsey to find her for him, so they could reunite with the group upstairs. Getting somewhat annoyed, Kelsey left to explore the rest of the basement, for the missing ghoul.

Thankfully, this task was not very difficult, as the nightkin were completely unable to detect her, not being used to having to deal with anyone but themselves using stealth-boys. She was even able to steal a key from one of them, which gave her access to the innermost area of the basement, where she found Harland's missing friend. Sadly, she had already died. Apparently the nightkin had imprisoned her and left her to starve. Kelsey returned to Harland to tell him the bad news. He seemed to expect as much, but he was still saddened by this. Thanking Kelsey, he made his way back to the top floor. Kelsey disarmed all the traps she could find, and looked for the stealth-boys. What she found, instead, was a computer terminal with several messages sent and received, concerning the shipment of stealth-boys being sent there by mistake and then returned immediately. Just as Harland had been waiting in this room unnecessarily, so did the nightkin waste their time looking for stealth-boys here. When she explained this to Davison, he initially disbelieved her, but then decided that Antler agreed with Kelsey and so he took the rest of the nightkin and left, following this next clue to the shipment's whereabouts. At last, the ghouls could access the basement. On hearing the news, Jason thanked Kelsey and directed his group to the launchpad, somehow managing to get the feral ones to follow, as well. He said that they had to start making preparations, but they would need more help, if they were to manage to make this journey. He asked Kelsey to talk to Chris in the control room overlooking the launchpad, so he could explain to Kelsey what else they would need to use the rockets.

Kelsey decided to use this opportunity to ask Jason about Chris and how he joined them. Jason said that Chris had left human society and decided he was a ghoul. When he first arrived, the ghouls tried to convince him he was, in fact, human, but this only managed to anger him. They soon discovered that he was much more skilled in matters of technology than they were, so they decided that he was sent to them by "the creator" to help them with their "great journey". They did not intend to take him with them, as the radiation would almost certainly kill him, but they needed his help, so they decided to drop the subject of his humanity. Kelsey joined Chris and immediately told him to stop thinking he was a ghoul. Predictably, this angered him, but it also allowed Kelsey to discuss the subject with him, without the pretense the ghouls operated under, thus getting to the source of his delusion. He was originally in Vault 34, but unlike everyone else there, he was more interested in making and fixing machines, than shooting things with guns. Unfortunately, he was also something of a neurotic hypochondriac, so he was convinced that being forced to work on maintaining the vault's nuclear reactor was irradiating and mutating him. When he started losing his hair, he was convinced that he was turning into a ghoul. As Kelsey was more familiar with psychology than Jason's group was, she slowly managed to convince Chris that the reason he was up here and not at the launchpad was not so he could "oversee all repairs", but so he would not be killed by the radiation.

Once he realised his folly, Chris was enraged. The ghouls had tricked him! He felt betrayed, upset, and vengeful. He would sabotage the rockets, and kill the ghouls that had so cruelly lied to him all this time. However, Kelsey was expecting all this and calmed him down. She explained that it was his own insistence that he was a ghoul which caused all this, and that mass murder would not make his anger subside. In fact, he could take pride in the fact that he would help these ghouls and they would praise his name for helping them on their journey. And even if he'd be left behind by the ghouls, he could now go to the nearby town of Novac, as the hero who stopped the feral ghouls from repeatedly attacking. All of this seemed to help, and Chris calmed down enough to see how everything Kelsey said both made sense and was in his benefit. So, he explained that there were still some repairs he needed to carry out, but he would also need Kelsey to find and bring two things that the rockets would require to fly. The first was a cluster of control modules. Unfortunately, salvagers seemed to have taken the available ones from REPCONN. The second was some atomic fuel, in a properly sealed container. The fuel here had leaked out over a century ago and was now inert and unusable. Kelsey left the test site, thinking about where she might find these items.

