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Let's Play New Vegas - Old World Blues

grotsnik

Arcane
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
1,671
Old World Blues

Yeah, I got a lot of time for Old World Blues. The developers referred to it, internally and in PR, as a 'Wizard of Oz' story. Which means jokey references (the player's main motivation is to find their heart, brain and 'spine') but it's also about tone.

See, Fallout 2 takes a lot of flak for all the silliness, but it really comes back to a fantastic and key element/serious, crippling problem with the gameworld itself; you've got this principle that funny nonsense, (i.e. in-game logic based on outdated science fiction), can be treated seriously as a major part of the lore. If you get overexcited and stretch that principle, you end up with talking plants and xenomorph-alikes in Fallout 2; if you're a tone-deaf hack and you stretch that principle, you end up with entire towns terrorised by fake superheroes in Fallout 3.

And so the more you add to the lore as the franchise expands, the sillier the gameworld gets and the closer it becomes to pure lulzy sci-fi shoot-em-up comedy. Which is something MCA, Cain, Sawyer and co. have openly showed concern about - Cain disliked 3's attempts at comedy, they all stated Van Buren would be a return to the tone of the original game, I think one of them even said they wished the humour had been removed from the start...

And what OWB does is use the idea of a 4 or 5-hour DLC adventure for something other than 'let's just get the interns to make a new dungeon, stick some new overpowered loot in and charge an extra fifteen dollars' - it lets the devs draw a big fat tonal line between NV proper and the crazy fantasy-land of the DLC, and then use the latter as a playground for all of the lulziest, Fallout-2-esque shit they can invent, without having to worry about diluting the tone of the main game.

Appropriately, it reuses a lot of ideas and characters from the Environmental Protection Agency, a cut location from Fallout 2 that would've been pretty much the culmination of the game's absurdities:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Environmental_Protection_Agency

It also shares some similarities with a couple of Van Buren locations (Boulder Dome and the starting prison, which itself had some of its identity mixed in with an earlier version of the Big MT).

Anyway, enough blathering.

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Following a radio signal boasting of a Midnight Movie Showing, close to Nipton, the Courier is surprised to find a giant flickering projection of an eye...and a crashed satellite.

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Aw, man. I was hoping it'd be Pink Flamingos.

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The slightly snarky tone is in response to complaints by players that they didn't know Dead Money was going to take their items away.

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As he activates the satellite, blue light flares up - and the Courier has a sudden premonition that he's about to be knocked unconscious and spirited to a faraway place through a contrived and never-properly-explained means of transportation!

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Noooootaaggggggaiiiiiiiin-

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Scientists of vision were drawn to the facility to tackle the greatest technological challenges of the era. They sought to create a new world, fueled by technology, for the benefit of all mankind. sonic emitters, space age alloys, DNA hybridization, force field particle research, Auto-Doc advances in cranial, cardiac, and trauma surgery... the hopes and dreams of a century became realities in the electronic forges of Big Mountain. The nucleus of this research was the Dome, a huge stone facility that held the labs of every science known to man. It was a think tank where no problem could not be solved, where no question could not be answered.

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The Great War brought a new energy to Big Mountain and its scientists. Although sheltered from the frontlines, the scientists waged their own war, fighting their battles at the atomic level. Equations and calculations marched endlessly across the chalkboards and computer terminals toward one solution: Winning the war.

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For years, the minds and computers of Big Mountain were a blaze of trajectories, weapon schematics, and nuclear theories. The problems began to outpace the solutions, first geometrically, then exponentially. As war escalated, so did the questions. On the night of October 23rd, 2077, the scientists received and answer that put all their questions to rest.

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In the aftermath, Big Mountain's silent experiments went to sleep, their creators slowly dying the new world that had been left behind. And the great stone in the middle of the Big Empty lay untouched, filled with countless technological wonders... Wonders that, in the end, had been answers to the wrong question.

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There's no real reason why our character would regain consciousness here, but we do get a rather lovely view of the landscape below.

Opening a nearby door, the Courier discovers...something he didn't expect.

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Meet the Think Tank, scientists extraordinaire and professional malapropists. They're pretty much the sci-fi equivalent of the wizarding faculty from the Discworld books - in that they seem to spend their time bickering, getting distracted and rambling on at length, failing to deal with their massive character flaws, and coming up with insane and hugely impractical inventions.

They can also be quite hard to tell apart - they all look pretty much identical, Borous' and Klein's voice actors sound quite similar, and for two of the big conversations they all 'speak' through Klein (which is pretty much just a way of getting around the fucking annoying 'only one NPC can speak in any given dialogue' mechanic). All of them have little stylistic tics that distinguish them, but for clarity's sake I'll use their pre-robot portraits.

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Dr Klein: leader of the gang. TALKS LIKE THIS.

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Dr Borous: experimenter on animals - loves them all, especially dogs, but has a tendency to make them deadly and violent. He's also virulently anti-Communist and obsessed with the bullying and alienation he suffered in high school. All of his dialogue starts with a dash and tend to suffer bouts of sudden melodramatic capitalisation.

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8: Speaks only white noise - the result of our old friend Elijah's reign of destruction when he came here. As per the R2-D2 Law Of Incomprehensible Robots, he's the sensible one.

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0: 0's voiced by an actor called James Urbaniak, from the Venture Brothers (which I haven't seen). Apparently he was originally intended to be a manic newscaster, but then got rewritten to make his character more focused on the fact that he's actually renownedly the least competent of the scientists and is downtrodden and unappreciated as a result, to the extent that no-one can remember his name. Which means he makes little out-of-place newscaster references all the time, but it's never really integrated into his personality. Goddamn rewrites. *conversation options appear inside asterisks*

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Dala: The girl of the group, Dala misses being human and compensates for it with a creepy quasi-sexual obsession about the human body itself, which she calls 'formography', and humans, who she calls 'teddy bears'.

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BE WARNED, INTRUDER! YOU ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE MIGHTY THINK TANK OF BIG MT, THE COLLECTIVE GENIUSES OF...WE...

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...BY OPPENHEIMER, WHICH OF YOU SELF-PROFESSED GENIUSES HAS BEEN ADJUSTING MY VOLUME KNOB? WHO WAS IT?! WAS IT YOU, 8?

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(Noises)

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...OH, DR O, WAS IT? A LIKELY STORY. O COULDN'T SPARK TWO NEURONS IF THEY WERE IN A LATTICE OF BIOMED GEL.

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*What? Me? Breaking news, Klein, it wasn't me, all right? I am the robotical engineer, 8 is soundwaves, that's his speciality.*

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*You always do this, you always demean me in front of guests! And it's not 'O', all right, it's-'*

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ENOUGH! EITHER OF YOU DO IT AGAIN, IT'LL BE THE LAST TIME! NOW...NOW...

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GREAT...I FORGOT WHAT I WAS SAYING...WHAT WAS I TALKING ABOUT?

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How are you all speaking through that one voice box?

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DID IT...DID IT JUST SAY SOMETHING? BOROUS, YOU WORK WITH ANIMALS. TRANSLATE.

