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

[Mitillos]

Apologies for the delay. It's midterm season and I'm invigilating all the time. I'll get back to this once that's all done.

[Ythan]

Good luck!

[Mitillos]

Yes, I hope my students do well. :þ

[Ythan]

Oh lol I should have looked up invigilate.

[Ythan]

Watch yourself, invigilate.

[Mitillos]

Invigilates like you belong on a cross.

[Ythan]

Hehe.

[Mitillos]

After this long hiatus, I can finally get back to this. So, let us continue on, with the adventures of Kelsey. We will put the fun in funeral, the laughter in slaughter, and the lit in unrelenting obliteration (as much as is seemly). Though not in this post. We're super peaceful in this one.

Moving on through the next part of Freeside, Kelsey could see that there were more people walking around. They were all young-looking men, with greased up hair in a distinctive style. They seemed to come and go around (as well as into and out from) a building with a huge sign that read "King's School of Impersonation". She made a mental note to visit the location later, but first she decided to go north from there. A scantily-clad street crier had shouted "Hungry? Thirsty? Horny? The Atomic Wrangler has you covered!", so she decided to check the place out. It turned out to be a small casino, where one could gamble, watch some live entertainment, get food and drinks, and hire prostitutes. When Kelsey went in nobody was performing and all the prostitutes were otherwise occupied, but that was not a problem, since she came here for information and to try making some more money with her new probability calculator implant. Also, she figured she'd check if there were any jobs needed doing. Freeside was such a mess that this was almost inevitably going to be the case.

She decided to play some blackjack, so she wouldn't need to argue too much about payment for whatever odd jobs the owners had. She exchanged some legion coins for chips, sat down at the blackjack table and quickly realised that the deck was almost uncannily working for her now. Pretty soon, a small crowd had made its way to watch her play. This meant that more people were also playing, so the floor manager offered her some alcohol and a snazzy suit as gifts. However, pretty soon she had managed to win over five thousand chips, and so he decided to cut her off. Thanking her for her patronage, he asked her to stop gambling and sample the rest of what the casino had to offer. Kelsey didn't want to be difficult, so she exchanged her chips for caps and went to talk with the two people tending the bar.

They turned out to be the owners of the casino, Francine and James Garret. At first, Kelsey thought they might be a couple, but in fact they were twins. And, as expected, they had a couple of jobs that needed doing. Francine told Kelsey that there were three people who owed her and James some money, and she needed someone to collect from them. As for James, he wanted to expand the business, so he needed a few more prostitutes, for clients with... special requirements. He mentioned that a wealthy client had a thing for ghouls and cowboys. Also, a lot of customers had expressed an interest in what he called "the boyfriend experience" with "a smooth-talking boyfriend". Finally, he said that "there's these disgusting robot fetishists you may have heard about? Well, those creeps want a sexbot". Kelsey thought James was trying a bit too hard to portray himself as someone disgusted with this last one. She agreed to deal with both requests and then brought up the subject of medicine for the Followers at the fort. The Garrets had medicine and alcohol to sell, so she guessed they'd be able to supply the Followers too. They said they could, but they would want the Followers to help improve their distilling process with their technical knowledge, in return. Kelsey thought about this for a moment, and decided that this was probably the best offer the Followers would get, so she'd have another talk with Julie Farkas. She thanked the Garrets for their time and left the Wrangler.

Her business at the casino concluded for the moment, Kelsey continued exploring the area. In a broken down building next to the Wrangler, she found Bill Ronte. Like Jacob, he looked completely (and understandably) wretched. He reeked of stale alcohol and was clearly scavenging around in an attempt to find anything to sell to get some more rotgut. Said attempt was futile, as there was nothing to find and nobody to buy from, since Kelsey had scared Dixon away from his two victims. Unlike Jacob, Bill wasn't a chemist, so she decided to recommend a slower but more mundane cure to him. She said that the Followers could give him regulated doses of alcohol along with some Fixer. By decreasing the dosage over time, he could kick the habit in a matter of weeks, if not days. He considered his options and after hearing that Julie was the one who asked Kelsey to get him back, he made up his mind. He thanked Kelsey and made his way to the fort. Kelsey hoped that this would make Julie Farkas more amenable to the suggestion that she help casino owners make stronger booze... She still wasn't completely sure how to convince her, so she decided to think a bit more on how to convince Julie. Across the street, she could see a man with heavy armour and a plasma rifle. He was standing in front of a building with a sign reading "Silver Rush". She recognised it from the radio broadcast as one of the sponsors of Mr. New Vegas' show. Apparently, they dealt in energy weaponry, the one type of weapons the Gun Runners refused to trade. The reason for this was that every caravan they had stocked with such weapons was attacked. Believing this to be the work of the Brotherhood of Steel, the Gun Runners decided to abandon that particular market and stick to conventional weapons. In turn, this meant that business boomed for the Silver Rush, as they didn't seem to be under attack for their incredibly powerful weapons. Kelsey wasn't particularly interested in buying from them, but decided she could go in just to browse a bit.

Alright, more Freeside stuff to do. We'll be going to the school of impersonation at some point, but for now I want to deal with other stuff, first.

All the casinos in this game have a limit for how much money you can win before you are no longer allowed to gamble any more. The more wealthy casinos have a higher limit. There's an achievement for being banned from all three casinos on the Strip, but there's also three more casinos you can gamble at. One is the Wrangler, one is in the DLC, and the last one... well, we'll see, since we'll break the bank in all of them. This will be extremely easy with blackjack and a luck of 10. Basically, the deck really does work for you, at this point. With a luck of 10, every time you hit, you're almost guaranteed to get a good draw. If you have a 16, the next draw is very likely to be a 5. If you have 10 or 11, doubling down will almost invariably give you another 10. You'll probably lose a few hands here and there, but getting to the maximum allowed winnings, even with bets being capped at 200, is almost trivial. This is only one of the reasons that lack of money isn't even close to being an issue in this game.