And this quest is big enough to warrant more than a single post. In fact, its scope is fairly small, as it's only concentrating around the REPCONN test site and Novac areas, but as we have seen, it's got layers of subquests. Which you don't have to do. You can go into REPCONN guns blazing, kill all the ghouls, then go back to Manny and tell him the job is done. Or you can agree to help them, kill the nightkin, and then help the ghouls go on their journey. Or agree to help the nightkin too, kill Harland, then have the nightkin leave, then help the ghouls. Or even do what we did, then help Chris sabotage the rockets. Or find the dead ghoul, kill Harland for wasting your time, find the shipment info, kill the nightkin for wasting your time, get told that there's more work to be done on the rockets anyway, kill the ghouls for wasting your time, go back to Novac and kill Manny for wasting your time, then probably have to kill everyone else in town, because they'll be hostile to you. Or another option, that I'll mention next time.

Note how the more evil choices are generally the more expedient ones, which help the player out in the short term, but also carry risks (e.g. death from combat). This (as in all of New Vegas, not just this one quest) is one of the more nuanced moral choice systems in video games. You don't get more attractive/ugly as you do good/evil stuff, people don't know that you're good or evil from things you've done elsewhere. You do a thing and depending on whether said thing is going to help others or harm them, they react appropriately. It's still not a perfect system, what with everyone in a given town instantly knowing through telepathy that somehow you were involved in some way (whether positive or negative) with whatever event took place, but games always come with limitations and this is one of the least intrusive ones. And it makes slightly more sense as a reputation you get with a given group, rather than a good-evil karma measurement (which, as previously discussed, does exist, but only Cass really cares).

Also, I want to point out how sad the stories are in REPCONN. A group of (let's face it) complete idiots, letting religion guide them to a nearly completely suicidal predicament, with the only way out being a marginally less suicidal one. A second group, suffering from what is basically an addiction, developing a severe monomania for something that isn't even where they're looking. A romantic fool, holding out hope that his companion would return, despite not doing so in weeks. A genius idiot, who overfixates on minor things. And not a single one of them trying to meet the rest halfway in candid conversation, if only to get out of their current stalemate. One could make allowances for the nightkin in their basically-drug-addled state, but everyone else is just being an asshole, as self-centred as a gyroscope.

Now, where can we find some rocket fuel and thruster modules...

EDIT: I forgot to mention. Veronica has asked us to take her to the Brotherhood bunker. This means that her personal quest, I Could Make You Care, is now properly activated. Hooray!

[Ythan]

I forgot Chris was a Boomer lol.

[Mitillos]

Technically, he left his vault before that faction formed.

Kelsey decided to visit the only salvager she knew in the area: Old Lady Gibson and her really good dogs! What do you mean she's only going there because she's missed the really good dogs? You be quiet. Anyway, Gibson had indeed salvaged some working thruster control modules and, since she was never going to find another buyer for this kind of equipment, agreed to sell them for 250 caps. Kelsey played with the really good dogs as Gibson looked around for the things. The dogs were really good and tried to catch ED-E as he floated around. The transaction thus completed, Kelsey left Gibson and her very good dogs in search for the radioactive fuel the rockets needed.

Chris had mentioned a pre-war chemical plant just east of Novac, so she made her way in that direction. The plant, Clark Field, was in ruins and overrun by really angry and slightly radioactive geckos. After eliminating them from a distance, Kelsey noticed a run-down car with a corpse in a radiation suit next to it. This was good, as she wasn't keen on approaching the highly radioactive ruins. The corpse belonged to a prospector who decided to call himself Mr. RADical, after he found the aforementioned suit and found that it protected him from radiation. According to a holotape journal he kept, he believed that the suit offered complete protection from radiation, even going so far as dismissing his radiation poisoning symptoms as "something he ate". The poor, stupid bastard decided to go to increasingly radioactive places and this was the result. Luckily for Kelsey, he had even managed to acquire some of the stuff Chris needed for the rockets. Kelsey made sure it was properly sealed, took it, and made her way back to the REPCONN facility.

The items were in good condition, so Chris was able to finish the necessary repairs to the rockets. Jason made a long, boring, meaningless speech about the promised land and thanked the two humans for helping them along their great journey, for which one step remained. Someone would have to go to the top floor of the facility and activate the launch sequence from there. Chris wanted to stay and monitor everything, so this task fell to Kelsey. She made her way upstairs and reached the observation deck for the launch tests. Fiddling around with the console, she found the destination of the rockets. Doing some quick calculations, she realised that the rockets wouldn't quite get the ghouls as far as they intended to go, so they'd be faced with a long trek afterwards. To make this shorter, she altered the trajectories slightly, to make them land closer to the intended destination. And with that, she turned towards the missile silo, and started the launch sequence.