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-It's a LOBOTOMITE! Here, in the DOME!-

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OH, AS IF THIS SITUATION COULDN'T GET ANY WORSE, NOW WE'VE GOT LOBOTOMITES. DALA, GET THE SPRAY BEFORE IT EXCRETES EVERYWHERE.

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Dr. Klein...if my hypothesis is correct, this Lobotomite is the repository of the brain we sent the signal to - the skinvelope containing it. If so, it's proof that there may be life beyond the Crater. Just look at it...the way it blinks. It's like a big hairless teddy bear.

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I KNOW WHAT IT IS, DALA. I WANT TO KNOW WHY IT'S DOWN HERE, WITH ITS...ITS LIMBS ALL OVER EVERYTHING.

If you don't like the banter of this very long conversation or you just want to get to the Epic Shooting Shit Bro If I Wanted To Read I'd Read A Book, there are occasional dialogue options that let you cut through the Think Tank's ramblings. But if Youtube's any judge, players who don't like dialogue won't even read the dialogue options, so they end up picking the first option they see, going through the conversation the longest way around, and complaining that it's boring. Serves the buggers right.

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AND ARE THOSE...PENISES I SEE WRIGGLING ON ITS FEET? DISGUSTING.

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I believe those are toes, Dr Klein. Little teddy bear toes. Penises are much larger than those tiny extremities...eh, not that I would know.

I think OWB is often genuinely very funny (Borous in particular made me laugh out loud a few times) but it repeats this 'sexually frustrated robots obsess about sex!' gag far too often, mainly with Dala but with a number of other characters as well. Personally, I think it starts to drag early on and never recovers.

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*I don't recall the human penis ever being that large.*

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It depends on one's own frame of reference, Dr O. Look at its little nose with its two orifices for ingesting oxygen.

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NOSES? BY THE GREAT STATIC, THESE LOBOTOMITES CONFOUND ME WITH THEIR SHEER NUMBER OF USELESS EXTREMITIES.

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NOW IT'S HOLDING UP AN ARRAY OF FULLY-ERECT HAND-PENISES. IF IT TRIES TO INSERT THEM, ACTIVATE VIVISECTORS.

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-Dr Klein, WAIT! I...I don't believe those gestures were random. Random AT ALL...-

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-It's been...following our conversation! The Lobotomite...understands us!-

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I agree with Borous' histrionic findings. This little Lobotomite is unusually attentive for something whose brain has been extracted.

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NONSENSE. LOBOTOMITES CAN'T COMPREHEND US.

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(Noises)

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*8, have you been at the Mentats again? If we slow down our auro-processo-receptors to understand this excretion, we'll all be rendered ignorant!*

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ALL OF YOU, POWER DOWN, SHUT UP AND LET ME PROVE ONCE AND FOR ALL HOW WRONG YOU ALL ARE. AS USUAL.

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LOBOTOMITE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? CAN YOU SPEAK?

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Yes. I'm guessing that crashed satellite was yours?

It's a bit of an unfortunate side-effect of focusing on the bickering of the Think-Tank that the player character's reduced to a bit of a quiet straight-man, and a lot of the dialogue options end up leading to the same result.

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THOSE WERE WORDS, WEREN'T THEY? IN THE FORM OF QUESTIONS. IT'S ASKING ME QUESTIONS. IS THIS SOME KIND OF TRICK?

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-Our efforts have turned against us! In playing GOD, we created a MONSTER!-

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Perhaps as we were ruthlessly lobotomising it with our cutters, we filled this skinvelope with...awareness. A teddy bear with new stuffing.

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*Wait. If what you're theorising is that this Lobotomite understands us...can reason with us...*

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THEN THIS MAY BE JUST THE ANSWER WE'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR. AT LAST, A CHANCE TO...

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-Dr Klein! A TRANSMISSION from the FORBIDDEN Zone! Coming right at US!-

Behind us, the big screen lights up.

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It is I, Dr Mobius, transmitting from my dome-shaped...dome in the Forbidden Zone. A Zone that is...yes...forbidden to you.

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Even now my deadly Robo-Scorpions swarm across Big MT with their pincers and pointy laser tails. Soon, all of Science will be mine.

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Even the technologies sealed in the Big MT research centres cannot save you. So cower in your 'Think Tank'. Wait, for the end.

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Uh...that's it.

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Goodbye.

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MOBIUS. ALWAYS THE SAME BROADCAST. HE'S CLEARLY MAD, DRIVEN INSANE BY HIS FLAWED AND IMPRECISE KINDERGARTEN-LEVEL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.

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*What are we going to do? There's no way we can breach the Forbidden Zone? There's robot scorpions everywhere!*

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-The FORBIDDEN Zone, where no brain has ever ENTERED. Or RETURNED!-

:love:

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Except Dr Mobius. And the technologies that could save us, they are out of our reach.

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AND DR MOBIUS MOCKS US. DID YOU SEE HIS CRACKED MONITOR? HE'S CLEARLY LET HIMSELF GO.

If you couldn't tell, Klein has a bit of an insecurity issue when it comes to Mobius, which is also signified by their names' significance (all of the other scientists' names are related to loops).

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(Noises)

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*What? Ask the Lobotomite for help? 8, I think you need the fluid levels in your logic-assist pumps checked.*

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If this Lobotomite responded, Dr Klein, then it is clearly intelligent, perhaps even displays heretofore unknown levels of helpfulness.

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-But what of its brain? We scooped that out! We don't even know where we left it! And as for putting it back in...none of us have that knowledge!-

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Yes, but it's still aware and responsive. Look at it...it's regarding us even now, with its big teddy bear eyes.

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If we ask it politely and leave the part about the unnecessarily ruthless lobotomising out, it might be favourably disposed towards us.

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Lobotomising? You lobotomised me?

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We removed your brain, yes. So soft. Barely wrinkled, yet so...flush with experience and knowledge.

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-Once the brain was out, then came the COILS...the TESLA COILS...the COILS of NIKOLA Tesla.-

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(Noises)

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*Yeah, 8, no need to brag. Wherever your brain is, it's transmitting thoughts to you through the...what...the...um...*

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-The TESLA COILS! In its HEAD!-

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This is fortunate in many respects. If your brain was anywhere in the Dome, why, you could access your aggression centres.

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CIRCUMVENTING THE PACIFICATION FIELD IS A NO-NO. WE HAVE NEVER BEEN IN A FIGHT. WE DO NOT WANT THAT.

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-Reminds me of my days in American High. And Richie Marcus...-

I don't know if Borous' voice actor recorded this line early on, but the delivery's wrong; he sounds nostalgic when he should be venomous and fearful.

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(Medicine) That doesn't explain the laser-sutures on my chest...and on my spine.

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I assume full responsibilty. I take my duties in the prodding and excision of living, breathing tissue quite seriously.

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Although, in truth, the Auto-Doc had done most of the work already. Quite industrious, almost cut into my investigations. Once it had removed the brain and I misplaced it, other organs began to cry for direction using your nerves as telegraph wires. Rather than let them send their signals, I removed them as well. Sssh, little organs. Go to sleep in your tanks. Dala loves you.