I don't really have much else to add here, except that midterms are over, so I should be able to keep posting until early- to mid-December, at which time there will be another break for more invigilating and grading.

[Ythan]

Yaaay.

I love draining casinos. It makes it so easy to start a new game once you know how to get to the Strip quickly. Also can't wait for the Kings, the various greaser gangs are always my favorite factions ever since the Tunnel Snakes.

[Mitillos]

The man in front of the Silver Rush building turned out to be a guard, named Simon. Simon informed Kelsey that she had to leave her weapons with him to go inside, to avoid any unpleasantness. She agreed and walked in, only to be stopped by more guards inside. They said that Mrs. Van Graff was in the middle of some business negotiations. Kelsey could see this, as there was only a chain link fence. The negotiations seemed to be about a late payment and involved bringing in some poor wretch who had somehow displeased the Van Graffs and making an example out of him with a laser rifle. Kelsey decided she wanted nothing to do with these people and left, stopping only to collect her weapons from Simon.

Kelsey decided she might as well go and deal with the quests the Garrett twins had given her. The first of the people with a debt to Francine was a woman named Lady Jane, sitting around near the gate to the Vegas Strip. The gate was guarded by several securitrons with pictures of cops on their monitors, stopping visitors to ensure they had either a passport allowing entrance to the Strip, or enough money to reasonably spend at the casinos. One man tried to run through them, but they gunned him down. If this was how Mr. House conducted his business, he was scarcely better than the Van Graffs. Deep in thought, Kelsey kept walking until she found Lady Jane. At first, she claimed that all her belongings were left in her caravan which she had to abandon in a cave when it was attacked by some critters. Kelsey wasn't convinced, and after some questioning, she admitted that she had some of the money and a few random items (read: junk) she could spare. Kelsey wasn't in any mood to argue, so she decided to pay Francine the remainder and sell the junk. After all, the loss would be minimal, Kelsey now had enough money, and Jane just wanted to get back to California and start over.

With that taken care of, Kelsey went back to the outer area of Freeside. She found the second person, Santiago, near where Jacob had been. He claimed that he had no debt and that he was a VIP. If he had tried this a day earlier, Kelsey would have threatened to kill him, but now she just didn't care enough. She changed the subject and told Santiago that the Garrets were looking for a suave male prostitute, hinting he could pay his debt to them that way. He agreed and left for the Wrangler, while Kelsey made her way to the last target, a ghoul named Grecks. He was upset that he could no longer get free drinks and that the Garrets didn't forget about his tab, but he gave the money without any argument. Kelsey expected him to ask if she wouldn't mind covering some of his debt, since he was evidently broke. Had he asked, she probably would have agreed, but he didn't even seem to consider the notion, so she thanked him and went back to the fort. There, she found a ghoul in a cowboy hat and leather duster with the cynicism of her considerable age and a penchant for some of the... more extreme kinds of fun available in the Mojave. At first, Beatrix Russell wasn't particularly interested in becoming pimped to freaks with a thing for necrosis and bullwhips, but when she was told she would 1) be independent and could choose her customers herself and 2) get an employee discount on the booze at the Wrangler (which would now be improved with Follower know-how), she left immediately.

Julie was not thrilled about dealing with the Garrets. From where she was standing, they were part of the problem, pushing cheap booze and drugs to Freeside. Improving their still would just mean they could do it even more, causing even more work for them. Kelsey pointed out that, since they'd be getting free medicine, they'd be able to expand their operations, mitigating the additional problems caused and being able to do even more good in addition to that. It was not a perfect solution, but then a perfect solution was impossible in an ignored slum right next to the gated playground of the wealthy. Julie could see the wisdom in this and, reluctantly, agreed to the deal with the Garrets.

For their part, the Garrets were very happy they could improve their alcohol production and that two of their three debts were collected. Francine asked Kelsey if she could also deal with another matter. Their previous debt collector, a man named Caleb McCaffrey had left Freeside for the Strip with a large sum of money he was supposed to collect for the Garrets. She wanted him dead and his hat brought to her as proof. Kelsey said she'd deal with him if he saw him in the Strip. The Garrets were also happy to have Santiago work for them and, while Beatrix, being female, wasn't quite what the original client wanted, would certainly be a welcome addition to their staff. All that was left was finding a sexbot, for which someone had suggested looking at the Cerulean Robotics building in the north part of Freeside. Meanwhile, people in the area were getting to hear that Kelsey was the one responsible for the increased amount of both booze and medical care available, so she was viewed as a friend of both Freeside and the Followers. In fact, Julie offered to let Kelsey join the Followers, something Kelsey was sure would make Veronica really happy. So, Julie gave Kelsey a key and directions to the Followers' hideout some distance west of Vegas and told her to help herself to any of the equipment she might need in there, as well as the beds available.

Feeling good about herself and her new associations, and determined to help as many people as she could, Kelsey left for Cerulean Robotics.

The Van Graffs are... pretty terrible. If you ask for work, they start out innocuous enough, asking you to be a door guard with Simon. You are supposed to be respectful, not start any fights, turn away "drunks, punks, and capless vermin", and not let anyone through without patting them down for weapons. The second job is to make a delivery to a suspicious looking man some distance east of Vegas. He is, in fact, in Caesar's legion, so the Van Graffs are the kind of scum that would sell energy weapons to slavers. If you do both jobs, they then ask you if you want to take a third job, which they won't reveal unless you agree to do it first. The job is to bring Cassidy to them from the Mojave outpost so they can kill her. Of course, to the Van Graffs, all of this is "just business".