Pleased with a job well done, she found Chris and they made their way back to Novac, were he would resettle and try to get over his embarrassment over the fact he believed himself to be a ghoul for all this time.

Alright, Come Fly With Me is done. (The quests in New Vegas are named after songs, mostly, but not always, country songs.) In my actual playthrough, the launch was during the day, but I couldn't find a video that was just the unbugged good ending in the day. Oh, and don't worry about that one rocket that veered off course. It somehow makes it there fine, too. Still, bang-up job there, REPCONN.

Gibson normally wants 500 caps for the modules, but will give a discount with barter or speech, or even give them for free if a male courier flirts with her. As for the isotope, the shop in the dinosaur statue in Novac has a bunch of rocket souvenirs from REPCONN, all of them containing the actual radioactive rocket fuel. Five are enough for Chris, but you have to buy the entire stock to get them. Or pick the lock to the room they're kept in and steal them. So, yeah, REPCONN was selling these things with a radioactive isotope in them, as souvenirs for kids. Presumably by actually marketing them as containing "real rocket fuel inside!". Isn't that a quintessential '50s American business thing? The retrofuturism of Fallout is magnificent in how well it satirises us.

So, the alternative way to do this quest (other than what was in the previous post) is to sabotage the flight, even after you tell Chris not to sabotage it. That's right, you can tell him he's not a killer and he couldn't live with himself if he did it, but then go and do it yourself. Why? Well, what if he changes his mind and tells the ghouls that you were planning to sabotage the rockets with him? Then you lose the element of surprise, you anti-ghoul bigot. Or maybe you can find Chris in Novac afterwards and tell him that you sabotaged the rockets and he gets pissed off at you because those ghouls declared him a saint. I'm not sure if he turns hostile on that, as I've never done it. I'm doing a super-evil legion-sided playthrough now and in that one I just convinced him to sabotage the launch himself. My character is too stupid to do the sabotage: He has low intelligence, which is why he will join the legion. That's right, I'm calling out all the legion fanboys out there.

Also, Gibson's dogs are really good. Here are Rey, Basura, Reina, Colmillo, Fiel, and Audaz from the Fallout wiki.

[Ythan]

Oooo cool gonna read this later.

[Mitillos]

With the ghouls gone, the people of Novac considered Kelsey one of them and were also glad to have Chris join them. Presumably his technical skills would be really useful to them. Cliff Briscoe, who ran the gift shop in the dinosaur, had taken over the motel after Jeanie-May's death. To show the town's gratitude to Kelsey, he offered her a room of her own in the motel. It was nice and cozy and had clothes, food, and drinks that the previous tenant had left behind. More importantly, it had a bed, and Kelsey was badly in need of some rest.

When she woke up, ED-E's speakers started up again. Another voice, very different from the ones in the logs started speaking. Veronica was startled by it; she recognised the voice from the transmission, as it belonged to Lorenzo, a knight from the Brotherhood of Steel. Lorenzo said they picked up some transmissions about ED-E and would be interested in examining the little robot, so he invited Kelsey to their bunker in the Hidden Valley between Sloan, the NCR correctional facility, Black Mountain, and Primm. Veronica looked like she was about to comment on this, but ED-E had a second message coming through. This was from an April Martimer, a scientist with the Followers of the Apocalypse. She made a similar invitation, pointing out that unlike the Brotherhood, they would share the technology with everyone for the greater good. It was obvious that this stung Veronica's pride a bit, but she couldn't deny it was all true. They would take ED-E to the Followers, so that the information he had could be studied and disseminated. However, this would not be for some time. They would first explore the rest of the south-east of the Mojave, before making their way back to Vegas.

The only hostiles they encountered on their way southeast from Novac was a group of Viper bandits armed with explosives. They didn't put up much of a fight and the wildlife didn't seem interested in Kelsey's little group at all. After a short journey, they saw an enormous antenna on top of a nearby mountain. Carefully climbing up they found a small NCR military outpost, Ranger Station Echo. As with most such ranger reconnaissance and observation stations, there was a ranger in charge, a communications officer responsible for sending information to headquarters, and a few soldiers. The strange part was that, other than the ranger and comm officer, everyone here was a ghoul. They were mostly surly, but not unfriendly and, after a brief respite, the group continued along the road southwest.