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-FIRST was the HEART...-

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-WAIT, I mean...SECOND was the HEART. Brain was first. THIRD...the SPINE...-

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If you ripped out my brain, where the hell is it?

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*The brain lost itself...not in the metaphysical sense. Might have gotten flushed into one of the pipes. Actually, I think that's fairly likely.*

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-If so, it was flushed all the way to Mobius. Fwoooooosh! That...is the sound of FLUSHING.-

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BY THE FISSURE OF ROLANDO...ENOUGH OF THIS BIOLOGICAL SURGERY TALK. LOBOTOMITE, LISTEN TO MY VOICE. IT DENOMINATES ME TO ASK, BUT...WE NEED YOUR HELP.

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IN MOST PROBABLE OF PROBABILITIES, OUR ENEMY, MOBIUS, HAS YOUR BRAIN. THIS IS NOT GOOD. HE WILL MOST LIKELY COME AFTER OUR BRAINS NEXT.

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WE WANT YOU TO STOP HIM. SOMEHOW. WITH SCIENCE.

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You said something about needing technologies to stop Mobius?

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YES. IT IS OUR ONLY CHANCE. A DESPERATE PLAN THAT CAME TO US AFTER MOBIUS' FIRST BROADCAST.

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MAYBE...JUST MAYBE...IF WE RECLAIM THESE BURIED TECHNOLOGIES, WE CAN PUT AN END TO MOBIUS AND THE HORRORS SPAWNING FROM THE FORBIDDEN ZONE.

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(Intelligence) What, exactly, is the plan? You're losing me in generalities. I need specifics.

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THE PLAN IS VERY COMPLICATED. WE ARE STILL CALCULATING HOW IT WOULD WORK IF IT SUCCEEDED. THAT IS OUR PART OF THE PLAN.

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I'll help. What do you need me to do?

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EXCELLENT. THIS IS TURNING OUT MUCH BETTER THAN THE ACTIVATE-THE-RETREAT-PROTOCOLS-AND-COWER-IN-MY-ROOM IDEA I HAD EARLIER.

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(Noises)

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8 IS CORRECT. ALL WE NEED ARE THE SCHEMATICS. THIS DOES NOT MEAN WE DO NOT WANT THE HARD, COLD TECHNOLOGY, HOWEVER.

This is the game's way of telling us that we're perfectly welcome to sell the 'technologies' we pick up without breaking the quest.

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SO DO NOT GIVE INTO YOUR BIOLOGICAL TIRED-LAZINESS AND DECIDE YOU WOULD SWEAT TOO MUCH CARRYING THEM. YOU HAVE A NEW SPINE. USE IT.

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AND EVEN IF YOU DIE IN THE ACT OF RECLAMATION, SIMPLY REACHING THEM WILL AUTO-TRANSMITIFY THE SCHEMATICS TO US. THAT IS STILL GOOD. ...FOR US.

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This whole place sounds dangerous. Those devices sound dangerous.

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NONSENSE. THIS PLACE IS NO MORE DANGEROUS THAN A NUCLEAR DETONATION SITE, OUR TECHNOLOGIES NO MORE LETHAL THAN AN OVERCHARGED TESLA CANNON.

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THE TECHNOLOGIES ARE THE X-2 TRANSMITTER ANTENNA ARRAY, USED TO FOCUS COHERENT THOUGHT AT EXCESSIVELY HIGH FREQUENCIES.

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-The psycho-analytic cardiac-dampening stealth suit, a suit like NOTHING this world has ever SEEN! Or could EVER see!-

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...and 8's Sonic-Soundwave-Emitter-Projecto-Gun, able to broadcast sound at lethal frequencies. It also gives a great biogel massage.

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THERE. WE HAVE INFORMED YOU OF ALL WE NEED. WE ESTIMATE IF YOU ARE FOCUSED, YOUR TIME INVESTMENT WILL BE MINIMAL. EH, BY OUR STANDARDS.

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IF YOU WORK QUICKLY, YOU WILL BE THE RECIPIENT OF A GESTURE OF GRATITUDE FROM US. WE DO NOT BESTOW THESE OLD-WORLD GESTURES LIGHTLY.

I know you get a different ending slide depending on whether or not you 'work quickly' (that is to say, if you explore the non-quest-related locations or not), but I haven't been able to find any mention the Old World item Klein's talking about. Doesn't matter, since we're going to damn well go exploring.

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What if I take my time, explore the crater?

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WHAT ILLOGIC IS THIS? KEEP YOUR FILTHY PENIS-TIPPED FEET OUT OF OUR LABS AND SECRETS!

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Guess I'd better get walking, then.

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The little teddy-bear could always run right into the pylon perimeter on its thick, turgid feet, returning it to us erectly - directly.

:roll:

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THE RADAR FENCE THAT SURROUNDS THE BIG MT CRATER WILL PREVENT - ER, PROTECT YOU FROM STRAYING BEYOND THE FACILITY.

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-The mighty radar fence protects us ALL! Get too close to the blinking posts, and the proximity warning shall be your...WARNING you are too close!

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*If you get near it, your vision will blur as the electrodes in your head shut off by one, click click click...*

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You see, if rendered unconscious by the pylons, you will be returned to the Sink, seemingly instantaneously by your deadened perceptions.

I don't know if at some stage the devs planned not to include fast-travel in the DLC, but since there is, the pylons are pointless.

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So I can't leave?

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*Oh, Dr Klein...Dr Klein? If I may intersect for a moment?*

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WHAT IS IT? THE LOBOTOMITE IS ASKING ME THINGS, O, AND I AM TRYING TO IGNORE THEM. MY PROCESSORS CAN'T IGNORE YOU BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.

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*Well...you know how we asked it to fetch the Sonic Emitter thing? Turns out we already have it. What are the odds?*

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WHAT IS THIS, A HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE FAIR?! GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER, YOU'RE MAKING US LOOK LIKE A BUNCH OF ROUND-EARTHERS!

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*You're always yelling! My receptors can't take it any more - and neither can my feelings!*

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I AM YELLING BECAUSE YOU CONTAMINATED SPECIMENS CAN'T KEEP YOUR PROBES OFF THE VOLUME KNOB ON MY VOICE MODULE!

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If you have the gun already, I don't understand what you need.

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IT IS TRULY THE END OF ALL INTELLIGENCE WHEN THE LOBOTOMITE SPEAKS MORE SENSE THAN YOU 'GENIUSES'.

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SO - IF WE HAVE THE SOUNDWAVE...SONIC PROJECT...PROJECT-O THING GUN...THEN WHAT IN HEISENBERG'S NAME DO WE NEED FROM X-8?! ANYONE?

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I believe we need a new frequency embedded into the gun. It was designed to broadcast many sounds once charged. We just don't know the frequency.

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-And it is LOST in X-8! Just as X-8 was forever lost to us! The sadness of my high-school days! The sadness of my YOUTH, LOST! LOST!-

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*Oh, really, Borous? All you did in high school was Commie fink tattle-tale on all the kids you hated, you little teacher's pet brown-hound.*

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GIVE. THE LOBOTOMITE. THE EMITTER.