Lady Jane's caravan is indeed in a cave, way southeast, further than Novac. You can go there, fight some huge rat, and get her stuff to pay back the Garrets with, but honestly I didn't feel like doing that. Santiago will pay his debt if you threaten him and there is a second man you can hire for the suave boyfriend experience thing, near the gate to the Strip. Caleb McCaffrey was in the Wrangler before and we could have introduced ourselves, but there was no reason to do so. There's also another person we could talk to in the Wrangler, but he can wait until he's part of a quest.

The Followers' safehouse has some equipment available, beds, fridges that spawn random food items, and a Follower who visits from time to time and sells medical supplies. Julie also gave us a lab coat when we joined, which is nice (if slightly pointless) of her. By the end of this, we will have access to three of the four available factional safehouses, as well as ownership of seven rooms in various locations. We already have the one at Novac, we'll get one at the Wrangler, and there are another four at various casinos in the Strip. There's also one in the best DLC, which will be all kinds of fun in itself, when we get there.

Anyway, we have joined the Followers, the only faction in the entire canon of Fallout who are trying to do any actual good. This is not an exaggeration. There are better and worse factions in Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas, but only the Followers are actually looking out for people and working for the benefit of everyone. The most you can say about some of the other not-evil groups is that they're just doing their best to survive and flourish without trying to hurt others. The only ones who are a force for good other than the Followers are the original Rangers, who were formed to fight slavers. Laudable and important, even if it's not quite as far-reaching as what the Followers do. Unfortunately, over time, the Rangers became little more than a highly trained group within the NCR military. By the time of the events of New Vegas, they're again fighting slavers, but this is incidental. The slavers are Caesar's legion and the rangers are only fighting it because it threatens the resources which are currently under NCR control. Even the best of intentions cannot make one immune to the realities of political corruption; the Rangers uphold a system which is exploitative, despite the fact that fighting exploitation was the entire reason they were formed.

[Ythan]

Flowers best faction for sure.

[Ythan]

I'm pretty good at getting into the headspace of a faction long enough to enjoy playing a run sided with them but the Van Graffs are pretty gross.

[Ythan]

I mean far from the grossest but gross and boring. Plasma's cool though.

[Mitillos]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's a lot worse, but the Van Graffs are horrible and gross in a very particular manner. Specifically, they are only interested in their profits. They are willing to do all the stuff they do, just to maintain the cashflow and for literally no other reason. Now, I'm not going to say that this is unique to capitalism, but hierarchical systems (including capitalism) are more susceptible to this behaviour, simply because there are no competing voices in the room. Whereas in a more democratic system of ownership and use of the means of production, you'd expect some of the stakeholders to be at least a little ethically opposed to the idea of selling to murderous slavers, given that those murderous slavers will eventually come for your family.

And before anyone accuses me of arguing politics too much, 1) it's economics, and 2) you're reading a log of a playthrough for a Fallout game set in the west coast. If you don't want political commentary, this is the wrong game for you, like, three times over. (I'm joking, they are great games and if you think you don't like politics, you need these games even more in your life than anyone else does, if only to help you understand yourself better.)

The walk to Cerulean Robotics was fairly uneventful, as was the search of the building itself. A few large rats and some broken robots were around, but they were of little consequence. In a corner of the workshop area, Kelsey found a functional protectron which had not yet been programmed, sitting idly in its recharge bay. The programme to convert the protectron into a sexbot was fairly easy for Kelsey to write and, a few hours later, the machine was active. It called itself a "Fully Integrated Security Thechnetron Officer" (which Kelsey shortened to "FISTO"), and requested that Kelsey "assume the position". She decided to test her work, to make sure there were no flaws that needed rectifying or any other kinks in the system. Once she was pleased with the outcome, she sent FISTO to the Wrangler, and walking unsteadily, made her way there too. When she got back, James was thoroughly thrilled at the idea of owning a sexbot, though he tried to pretend this was because of how much money it would make for them. His sister rolled her eyes but made no comment.

Kelsey decided to explore the area around Vegas a little more, so she left Freeside for Westside. This particular slum seemed even poorer than Freeside. There were certainly no casinos here, but the people seemed more self-sufficient. The biggest problem, at first glance, seemed to be the regular skirmishes by drugged up Fiend raiders from the south. The people here had formed a militia to fend them off and, with the help of a large supermutant named Mean Sonofabitch, they seemed to manage. Apparently, the supermutant had been held in captivity by bigots who had cut off his tongue and tortured him. A man named Klamath Bob had unsuccessfully tried to buy him from them to set him free, but they were not interested. Instead, a Nightkin named Tabitha came and freed him, visiting violence on his captors. So, Mean decided to come to Westside and find the man who had tried to free him. The two of them became friends and joined the militia to protect others. In addition to the militia, the people of Westside had formed a cooperative for growing and distributing crops to everyone in Westside, which also generally seemed to work fairly well.