Eventually, they came to an area that seemed to be covered in a strange green fog. A small squad of NCR soldiers stopped them from going any further. The sergeant in charge, a man named Astor, said that the radiation in the area made the place very dangerous and advised Kelsey to take appropriate precautions if she intended to go into the nearby destroyed town of Searchlight. He explained that the Legion had somehow found out that some nuclear waste had been stored in the town during the nuclear war. Two of their legionnaires had managed to sneak in and open the containers with the radioactive material. They died immediately, but so did everyone else in the area. Astor and his squad only managed to survive because they were on patrol at the time. Everyone else was either dead or had become a feral ghoul. Kelsey told him she'd have a look in the town and he asked her to return the dogtags of his ghoulified comrades, if she could.

The third and final shoe in ED-E's quest has officially dropped. It's a floating robot in the shape of a ball, it can wear three shoes, if it wants. As mentioned above, we will be taking him to the Followers at the Old Mormon Fort, in Freeside. More on that when we get around to it, though.

Searchlight has a green filter over it. It's quite radioactive and, unlike most radioactive places, it's radioactive over a very large area. The way radiation works in the game is that when you are exposed to an area or object that is radioactive, you accumulate rads at a rate which depends on the strength of the source and your radiation resistance. For every 200 rads you get a more severe form of radiation sickness and at 1000 rads you die. Our 10 endurance gives us 20% resistance, and a space suit the ghouls at REPCONN left behind gives us another 40% (this will be our penultimate armour; we'll switch to another one eventually, but most of the game we'll be a 50's conception of a spacewoman, with a red military beret and glasses). A single dose of Rad-X is enough to raise us to the cap of 85% resistance for 4 minutes. Eventually, we can also take the radiation resistance perk, which is enough to also get us to the cap (as long as we wear the space suit), without using our meds. This will not be enough to stop all radiation, obviously, but it will reduce it to manageable levels. Any radiation we do take, we can eliminate with RadAway. I am happy they changed this from how it used to be in the original Fallout games. In those, there was a chance of getting addicted to the stuff. Since I didn't like the idea, I avoided using them (and all other addictive substances), but in New Vegas it's perfectly safe to take these babies by the armful. The other option for getting rid of our rads is a perk called rad absorption, which simply removed rads over time. I will be taking it, but it's unlocked at level 28, which is a very long way away. For reference, I think we're around level 18 or so, at this point.

We'll be in the south part of the map for some time, as we have a bunch of things to take care of. So, settle in, and grab your favourite green-tinted glasses, as Kelsey gets constantly hit with enough radiation to turn her into every version of the Hulk out there.

[Ythan]

Oh shit I forgot to read the last one I've got two! What a bounty.

[Ythan]

I forgot about Mr. RADical lol. And I too love the prevalence of radiation in prewar culture.

[Ythan]

A very irradiated two episodes.

[Mitillos]

I just finished my super-evil Legion run... Generally, when it comes to RPGs with a morality system, I consider it a good idea to play both sides, to see everything the game has to offer. Games like KotOR, KotOR 2, and Jade Empire had such light/dark side paths, so I played them twice when I got them. But I wasn't really having fun the second time around. I was hating my choices. I wanted to play light side, again. With New Vegas, I did a Legion run because of the steam achievements. (Yes, I am an achievement hound.) But I still hated my character and having to control him. I wanted to change course and help the Mojave, instead of enslaving it. I think that actually speaks to Obsidian's designers' and writers' skill. They made me feel disgust over a bunch of 1s and 0s, just like they did in KotOR 2. Bioware also did that in the other two games I mentioned above, but not quite as strongly. Anyway, the saves for that game are now deleted, for ever. Next time I see Legion, they die in interesting ways.

Now I'm only missing two achievements, and they are for siding with [REDACTED]. That's right, I left the best for last, because I knew I would need it, after being a Legion shithead.

[Ythan]

Being evil in Fallout does make me feel bad about how I'm choosing to spend my time. Fortunately in NV it's more about factions than alignment, though some of the factions do tilt pretty seriously one way or the other (mostly the other).