Here follows a bit where 8 'sonjaculates' a soundwave into the gun and everyone acts like the sound is sperm. It's not very funny.

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(Guns) Got anything that spits lead?

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WHAT DID IT SAY? SPITS LEAD? WHAT, LIKE PENCILS?

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*Oh, I think it wants a combustion pistol.*

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-A GUN? Are you MAD? We can't give it a GUN. GUNS kill, leave big open holes in you that are like sores but WORSE.-

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(Noises)

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Dr 8 is correct. We have already given the teddy bear a lethal sonic death ray filled with his sonic ejaculate and sterilised by my soft wooWOOing. Giving the teddy bear a gun would be the equivalent of following a glass of hemlock with an Abraxo chaser. Delicious and redundantly deadly.

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IF WE'RE GOING TO BRING THE SOCRATIC METHOD INTO IT, FINE. GIVE THE LOBOTO-BEAR A COMBUSTION GUN. BOROUS? DON'T YOU HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THAT?

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-Yes, I have THE Cyberdog gun. With the little floppy metal ears and the curious nose sensor. Here.-

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FINE, DONE. THAT GUN MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE ANYWAY. ALWAYS AFRAID IT'S GOING TO HUMP MY CHASSIS. ANYTHING ELSE, LOBOTOMITE?

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FINE. BOROUS, MORE AMMO. THE GOOD STUFF.

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FINE. SO...YES. GET THESE THINGS FOR US. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND THEIR COMPLICATED SCHEMATICS. THAT IS FOR US TO DO.

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Oh, I'll be sure not to tamper with anything. I promise. ;)

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WELL. GOOD. WHAT ARE THE TOKEN WORDS SPOKEN IN THIS CASE? UH...'THANK YOU'? YES. THANK YOU.

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Wait - is it leaving? Uh, but Dr Klein, the Lobotomite will need rest. Recuperation. Things like that. I volunteer my chambers that it might be stared at, my monitor radars slowly scanning its form to collect sensitive data.

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-NO! That would put it too CLOSE to us! It could press BUTTONS, turn lights ON and OFF, and worse, let OTHER lobotomites in!

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*We could give it Mobius' old room. It's where its brain got scooped out anyway, and plus, some of its old parts are in there.*

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I SUPPOSE. WE'LL HAVE TO MOVE THAT COUCH OUT OF THERE. BEEN PUTTING THAT OFF FOR TOO LONG.

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THERE IS NO MORE WE CAN DO TO AID YOU AND OUR PATIENCE LEVELS ARE DEPLETED. NOW GO. REST IN THE SINK IF YOU MUST, BUT LEAVE US TO OUR RESEARCH.

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*Uh, if you're done, can we move again? My biogel's starting to crampagulate.*

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OF COURSE. GO MAN YOUR SCIENCE STATIONS! I AM SURROUNDED BY CHILDREN...

It makes sense to talk to the individual members of the Think Tank now, most of whom have plenty to say and mini-quests to offer. But that was a fucking long conversation, so instead we go check out our new pad.

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NEXT TIME: Robo-butlers, high school reunions, using science to create inhuman abominations and actual gameplay!
 

Kz3r0

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
27,012
An entire DLC dedicated to the Codex? :shock:
OH, MCA u so mad. :love:
 

anus_pounder

Arcane
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Mar 20, 2010
Messages
5,972
Location
Yiffing in Hell
Old World Blues is apparently known in some circles as 'Old World Dialogue'.

Anyway. :salute: :love: :salute:

All Humor and jokes aside. I, once again, really liked the ending slides for this DLC. As a matter of fact, I found all of the DLC endings a lot more interesting than the main game's.

about Dead Money said:
This dlc was a shit biscuit. Annoying enemies, annoying deathtraps, boring world, linear, stupid story,no side quests, hardly any new loot, and the main prize at the end was so heavy you could barely haul any of it out. What a tease

:thumbsup:
 

Peter

Arcane
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
1,570
:what:

We'll see how this goes. but right now it seems like it will be a lot shittier than the previous 2 DLCs.
 

RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
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Joined
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Messages
28,396
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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
Is this the Mothership Zeta of New Vegas DLC?
 

Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
Joined
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Messages
34,585
Location
Cell S-004
MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Btw, if you listen to the household objects banter, you can hear Muggy telling about how the Biologics Station raped him once.

RK47 said:
Is this the Mothership Zeta of New Vegas DLC?
No, it's actually great.
 

grotsnik

Arcane
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
1,671
19-3.jpg


First things first, we hook up with our posh computer butler thing and do some shopping. Our posh computer butler thing is intended in no way to sound like the posh computer butler thing from Iron Man.

Then we head out into the crater to do some exploring. I'm not sure how it compares exactly, size-wise, to Honest Hearts, but it's quite impressive all the same, far more open (and with a nice bit of variety to it, too). We also get a few new Tom-and-Jerry era jazz-songs to listen to us...which is all to the good.

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Periodically, one or another of the Think Tank will make an announcement via the speakers, but usually it's Mobius delivering slightly cack-handed threats.

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The map is filled with a number of goofy threats - lobotomites, cyberdogs, robots, nightstalkers, cazadors, and 'trauma suits', intended to transport their injured wearers safely to a nearby aid station...which have, of course, gone berserk, and which carry the skeletal bodies of their owners inside them. Of course.

You may notice that the gun we're holding appears to contain the brain of a dog, which is because it does. It also growls when enemies are nearby and whines mournfully when we put it away.

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There are plenty of non-quest-related locations to explore in OWB, too - definitely more than DM or LR, and unlike in HH, half of them aren't just repeated picnic areas and tiny shacks with a few token bits of loot in them.

If I've got a complaint, it's that too many of them contain different variations on the same theme. So in this area we get attacked by some Mr Handys and one named Mr Handy; in another area there'll be a named Robobrain and a couple of Robobrains, a named Cazador and a couple of Cazadors, etc, etc. It's a bit by rote is all. It's still far better than having locations filled with the same mobs, but maybe a bit more inventiveness could have gone into them.

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And so on.

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There are exceptions, though - like the Higgs Village, the scientists' old artificial home. There's nothing to fight here (unless you've got the Wild Wasteland perk, in which case you'll encounter Borous' tiny pet Deathclaw) but there are some useful items and you get to poke around in their houses, all of which contain some clues to their identity.

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0's house, for instance, contains smashed-up Securitrons and a portrait of Mr House with knives driven into it...

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And Dala appears to have smashed all of the mirrors in her home. Looks like someone isn't adjusting too well to being an immortal brain trapped in a freakish robot body.

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Our first quest-related stop is at the X-8 Research Centre - to find a new frequency for the nifty energy weapon we've been given.

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...apparently this place is Borous' domain.

A nearby computer terminal offers the option to 'splice Lobotomite and robot'. So, naturally, we take it.

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And receive XP for 'creating an abomination'. Huzzah!

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...unfortunately, the poor little fellow suffers some kind of agonising tearing apart at the molecular level and dies almost immediately. Ah, well. The pitfalls of science. (With the right holotapes, we can also use the splicer to create our own cyberdog mini-companion).