Unfortunately, the edges of society also tend to attract crime, so Kelsey knew there were bound to be certain problems here that a tight-knit community might not want to learn about. She knew that the abducted people from Aerotech were likely taken by scavengers from this area, so it was time to investigate. Looking around the southern part of Westside, she found two very shifty looking men named Dermot and Saint James. They were very evasive when asked about people going missing, but thankfully they were also not very bright. They mentioned Aerotech, even though Kelsey hadn't, all but incriminating themselves. Unfortunately, this was too flimsy to pass muster with the NCR, so Kelsey decided to do some more investigating. Thankfully, all the evidence she needed was in their rooms, behind locked doors Kelsey could sneeze open. She found a teddy bear which presumably belonged to an abducted girl and (more importantly) a ledger of all their sales. The sick bastards had been selling people to the Fiends who, in turn, would kill off the ones they didn't care about and keep the rest as sex slaves. Motor-Runner, Nephi, Cook-Cook. Kelsey would be sure to search for them, but for now she had smaller fish albeit nearer at hand to fry. She confronted Dermot and Saint James with the evidence she found and they attacked her. Her savage grimace was almost grin-like, as she stood there unfazed, letting ED-E zap and fry them. The rest of the inhabitants of Westside seemed uninterested in leaping to their aid and when they learned of what they had done, they thanked her for what she'd done. The only one who wasn't thankful was Marco, the owner of the apartment building where the two coyotes lived (as well as the pimp for all the prostitutes in the same building). He was upset he'd lose the rent money they paid him and was completely uninterested in the source of said money. What pre-war societies had said was true: landlords truly are worthless parasites.

Kelsey decided that informing Parker could wait a while longer, since the people that were missing were clearly already dead and the coyotes, likewise afflicted, would trouble Aerotech refugess no more. So, she decided to make her way to Camp McCarran to deliver the Crimson Caravan invoice she had. The base, set up in an old disused airport, was fairly large and full of soldiers, but Kelsey didn't feel like socialising at the moment. She simply made her way to the head scientist, Thomas Hildern and delivered the invoice. He seemed to want to give Kelsey another errand, but she had too much on her plate at the moment, so she said she'd be back later and left. Arcade was familiar with Hildern and told Kelsey that he was a good example of "big picture" obsessions going too far, with individuals becoming numbers and statistics. She could see his point. The man had no social graces, so he probably had no interest in people as people to begin with. Probably thought of himself as an intellectual based on this alone. Unfortunately, if he wanted a job doing, it probably was something that would affect a lot of people, so she felt that she couldn't afford not coming back for it later. Deep in these troubling thoughts, Kelsey started to make her way back north and then east, towards the Crimson Caravan headquarters.

So, Kelsey had a high programming skill and was able to programme a sexbot. But what if a character doesn't? Well, there's a programming terminal access card in one of the lockers. But what if you're playing on a laptop with a small monitor and don't see very well, so you can't find the key? Well, you can pick the locker's lock (or just turn your flashlight on, I guess). But what if your lockpick skill isn't high enough? Well, you can ask a merchant in Freeside to write a programme for you. Generally speaking, you will have options. The developers did their best to make it so that any character build would work in this game, even the ones with low skill.

If you have Wild Wasteland activated, the first time you exit Cerulean Robotics three old ladies attack you. Americans do love Monty Python, I guess.

Regarding the missing people, you can take the teddy bear back to Captain Parker and he will identify it and say it belonged to one of the missing girls. The ledger is fairly disturbing too, with all the details it gives, as is Marco's lack of interest in the matter, beyond the question of rent money. Landlords, parasites, etc.

The conversation with Arcade after meeting Hildern gives us 2 trust points with Arcade. This is good for reasons. Later in the story reasons. We also got 2 history points with Boone, back when we rescued those three NCR hostages from the Legion in Nelson, which is also good for later in the story reasons. We also triggered one of the nine things Veronica wants to see, in terms of exploring the wasteland sand seeing how people live and survive. Specifically, talking to Julie Farkas about giving her some of our spare medical supplies. There were also two other triggers we missed, because we had Arcade along (talking to Gloria Van Graff and Thomas Hildern respectively), but it's fine, because we only need three of the nine triggers, so we should be able to deal with that, in due course.

[Ythan]

2) you're reading a log of a playthrough for a Fallout game set in the west coast. If you don't want political commentary, this is the wrong game for you, like, three times over.

Ha yes

[Mitillos]

Has it really been a week? Damn, it has really been a week. And in about a week, it's going to be final exam time, so I'll be a little busy then. We'd better see how Kelsey is doing, before she gets bored and annoyed, and decides to just start killing everyone* in the Mojave, just for funsies.

*Children, your currently active companions (except in hardcore mode), and [redacted] can't be killed.

Kelsey took a longer route back, going through North Vegas Square which, unlike Freeside and Westside, was not walled off the Mojave with barricades. The locals here had a few problems they asked her to help them with. As NCR moved more and more into Vegas, people from there tended to come to the strip for gambling and prostitution. But then, as they found themselves too poor to make it back home, they would move into the poorer areas of Vegas, causing problems for the locals. Additionally, there was a gang of greasers in the sewers, raiding the area. Both groups were convinced to move on for some caps, and this left Kelsey with the last problem to solve. A gang of thieves wanted to make one last big score, stealing from the Crimson Caravans. According to a note Kelsey found in the gang's hideout, they recruited the daughter of the accounts manager, and were planning to have her steal the money for them. Afterwards, they would leave town, possibly taking her along for... unsavoury and nefarious purposes. Said daughter didn't know all this. She was just a naive young woman, upset at her parents and her life as a farmer with her mom. But when she read the note, she quickly changed her mind and decided to give life with her parents another chance. And with that, Kelsey went back to the Crimson Caravan company, to report that she had delivered the invoice to Hildern.

Alice McLafferty was pleased with Kelsey's work and asked her to help with another matter. One of the big investors of the company had pressured them to give an executive position to his corrupt and lazy son. After his lack of managerial skills caused the New Vegas branch to perform poorly, Alice was sent to fix things. She knew that the only way to make the branch properly profitable was to get rid of this Henry Jamison. So, she asked Kelsey to convince him to resign his position. He was easy enough to find, as he was in the Wrangler, playing the slot machines and losing a lot of money. He owed a lot of money to the Omertas, the group running Gomorrah, one of the Strip casinos. The idiot let slip that he didn't have the money yet, so Kelsey threatened to go and let the Omertas know this if he didn't resign his position. Scared stiff, he agreed, after calling Alice a number of expletives.

Kelsey was getting sick of Vegas and its trite intrigues, so she decided to explore the Mojave a little more. She left due South, until she found a large building surrounded by some friendly Mr. Handy robots. This building had once housed the headquarters of the Rocket Engineering and Production Company of Nevada (or REPCONN), an aerospace company bought out by RobCo before the nuclear war. As Kelsey found out later, the buyout was pushed by a mole installed by RobCo, who subsequently sold RobCo trade secrets to Poseidon Energy. Arcade mentioned some things about their history and how RobCo made REPCONN work on plasma weaponry, as well. Deciding to learn more about this, Kelsey went inside. The building was bustling with as much activity as it ever had; RobCo believed in automation above all else, so as much of the day-to-day work as possible was assigned to robots. Even now, there were sentry bots hidden in secret areas in the walls for security, Mr. Handys were going around performing maintenance and cleaning the place, and one robot acted as a tour guide through the company's exhibits, showcasing all their inventions (with very non-credible positive spins tacked on). Once the tour was over, Kelsey decided to extend it to the entirety of the building. She found out that the robots used rudimentary facial recognition software to identify employees, so she accessed the company's database from one of the terminals and replaced one of the faces with her own. Just in case things went wrong, she also found the locations where sentry bots were hiding and jammed the mechanisms so they couldn't get out to attack her. She checked every room she could, to make sure there would be no surprises. There was one steel door with electronic locks beyond her skills, but all the other rooms were accessible.

Unfortunately, RobCo was also a huge believer in very strict hierarchy, so employees who worked on the first floor were generally not given access to the floors above, unless their work called for it. This meant that, when she got to the second floor, Kelsey had to sneak around undetected until she found another terminal so she could once again make her face acceptable to the robots here. The third floor was more of an issue. There was no facial recognition database for that, so eventually a robot spotted Kelsey and demanded a password. Consumed by panic, she blurted out "ice cream", which somehow worked. Thanking her incredible luck, Kelsey looked around. She found a lot of info on the company, including details of a powerful plasma rifle they were developing. Apparently, this was going to be sent to the US Department of Defense (and Poseidon Energy was informed of this, so they were likely going to try stealing it), but the nuclear war delayed these plans. Kelsey also found two dead paladins from the Brotherhood of Steel. Clearly, they had not managed to guess the password. They had a holodisk instructing them to come here for certain components. Kelsey took this, as well as their heavy power armour. She used one suit to patch the other one up as much as she could. She couldn't use the armour herself, but she figured that Veronica could. And since she always preferred to fight by punching, giving her extra protection might be a very good idea.

On her way down, Kelsey realised that there was a room in the second floor she hadn't secured on her way up. Inspecting it, she found that most of its floor was destroyed, which meant she could finally see what was behind the locked steel door. This was the room which held the Q-35 matter modulator, the plasma rifle that REPCONN had been working on. The quantum plasma modulation matter injection rifle was a far more powerful version of the standard plasma rifle. It used half as much energy per shot but fired twice as fast, with faster-moving bolts (the major drawback of plasma weapons) which were slightly weaker but resulted in more damage over time, it was sturdier so needed less maintenance, it had a more responsive trigger, and it was only two thirds as heavy.

Grinning manically, Kelsey made her way out and to the 188, to give Veronica her new armour. While they were talking, a broadcast came in on her Pip-Boy radio. A man introducing himself as Jed Masterson, a caravan boss for the Happy Trails Caravan Company. His caravan was organising an expedition to Utah and advertising positions for guards and anyone who needed to join the caravan (especially if they had a Pip-Boy, with its convenient cartographic software). On a whim, Kelsey decided to join them, so she said goodbye to Veronica and made her way to the passage north of the Mojave.

Visiting REPCONN with Arcade gives us another trust point with him. We will be getting 3 more at a later time (I think 5 are needed, but I'm getting 6 to be safe), but for now we're ditching him. In fact, at this point, we're ditching ED-E, as well. The Northern Passage leads to the first DLC that we will be going through (and, in my opinion, the least enjoyable one). Allies generally can't follow you into the DLC areas (most of which have their own companions available), so we're leaving ED-E and Arcade behind on this one.

We will be using the Q-35 a lot for the foreseeable future, although in some cases we will be switching to the incinerator for lobbing fire a bit more indiscriminately at a distance, a machine gun for when precision is an issue, and a silenced pistol when we need stealth. Other than that, plasma shots will often reduce targets to puddles of green goo, so that's the aesthetic we will be introducing to Utah.

The password for the third floor is available if you have high luck or very low intelligence.

[Ythan]

You may not love Zion but I'm looking forward to your commentary on it!

[Mitillos]

Kelsey got to the northern passage and found the man who was sending out the invitational broadcast, Jed Masterson. Though an experienced caravan master, he had never been through Zion valley, which was why he was anxious to hire someone with a Pip-Boy to come along. He explained that the route they used to have to northern Utah and New Canaan was no longer usable, so they would need the mapping function to stay on the trail through the valley that the New Canaan tribe used themselves. Jed told Kelsey she had some time to get to know the rest of the caravan and leave whatever personal items would slow her down in a secure crate in the passage.