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It appears, in order to retrieve the frequency, we're going to have to go through some sort of test.

The doors whirr, and click...and we find ourselves transported into what appears to be an old American high school. A familiar voice rings out over the speakers.

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1BorousHuman-1.png
You may know me as the First Chief Researcher of Labs Z-9 and Z-14. There I fought valiantly to preserve rattlesnake DNA, and put it right where it belongs - in the husk of another feared predator!

1BorousHuman-1.png
Oh, and the tarantula hawk. Can't splice enough, I always say, especially if you can create the magnificent Cazador!

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The Sonic Emitter we're carrying currently has a critical hit bonus against robots - if we find different frequencies, we'll be able to alter it to provide different bonuses, while the frequency we pick up during this test lets us shut down forcefields with it, opening up new areas of the map.

1BorousHuman-1.png
Can you spell detention? DEATH-tention, that's what I call it. Commie-pinko-traitors, all!

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Now - I will send vicious cybernetic cyborg dogs through the corridors to weed all you traitors out. They will sniff out those of you who have chosen the COMMIE path.

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Especially YOU, Betsie Bright, who turned me down for the high school dance so you could go smoke with Richie Marcus!

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We have to gather classified information from three terminals in order to beat the test, while avoiding robots and cyberdogs - said classified information appears to be nothing more than a series of scornful attacks and character assassinations on Borous' high school nemeses, though.

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The cafeteria is closed, because...I didn't build one.

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Snatching up Borous' high-school grudges, we exit the test - we can run advanced versions of it again, for various bonuses, including the force-field-breaker. Borous' little speeches change, there are more enemies and the terminals are sometimes in different locations, but that's pretty much it.

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The residential test, it appears, involves something called 'Gabe'.

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Ah, yes, Gabe, my PET. I'd forgotten about him and all of the COUNTLESS experiments I did on him back in Higgs...

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I...see.

(Wild Wasteland has the cyberdogs playing poker, incidentally.)

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Gabe, as it turns out, is one helluva big cyberdog. The Courier doesn't intend to brutally blow his head off, but...things get a little out of hand.

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dweller-1-1.png
Why do things always explode around me? :(

A ten-second countdown ensues before a small explosion goes off, setting the roofs of the nearby houses alight. Since we can simply run back out of the level within around two seconds, this doesn't present a huge threat.

As we lift our trophy, (an audio recording of Gabe's bark) from one of his digging spots, Mobius' robo-scorpions attack. They tend to explode violently once they've been killed, which is a good reason to stay the hell back from them.

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Having picked up the first of the Think Tank's old technologies, we make our way back to the Sink and implant some of the holotapes we found in the wastes. First up, the 'book chute'.

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dweller-1-1.png
Eradicate sedition?

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Of course, Citizen! That's my duty and sole joy in life! All those books from before the War, full of treasonous, complicated thoughts!

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Just dump them in and lickety-spit, I'll have them pulped, scrubbed clean and pressed out again clean and white and sedition free!

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But those books are the last legacy of the time before! You can't destroy them.

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Citizen, that sounds dangerously seditious. If my reindoctrination module was installed, I'd take care of that for you. Sadly, that system was cut for budget concerns, so you'll have to perform your own indoctrination.

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Now, to begin with you'll need a cage over your head and a sack of Mole Rats...

Hurray for literary references!

So basically the Book Chute can 'wipe clean' old and ruined books, allowing us to fill them in again as skill books of our choice.

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Next we activate the jukebox, which has the personality of a small-time actor unconvincingly trying to be an old raspy-voiced Southern jazz-singer type. We can use him to upgrade the Sonic Emitter with five or so different effects (because the game imitates this by swapping out your old pistol for a new one, it also repairs the gun for you).

And then there's Muggy.

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...why do you want mugs?

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Why do you want mugs? Huh? You some kind of sick mug hoarder? Oh, God, give me the coffee cup, please! It's sitting in your pack, taunting me!

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Sorry...I'm sorry. I got a little carried away. It's just all those goddamn dirty dishes with no-one there to clean them! It breaks my heart!

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You sound a little obsessed with mugs.

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Of course I'm obsessed! They made me this way! You think I don't know how I sound? They programmed me to know that, too!

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They made me just to torture me. But you know, it's the neglect that hurts the most. 'Hey, everybody, let's turn ourselves into robot brains in jars!'

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You know how many coffee cups giant robot brains in jars use on a daily basis? Not fucking many!

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Oo-kay.

Should we be aspie enough to wish to wander the DLC collecting coffee mugs, Muggy will break them down into component parts. Upgrade him and he'll start doling out energy weapon ammo, which is far more welcome.

Anyway, we should probably apologise to Borous about his pet dog.

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dweller-1-1.png
Is this Gabe's bowl? I found it in the Higgs village.

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WHAT? Why...yes, it is. I used to leave it outside his dog-house, chock full of chems. Before the cybernetic modifications, of course.

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And...no matter how chemmed the food, he would always eat it. And his tail would always wag, even when...even when I...

1BorousHuman-1.png
You know, I am having the most perplexing feeling squiggling through my biogel. I can't quite pin it down.

dweller-1-1.png
(Speech) Sounds like Gabe really loved you.

1BorousHuman-1.png
No matter how awful my day had been, he...he was always waiting there. And when I would talk about Betsy, and how Marcus would beat on me and call me Sissy Smarty Pants, he'd just sit there, head on my knee...

1BorousHuman-1.png
If you don't mind, I'll take that bowl. Just need to remove it. Put it away. Out of radar range. For some reason, its similarity to the Crater-shape of Big MT is starting to fill up all available cognitive spaces...

1BorousHuman-1.png
That, combined with my own overwhelming feeling of having done something terrible...the two are hitting me with...unexpected force...

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As the man who wandered into Gabe's enclosure and blew his head off, the Courier feels he very much has the moral high ground here.

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It sounds to me as if you hurt someone who loved you very much.

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As odd as it is, I believe that is the conclusion. And...I wonder why it didn't hit me before, until I saw that memory in your hands...

1BorousHuman-1.png
This sensation is unpleasant, I don't care for it. I don't care for this place, either. And I feel as if we've...forgotten something.

A clue that there might be something more going on here than pissing about with lulzy robots, perhaps.

1BorousHuman-1.png
Still...it is no MATTER. Crush the feeling down...crush it down, push it into the loop, the...hmmm. YES. Forgotten. Almost. I do not need to REMEMBER any more, not today.

Well, that's healthy. Though maybe his life would be a little bit easier if he could do the same with his high-school memories.
 

grotsnik

Arcane
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
1,671
2-6.jpg


And so the Courier continues his exploration of Big MT, enjoying the various sights and sounds of the crater, as well as being periodically attacked by giant killer fucking monster robot things.

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His discoveries include a warehouse filled with holograms - and a message concerning someone very familiar.

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The hologram room contains a vivid beam of light; if the Courier wanders into it, he gets to lose control of his body, blacks out, and wakes up twelve hours later. I have no idea why you'd want to do this.