Jed had brought three caravan guards from his company along, and his broadcast had attracted one more mercenary. One of the guards, Stella, was a middle aged woman from New Reno, who left it so she could escape the sleaze when she was young. Having spent most of her early adulthood as a sheriff in Caliente, she got bored of her life there and joined Happy Trails as a guard. She enjoyed roaming the wilderness, so she was pleased to be going through Zion, especially now that she was sure there would be a map. The mercenary was less happy that Kelsey had joined. Ricky was wearing a jumpsuit from vault 22 (which he called two-two) and a Pip-Boy 3000 (which he called a pit-boy). He clearly had no idea what it was and how it worked, especially since it did not; it was broken and only marginally more useful than a bracelet. He had clearly got a spot on the caravan by pretending it was working and he knew how to use it, so Kelsey's presence could only make his position more tenuous. Nevertheless, Kelsey introduced herself and was instantly treated to his lack of charm. Ricky started conversation by making a clumsy and casually misogynistic pass at Kelsey and got angry and self-important when it didn't work. He claimed that he once killed three "deathjaws", which were like deathclaws only with bigger teeth, except there were four of them, by shooting them in the eyes. Knowing that at most this would enrage a deathclaw, Kelsey decided to have some fun and see what other "adventures" he would claim. Ricky insisted that he was a great shot and always killed by shooting the eyes. In fact, he said, he once did that to "one of them Steel Brotherhood assholes", with his 11mm machinegun. Given that 11mm ammunition had been made obsolete three centuries earlier and Brotherhood of Steel armour eyeslits were bulletproof, Kelsey had to work hard to stop herself from bursting out laughing.

Having observed his behaviour during their chat, Kelsey could tell that Ricky was addicted to Psycho. When she confronted him with this he got angry and left, shouting something about leading the caravan to an ambush. Everyone else seemed happy to see him go and since they had more space now, they could carry more stuff. And so, the caravan set off towards New Canaan, a town built on the ruins of Ogden, inhabited by the tribe calling themselves New Canaanites. Jed Masterson took this opportunity to talk to Kelsey about New Canaan and its recent history. He said they were honest traders and good fighters, and very devoutly religious. However, one of their number had apparently left New Canaan and its mostly peaceful life, to join Caesar's legion as one of its most brutal members. Joshua Graham was Caesar's first war chief, known as the Malpais legate, and a source of shame to the New Canaanites. He led Caesar's army to victory after victory, until he set his sights on Hoover dam. The NCR managed to defeat the legion, and Caesar decided to make an example of his legate, for committing the sin of failure. Graham was covered in pitch, lit on fire, and thrown into the Grand Canyon, without even making a sound. Then, the slaves and the newer tribes that joined the legion started saying that Joshua Graham hadn't died, but rose as The Burned Man, walking the wastes. Caesar promoted a new legate, Lanius of Arizona, and ordered Graham's name expunged from history, but the legend had taken hold. And whether he lived or not, Graham was now a source of shame both to his tribe of New Canaan and the legion he led... At this point, Jed quoted some of the New Canaanite scripture he had learned from his dealings with the tribe: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion."

It took the caravan several days to get through the passage and to Zion canyon, previously known as Zion National Park. It was a lush valley, rocky yet not wanting for greenery. Unfortunately, it also did not want for enemies. There really was an ambush waiting for them; tribals with submachineguns were waiting over the cavern opening they had just exited. Kelsey's new plasma rifle turned them all into puddles of green goo, but it was too late. Everyone else in the caravan was dead. Unfortunately, the trip here included some steep descents, so Kelsey wouldn't be able to retrace her steps. She would have to find another way out of the valley. She started walking along the only available trail and soon found another young tribal, who thankfully wasn't attacking her. In fact, he had witnessed the fight and invited her to come with him to meet Joshua. He introduced himself as Follows-Chalk, a trainee scout from the Dead Horses tribe. He explained that "Joshua" was Joshua Graham, the man leading the Dead Horses against their enemies, the White Legs (who were also the ones who attacked the caravan). Deciding that the enemies of the tribe that attacked her were likely to at least be welcoming, Kelsey agreed to follow. After all, she was also curious to see if this Joshua Graham was the same person Jed had talked about.

The journey was almost entirely uneventful. At some point, Follows-Chalk heard some noise and urged Kelsey to hide. The noise came from an enormous mutant bear (or Yao-Guai, as he called it) attacking a very large gecko. This variety of green gecko was much larger and tougher than most Mojave specimens, yet the bear tore it apart with ease. Follows-Chalk explained that the canyon animals were very agitated these days and that this was bound to affect the Dead Horses' bighorner ranging, but the other scouts ignored his worries. He suspected that a calf might have got separated from the herd, as this would cause the entire herd to become more agitated until they found it. Kelsey said maybe she could try looking into it if she had time later. She started to wonder why she was always so compelled to help people, even as she was the one in desperate need.

After a short trip, along and through Virgin river, they finally arrived at the Dead Horses' camp at eastern Virgin ridge and around the entrance to Angel Cave. Kelsey went inside, to meet Joshua Graham.

Welcome to Zion, the location of the Honest Hearts DLC. I'm already so bored I want to die. Joking aside, the Honest Hearts DLC is the weakest of the lot. I find the storyline a bit trite, the quests a bit simplistic, the exploration a bit pointless, and the plot kind of annoys me. The trope of the civilised white man, the noble savages, the latter following the former, and the former saving the latter, is a tired and harmful one. One could say that, given the post-apocalyptic setting and the fact that the civilised white man is also technically a tribal might give a little leeway to Fallout's use of it, however said leeway ends quickly, once you start talking with Joshua Graham and get info and history on everyone involved. The possible endings (i.e. your choices) are kind of shit, too, largely for the same reason (and we'll get to that eventually).

Finally, the whole place is kind of boring. In all the other DLCs and the main game, I did my best to explore as much as possible, just to see what fun stuff I could find. In Zion, I mostly just wanted to be done and leave ASAP. The only exploring I did was to find four special crates (three, really; one of them is next to Joshua Graham when you meet him), and that was just because they had a very small chance to randomly spawn skill books as their loot. It was all a complete waste of time, none of them had books in my playthrough. Anyway, I won't explicitly be going over that in this thread, so, over the next few posts, pick three random spots and mentally insert "And then Kelsey decided to go inside a nearby cave for absolutely no reason, rummage in a crate for a few moments, and then come out immediately after".

Ricky is a disgusting moron. He talks about the radiation giving him a third, glowing testicle, "to let you see what you're working with", if you're female. If you find yourself in this situation, try not to react with disgust, because he just gets emboldened and continues to be a creep. Instead, either say you'll bring your tweezers (requires a perk) or that this will let you see where you're shooting (guns skill), and he'll get scared and offensive. Or, you know, pick what dialogue you want, it's an RPG. Anyway, getting rid of Ricky or blackmailing him into carrying some of your stuff allows you to bring along 100lb of equipment, instead of 75. Kelsey left the excess stuff with ED-E back in the Mojave, so this is plenty for her needs.

If you have Wild Wasteland enabled, when you approach the Dead Horses' camp, one of them comes out and happily pumps his fist in the air at you. He is mostly a generic tribal, but his name is Two-Bears-High-Fiving. See, back when we started the game, Doc Mitchell gave us an inkblot test. One of the blots is two kabuki actors dressed as ninjas, bringing their hands together during a dance where they combine their powers to fight the evil shogun and rescue the noble daimyo and his beautiful daughter, while the two aspects of divine beings that granted them their powers look on and are revealed to be in fact parts of the same being, now reunited. For some reason, a lot of people instead see "two bears high-fiving", so someone made a mod just to add that option in the dialogue. This was a very popular mod and Obsidian decided to acknowledge it by adding this character. This was actually a rather nice thing, because it was also an indication to the modders that Obsidian was supporting them.

[Ythan]

The two things I care about here are both bear-related lol. I definitely can't unsee it.

[Mitillos]

Joshua Graham was... a bit of an asshole. The kind of asshole who couches his disgusting rhetoric in pretty words and religious dogma to avoid confronting its true effects. He tried to pretend that his experiences with Caesar made him a more thoughtful and wise man, but it was clear that he still had the same chip on his shoulder as when he had been a legate for Caesar. He wanted to kill off all the White Legs for destroying his tribe, but he claimed that his reason was that they had insulted his god and that this demanded "correction". This put him slightly at odds with the other New Canaanite who had managed to make his way to Zion, a man called Daniel. Just as Joshua was training the Dead Horses for combat, Daniel was with another tribe (the Sorrows) and trying to guide them spiritually. Daniel believed that it would be better if these two tribes left Zion, rather than confront the White Legs, because fighting would somehow make them lose their innocence, whatever that meant.

Joshua explained that New Canaan had been destroyed by the White Leg tribe, probably at the behest of Caesar, in an effort to kill Joshua. He also mentioned that the various tribes in Utah had signature weapons. The Dead Horses had war clubs, the New Canaanites had .45 auto pistols, the Sorrows had Yao Guai gauntlets, and the White Legs had SMGs they had looted from a military armoury. While those might be a bit of a threat at mid-range, Kelsey felt sure she had the advantage with her plasma rifle and incinerator, as long as she managed to keep from getting ambushed. Joshua also mentioned something about expecting a different courier, sent by Caesar to assassinate him. Everywhere Kelsey went, there seemed to be tiny morsels of information about this guy, though little of substance.

When Kelsey mentioned that her goal was to go back to the Mojave, Joshua reminded her that her journey to Zion included going down a lot of paths it would be difficult to climb up. She would need a map to help her. Thankfully, Daniel had such a map and would undoubtedly be willing to part with it, if Kelsey was willing to help the New Canaanites, Dead Horses, and Sorrows. Joshua said he would allow Follows-Chalk to guide Kelsey to the Sorrows' home, if she first collected some useful equipment for them to take to Daniel. Kelsey agreed and set off, taking a detour towards the bighorner grazing grounds first. She learned from Follows-Chalk that the beasts loved Banana Yucca fruit, so she collected some and asked the scout to remain behind. She then used a Stealth-Boy to go completely invisible, so she could go through the grounds undetected. Pretty soon, she found the lost calf. Though it couldn't see her, it could smell the Banana Yucca when she brought it out, and followed Kelsey all the way to its mom. Follows-Chalk was extremely grateful about all this.

The items Joshua wanted were fairly mundane. First, there was a crashed bus, with a couple dozen children's skeletons. These were pre-war cub scouts, so there was bound to be some sort of navigation equipment somewhere in the wreckage. Kelsey found a couple of broken compasses and used them to make a new one. Second, there was a fishing lodge near the river, and Joshua was sure Kelsey would be able to find something to help the tribes communicate more effectively. Indeed, a pair of walkie-talkies were safe inside a locked cabinet. Third, Joshua wanted long-lasting food and some medical supplies. A general store and a ranger station had these, as well as another snowglobe. Normally, Kelsey would have wondered if Joshua was making her fetch these things for his amusement, but he had mentioned that the tribals had a taboo against entering pre-war buildings. Follows-Chalk, being younger, seemed to be very skeptical of said taboos and was interested in learning more about the people he and the others in Zion called "civilised". When Kelsey returned to Joshua, she mentioned this and he said she should share her thoughts with the young man. So, she suggested to Follows-Chalk that both "tribal" and "civilised" life had their problems and benefits and he should make up his mind about which was better only after observing both. The young man was deep in thought all the way to the north end of the valley, where the Sorrows made their home. Once they arrived there, he bade Kelsey good bye, and left for Virgin in the south.