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A nearby meteorological station, defended by Mister Gutsies, contains a small model version of the Higgs village. You can begin an experiment to make it rain and receive some random, pointless loot in return. I have no idea why you'd want to do this.

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Far less shittily, the Courier also encounters an abandoned prison camp which appears to have contained Chinese prisoners of war, who were then used as test subjects; a few of the prisoners, feral ghouls with bomb-collars strapped to their necks, can still be found inside.

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In the watchtower, we discover Elijah's hideout, as well as a powerful energy weapon and a hint, on one of his journal entries, that someone (aside from the mysterious Courier) might have been watching him from the nearby ruins.

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If we investigate said ruins, we find Christine's hideout - including a sniper rifle. As soon as we pick it up, a couple of Lobotomites spawn in the valley below, giving us a chance to test it out.

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Hey, Lobotomite...don't lose your head!

DLDQK36.gif
Who are you talking to?

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I don't know. :(

Following the valley downwards, the Courier finds himself in a gorge, surrounded by curious red crystals.

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Entering the ruins of an old rainforest sanctuary, the Courier is set upon by spore carriers.

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Alas, spore Yorick - I knew him, Horatio, a man of infinite deadness.

DLDQK36.gif
...what's wrong with you? Why do you keep talking like that?

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Well, there's not really any dialogue outside the Think Tank in this DLC. I thought I'd, you know, keep things sharp with a few one-liners.

DLDQK36.gif
Yeah, don't do that.

dweller-1-1.png
You know, I'd have thought we'd have heard from another one of the developers by now. They can usually be relied upon to turn up during the duller moments and liven things up-

Leonard-Boyarsky-1.jpg
Hey, Courier, good to see ya.

dweller-1-1.png
Oh, wow, Eric Fenstermaker!

DLDQK36.gif
Psst. It's Leonard Boyarsky.

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Who?

DLDQK36.gif
So, er, Mr Boyarsky, do you have any insights you'd like to give us on the degradation of the Fallout franchise? What do you think about MCA's plan to nuke the setting?

Leonard-Boyarsky-1.jpg
I'm sorry, lads, I can't really talk about any of that. Fallout's been dead to me since Bethesda took the franchise and Troika died. But...uh...if you've got any questions about the richly textured world of Diablo 3, I'd love to answer them.

dweller-1-1.png
...nah, we're good, thanks.

Leonard-Boyarsky-1.jpg
Honestly, it's no problem. Did you know that the city of Caldeum is protected by the mighty Dune Guard?

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Look...Leonard...we've kind of got a lot to do. Exploring the crater and so on. Maybe later, yeah?

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Just quickly; the Gnarled Walkers. Sure, they may look like ordinary, dull-as-ditchwater treemen to you, but the lore actually makes it quite clear that-

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Oh, hey, I think I see a nightstalker I used to know in school. Better go...talk to it. See you around, Leonard!

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Wait! Guys! Let me give you a few snippets from Deckard Cain's journal! 'The events of the past year are unbelievable and have driven me to write again my thoughts.' Isn't that great writing? Guys? Guys?

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Some distance away, the Courier stops running.

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Whew. Thank God we're out of there.

DLDQK36.gif
Poor man. You leave Interplay because of asshole business decisions and you end up at the company making In-House Money No Mods DRM Constantly Online: The Sequel.

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Do you think he meant that? About Fallout being dead to him?

DLDQK36.gif
You kidding? Did you see the video for Troika's 'original' post-apocalyptic game? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYmQyHl2bc They were Fallout to their bones - hell, even after the burn-outs and the sell-outs, folk like Boyarsky and Cain could even come back to the setting. But not as it is now. No, not as it is now.

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It's time to pick up the next main quest item - a stealth suit.

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The facility's got quite a lot of secrets and exploring to do, including upgrades for some of our unique weapons and a kennel that appears to have been part of a nightstalker testing site. (Some of the little invisible bastards attack us in the process).

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There's also a VR room, which looks cool and has a bit of backstory to it, but which once again serves no real purpose.

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In order to make the 'stealth suit' (which currently gives us +15 sneak and can inject stimpaks automatically into us when our health is low, as well as providing annoyingly obsequious chatter) fully operational, we have to go through a sneaking test, avoiding robot sentries. With a Lockpick skill of 50, we only have to avoid two of them, so it's piss-easy.

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Completing the test gives an additional +10 to Sneak; we can, if we so choose (and we do) try it again at more advanced levels; second time around, laser beam tripwires are added (these can be disabled with 50 Science or Repair), third time around, proximity mines enter the mix, and finally, we're required to disable the robots themselves. All of this gives the suit bonuses to Agility, Perception, and Sneak Speed.

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Completing the tests also means that Dr. Mobius' irritating Roboscorpions mob us at the entrance. Fortunately, with our superior ability to jump over foot-high pipes, we manages to leave them stranded.

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Back at the Sink, we install some more of our new robo-buddies.

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More robot sex innuendo! Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Fuckssake.

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With the seeds we found in the rainforest sanctuary, the Research Station can transform this barren-looking lab into a greenhouse filled with handy fruit 'n' veg.

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We also activate an Auto-Doc; and this one can talk, no less.

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Aside from healing us (about as quickly and as effectively as the queen-sized bed a few feet away, in non-hardcore gameplay) he can also give us a few handy implants - though right now his abilities are pretty much limited to Change The Appearance Of Ur Mannequin Avatar Who You Can Only Usually See From Behind Anyway.

And then there's the Toaster. He's changed a bit from his EPA incarnation as 'a small, intelligent toaster with an IQ of 6000. All of its brain power is focused towards convincing humans to make toast. Dialogues with it will be somewhat one-sided, as the player will ask it a question, and it will respond with some question about whether the player would like toast or waffles.'

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Tremble? You're just a toaster. How fearsome can you be?

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A toaster is just a death ray with a smaller power supply! As soon as I figure out how to tap into main reactors, I'll burn the world!

The Toaster, much like Muggy, can break down various items around the DLC and turn them into energy cells and microfusion cells. The fact that it's much easier just to pick up the thousands of energy cells and microfusion cells lying around the place rather than finding scrap items and lugging them back to the Sink in no way invalidates his existence.

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Ooh, sarcasm!

Whatever. Let's go have a chat with 0.

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*O? Oh, yes. I'm not going to bother to correct you. At least you got the Doctor part correct.*

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Do you have another name?

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*Yeah, I do. It wasn't always 'O'. I had to take that one by default because sometimes it's easier to accept the mistake so long as the purpose works. I don't want to get into it. It's a sore topic.*

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(Speech) Sure? I'm a good listener. Got the ears for it.

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*Great. Psychology. Clearly the worst of the sciences, right after Colosto-Diarrhetics.*

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*Okay, so my name isn't O. Never was. It was circular, a single character digit, but not O. But even with enhanced sensors, no-one here could get it right! Always kept seeing the letter, not the number.*

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(Intelligence) If they kept confusing the letter with the number, your name's...Dr 0. Dr Zero?

0Human-1.png
*Yes! Thank you. How hard is that? Truth be told, my emotional attachment to it doesn't even register compared to just having people recognise the difference.*

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0Human-1.png
*W-what?*

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It's standard termlink code to distinguish the two.

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*Did...did I shoot myself with a brainial beam or something? That's brilliant! I mean, I would have come to the same conclusion. Eventually.*

These little side-quests with the Think Tank can come in useful should we need to win them over at the end of the game. As a reward, 0 can also provide the Courier with some scrap metal. He'll claim it's one of his great scientific discoveries, then admit it's actually just some junk that fell out of his side.

NEXT TIME: The third, final, and most terrifying Macguffin retrieval...is, in fact, embarrassingly quick and easy. There will also be Legendary Bloatflies.
 

CappenVarra

phase-based phantasmist
Patron
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
2,912
Location
Ardamai
In-House Money No Mods DRM Constantly Online: The Sequel
:) I guess nuking the franchise and waiting for the fallout to settle is the only option... Hell, I would even go for a semi-competent hybrid shooter/sneaker/whatever, as long as it played like Deus Ex or System Shock... instead of youknowwhatitsnamemustnotbespokenaloud.
 

grotsnik

Arcane
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
1,671
Lord Chambers said:
Where do you go to get your developer quotes and literary analysis?

Just...here and there, really. A lot of the Avellone stuff about blowing up the setting I got from a two-part Gamebanshee interview I read a while back; his explanation of the Dead Money problems came from his (sadly underpopulated) blog. I haven't really needed to use much of it, but Josh Sawyer usually answers questions about the game openly and honestly on his Formspring page - I think I've seen him talking about it on the Something Awful NV thread, too.
 

Brother None

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2004
Messages
5,673
grotsnik said:
A lot of the Avellone stuff about blowing up the setting I got from a two-part Gamebanshee interview I read a while back

This one! And this one! Yes I'm pimping myself (that interview was mostly me/my questions). Particularly that one on blowing up the setting was one I specifically asked because I feel the setting needs blowing up too. Not necessarily due to humor as to due to society developing too far and reaching post-post-apocalypse. By this rate, Fallout 5 will be straight sci fi.

Anyway, good LP! I didn't pay attention to it initially, but all the tidbits and commentary make it super-worthwhile!
 

CappenVarra

phase-based phantasmist
Patron
Joined
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Messages
2,912
Location
Ardamai

Wait... that requires 9 Intelligence? I think I just found a new endorsement for my CV: I also posses an Excellent Intelligence according to Mister Chris Avellone, a highly respected game designer. Spiffy!
 

grotsnik

Arcane
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
1,671
Just as I was putting the finishing touches to this insanely long, dialogue-heavy update yesterday, my computer blue-screened. I do want to get this part done before the Christmas break,, so if I appear to be having a mental breakdown at any point, that'll probably be why.

When we left off, we were chatting to the Think Tank. Let's have a word with 8.

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Or...er...not.

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8Human-1.png
(Noises)

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Well, the code's got some problems, I'm not arguing that.

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(Noises)

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I agree! If someone would take the time, you're more than just sound effects in a tank.

8 actually has two whole separate dialogue trees; one when we can't understand what he's saying, and one when we can.

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(Science) If it's Robco termlink protocol, doesn't that mean it can be hacked?

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(Frightened noises)

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Don't worry, I'm not going to take advantage of your exposed code.

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(Happy noises)

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All right, all right, quit your grinning, idiot.

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(Happy noises)

That was easy enough. Finally, we talk to Dala - we can open up her mini-quest either by bringing her a teddy bear or with Perception 8 graaah why is Perception being used as insight into the psyches of those around us when it at most should be about spotting something that isn't ordinarily visible in the PRACTICAL sense-

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I have a real teddy bear, if you want it.

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No. I like...teddy bears. Teddy bears come in many sizes. Your size is what intrigues me the most. Some say that teddy bears can't be living, breathing things. They are wrong. They are large, biological forms, breathing, heaving, snarling, coughing...mmmmm. Lobotomites are my teddy bears, oh, yes.

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(Speech) Oh, I get it. You like playing with humans, don't you? Watching them move? Blink?

AND WHY IS THIS A SPEECH CHECK IT SHOULD BE INTELLIGENCE OR EVEN FUCKING PERCEPTION BEFORE IT'S SPEECH-

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143px-DalaHuman-1.png
What...what are you doing?

We continue to erotically stimulate the robot by acting out its 'being alive' fetish, an experience surpassing anything you'd find in a Bioware game.

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Enough! I am...already intrigued.

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I don't know what it is about the biology of Lobotomites. It...infects my thoughts. All that skin, and muscle, and tissue...

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Why don't you just give in? There's nothing wrong with looking at the human body.

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Perhaps...perhaps there is value in what you say. I did so enjoy breathing once. Long ago.

And finally, before we head out, we install the last of the Sink personalities; a kitchen sink with OCD, and a couple of bickering female light-switches.

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Once we've installed all the personalities, we then get a new quest to pick up gun upgrades that can be installed in the Sink, then another quest to upgrade the Auto-Doc, then finally another quest to upgrade the rest of the gang. It's a bloody stupid way of doing things, especially as some of the upgrades are in the same places - so if you miss one of them the first time around (very easy; most of them are small white squares, but a few of them can only be accessed by clicking on an individual terminal entry) you'll have to go back through the whole cleared location again.

Some of them are worth getting (the gun upgrades are handy, and the Auto-Doc upgrades include new implants and a re-spec opportunity, as well as cosmetic crap) but I didn't bother to track them all down.

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Finally, we head back out into the crater to find the last of Klein's technologies - located at the very top of a satellite tower.

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Right. So - to get the stealth suit, I had to pass a series of stealth tests. To get the gun upgrade, I had to pass the high school tests. I wonder what sort of mental or physical challenges I'll be facing for this final part of the main quest?

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Er...none. You'll walk into the tower, shoot a couple of robots, and then climb the stairs and grab the satellite antenna. It'll literally take you thirty seconds.

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You're fucking with me, right?

(Thirty seconds later)

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I really have no idea what happened here - if they ran out of time or they just couldn't think of a concept for the third test. Roboscorpions spawn in the tower, but there's also a handy back entrance that lets us avoid most of them.

Before we head back to Klein, let's finish exploring. A few places of note out of the 35 total locations:

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To the east, there's a facility containing cazadores and one named, fuckpantshittingly fast boss cazador. What makes it worth visiting is that for every 3, 6, and 11 cazadores you kill in Old World Blues, you'll receive a perk giving you 10%, 20% and 30% damage against them, respectively. (An Auto-Doc implant gives you an additional 10% on top of all of that - guess MCA really hated cazadores?)

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Since they only spawn relatively rarely and close to the facility, a lazy or bored Courier could easily miss out on all of this - but there's enough of the horrible bastards inside the building alone to get you 2 perks and halfway to the third.

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If we return to Borous' lab, having picked up the kennel key from the stealth suit lab, we can also go through the high school tests again, but with nightstalkers instead of cyberdogs. Completing it twice nets us a relatively measly 10% damage increase against nightstalkers, which we will probably never have to fight again. Hurrah.