Daniel was extremely thankful for the equipment Kelsey had collected and even more thankful when he learned she had a lot of spare healing powder to give him and the Sorrows. Kelsey decided to rest here, near the waterfalls for a while, before seeing what additional tasks Daniel would have for her.

It's final exam time, so I'll be somewhat busy until early January. I'll do my best to not let the thread die completely in the meantime. Anyway, we're burning through the Honest Hearts quests, largely because I'm not including "and there were some fairly weak and easily dispatched enemies and creatures" every 50 feet we walk. Basically, Zion has a bunch of White Legs with their war mongrels (dangerous in large groups and up close, but not a huge threat from the numerous vantage points you can use), mantises (as weak as ever), cazadores (as annoying as ever but we're pretty high level by now), yao guai (same as the White Legs), and some green geckos (the giant ones are dangerous, but, again, range is our friend). There's also some spore plants (based on venus flytraps) in a few caves and some out of the way areas, spitting poison at you from decent range, but they're little more than an annoyance. Lob a few fireballs in their direction and they'll burn fairly quickly.

So, we have two "civilised" New Canaanites (basically future Mormons) who are divided on whether the tribals they lead should fight for their land or leave it for a place where their enemies can't follow. And I can see the arguments clearly: the White Legs will never stop chasing them because they want to get in the legion, if the tribals fight them they will be no better than them, showing weakness only encourages the enemy to take a more offensive posture, constantly seeking war means you never stop fighting, and so on. But not even once does anyone suggest "hey, how about we ask the tribes what they think is best?" You know, maybe give them a bit of fucking agency? It's fine that they're not all uber-capable combatants like their Mormon friends or whatever, and if they decide to stay and fight they can ask for help with training and so on. This doesn't take away their agency. Or if they want to leave, they can ask for help with whatever supplies and equipment will help them, that's cool too. But deciding for them without even once checking how they feel about things is extremely condescending. Good thing they're just collections of 1s and 0s, but still. You *can* have a cool interaction with them, where you talk with one and use your intelligence to figure out bits and pieces of the mish-mash language they use when they're not speaking to you in English to make things simpler, but that's about it. It's all pretty interesting and people have asked the developers about the whole thing. The Dead Horse and Sorrow tribes came from a place called "Res" east of the Grand Canyon, a.k.a. the Navajo Nation in our world. Their ancestors were those who lived there, as well as tourists who got trapped there and in Utah when the nuclear war broke out. As such, the Dead Horses speak a pidgin of English, German, and Navajo, whereas the Sorrows seem to be using a pidgin of Spanish and English, and possibly a bit of Japanese. Which makes sense, if access to the rest of the world was gone.

The agitated bighorners are an interesting idea for a sidequest. If you stay close to them too long, they attack you, which would cause your companion to attack them back and if you (or your companion) kill too many, you fail the quest. Unfortunately (or fortunately), high sneak skill (e.g. the maximum of 100 one gets from using a Stealth-Boy) makes it impossible for them to detect you, and leaving Follows-Chalk further back means he can't be detected either and also won't attack, so this quest can be made very trivial.

The conversation with Follows-Chalk about "civilised" and tribal life basically makes him decide whether to leave his tribe and explore the wasteland or not. Minor spoiler here: both his endings are kind of terrible. Either he stays, becomes filled with regret, and gives up on his dream to explore distant lands, or he decides to go, argues with his family, leaves, and is never seen again. Honestly, the endings in this DLC are pretty terrible all around. You can get a decent ending for one character (our second companion, coming up soon) and for the Happy Trails caravan company, but everyone else has to endure whatever nonsense we cause. That's right, a company that isn't even in Zion is the only group we can actually help with a positive outcome. Which we won't. To do so, we have to side with Joshua and kill the White Legs, but I already did that in an even earlier playthrough, and I'm a complete and utter achievement hound. Therefore, Daniel gets his way. In some ways, I can't wait until I actually do my evil playthrough. Get into Zion, be ambushed, kill Follows-Chalk, the entire valley goes into a panicked frenzy, I murder everyone, and then just fuck off back to Vegas.

[Ythan]

I'm too busy to read but knowing this is waiting will help me get through the day.

[Ythan]

What do you think would happen when the Enclave showed up after the mutant ending in 1?

I still think about this sometimes. Do you think The Master would have discovered, and acknowledged, the Supermutants' infertility at some point on his own? I guess this is entirely speculation but it does seem like it would make a big difference.

[Mitillos]

Is he too single-minded to notice the lack of births? I think it comes down to that. I think he probably would notice, which then means we have a new question: What would he do about this? If he doesn't realise before a good chunk of humanity is mutated, then he has doomed the species and presumably kills himself like in Fallout. But what if he sees the supermutants are not fertile while there are still a lot of humans around? Does he give up on the plan? Does he try to modify the FEV and the supermutants? Does he keep a population of humans as breeding stock for creating supermutants? I think then it comes down to the morality of Richard Moreau. He couches his views in what he incorrectly calls logic, but he is just a misanthrope. This is completely unsurprising, given the fact that he comes from Vault 8, or in other words, Vault City. (s Imagine my surprise at learning that elitist, classist, slaver scum like them could cause the biggest threat to humanity since nuclear war /s). They kicked him out because he committed murder, so, yeah... I think the only answer I can give is: bleak.

[Ythan]

I do think it's likely he'd just keep looking for some sort of workaround until it was too late without someone there to drive the futility home to him.

[Mitillos]

Entirely possible. Which just goes to show, even if you're 5 guys (burgers and fries?) it's still a good idea to listen to other people.