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Close to the Forbidden Dome, we also locate another of Elijah's hideouts; this one contains something called a 'Jury-Rigged Tesla Cannon' and one final note from the man himself.

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Just beneath it, we also find something called a 'Mysterious Cave'.

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The cave is home to the Legendary Bloatfly; the name's an appropriate one. As well as a bloated health gauge, it also has a green goo ranged attack that can wipe us out in a couple of hits. Apparently it's the 'second most powerful enemy in the game', for whatever that's worth.

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The cave actually has two paths - take the left path, and you'll end up in the creature's lair, trapped in the open. Take the right path, and you'll end up on a handy platform where you can cheesily snipe at it from relative safety. When the beast finally falls, for our heroic efforts, we receive a fuckton of Bloatfly meat.

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God, that was pointless.

And finally, to the south, we find another hideout. Apparently this belongs to the mysterious other Courier. Weapons, supplies - and a couple of audio tapes.

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That's Christine speaking - in her original voice, of course.

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No denying that. Proof's in this crater, all around us. Your tribe, the Brotherhood - haven't met many of you. Wanted to. Thought you might be the last chance for the Mojave, the West, the East. But you're all the same mind, obsessed.

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Elijah is obsessed. He's mad. It's why they ordered his execution.

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Two are more alike than you know, too wrapped up in the wrong bits of history to see ahead. Not judging. I know how it is. People are like couriers, you and him. Sometimes don't even know the message they bring.

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You all had a new flag. Thought maybe new ideas along with it. What you believe isn't better than the Bear or Bull. No future in either.

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So says the man with the Old World flag on his back. America...the Commonwealth...burned away.

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America sleeps. And until it's dead, I carry it. Just like I carried you. More than hope. Belief.

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There's voices here in the Big Empty. I want to talk to them. Not like your Elijah did. Got questions. Want to hear history give its answer.

Maybe not that last line so much, but I actually think some of Ulysses' dialogue here is a lot stronger than a portion of his 'proper' dialogue in Lonesome Road. He's a very...Avellonian-ly portentous character, and in his worst moments that can feel like it's favouring a sombre, 'visionary' manner of speech without actually having genuine depth behind the words ('Traps Work Both Ways' syndrome, if you like) Anyway, on to the second tape.

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...didn't think you'd make it back.

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Almost didn't. Got my answers. Your Elijah, he met the Gods of this place, did a good job of making them question the way of things.

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Do you know where he went?

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He's gone to the Sierra Madre. That's a special kind of hell. He won't come back. Someone smarter, tougher's going to kill him. If the Madre doesn't.

Blatant, rank player-flattery, of course, but it's still neatly done.

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I have to go after him.

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Not going to talk you out of it. Know what it means to track someone you share a history with. Got a meeting of my own.

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That Courier?

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Get him to come to me. Got a message for him, like the message he had for me.

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Make them walk the road west, straight and true, sink their feet in Old World ash. Let storms tear at them. See the Divide. See what happened.

A rare bit of what seems to be genuine error in the dialogue - this line doesn't gender-distinguish while the rest of his speech does.

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The Divide? There's nothing there.

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Nothing there? Like the Big Empty? The Sierra Madre? No, the Old World sleeps there, sure as the flag I carry. The Courier knows the way.

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Ulp. Time to see Klein about those technologies, I guess.

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I found all the technologies.

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JUST NEED TO ANALYSE THESE TECHNOLOGIES FOR A MOMENT. THEY ARE EXTREMELY ADVANCED, YOU KNOW. ER...UM...

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...do you even know what these technologies do?

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I KNOW HOW THESE TECHNOLOGIES WORK. OF COURSE I DO. IF YOU REMEMBER, WE DESCRIBED THEM BEFORE IN CLEARLY ABSTRACT, CONTRADICTORY STATEMENTS. WHY WOULD WE DO THAT IF WE WEREN'T...CERTAIN...OF...JUST GIVE ME A MINUTE. I'M SURE I'LL FIGURE IT OUT.

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SO YOU'RE SAYING...IT'S THE X-2 ARRAY, NOT THE ANTENNA I SHOULD BE EXAMINING? THAT WAS...MOST LIKELY MY PLAN, YES.

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I HAVE IT. THE OVERRIDE SEQUENCE TO OPEN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE DOOR IS HIDDEN IN THE SCHEMATICS. WELL, NOT HIDDEN. IT'S ACTUALLY RIGHT THERE, BEHIND THE PROGRAMMING EQUIVALENT OF COFFEE STAINS...

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THE DOOR SHOULD BE UNSEALED. NOW, INSTEAD OF BEING SUBJECT TO THREATS, WE CAN DELIVER AN EQUALLY THREATENING MESSAGE TO MOBIUS. AND THAT MESSAGE IS SCIENCE! GO, DELIVER THIS MESSAGE - AND BIG MT SHALL BE FREED FROM MOBIUS' REIGN OF TERROR!

As we set out towards the Forbidden Zone, Klein gets on the loudhailers once again.

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Unfortunately, Mobius doesn't appear to heed the warning; the entrance is swarming with an exasperatingly high number of Roboscorpions. Presumably we're supposed to use the stealth suit to sneak past them, but...er...we sort of spawned right on top of them.

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So we run into the Forbidden Zone instead.

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Whew! Thank fuck, I don't have to fight another one of those-

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:roll:

Thankfully, the higher levels of this area contain a number of terminals, all offering different ways of helping distract or destroy the giant mechanical monster and its radiation-increasing weapons.

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Drones can distract it, electrical explosions can damage it, turrets can be activated to fire on it, and finally, it can be disabled entirely via a Very Hard terminal in the far left side of the room.

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Or we could just, y'know, shoot it.

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Once it's dead, the doors open up - and we move on into a room that strongly resembles the Think Tank. There, the dastardly Mobius awaits.

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You seem familiar, somehow. I'm guessing...eh...you're here for your brain, perhaps? It's just up there. Such a nice brain, young, very bright. A little hard to see you...could you move into my left...er, right FOV cone? Ah, that's it, you're coming into focus nicely. Would you like a Mentat?

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To file under 'Amusing Little Things Nobody Will Ever See', we get the 'mixing with alcohol' dialogue option because we drank whiskey just before. If we were on drugs of some sort, we'd get a line about tripping instead.

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You know...you're not what I thought you'd be like.

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Really. That implies pre-conceived notions - theories and a hypothesis about this meeting? Please extrapolate. What was I...supposed to be like? After all, it might be worth a cognitive re-alignment if your theoretical Mobius is better than I.

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Why did you send that threatening message to the Think Tank?

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Oh, I was probably tripping hard on Psycho when I sent that. Had to work myself up to it, not usually violent. Can't have them leaving, you see - some reason for it. Ethics - or con-science?

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Everything you've told me doesn't add up - even your name, 'Mobius'.

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'Dr Mobius' - rather catchy, isn't it? It's my new name, overwrote the old one. I believe your brain expressed incredulity at the nature of such an appellation. 'Someone's been watching too many Old World science-fiction movies,' it said. I believe it was referring to me. I must admit I have a weakness for holotape fantasies of robots and planets and all that is forbidden...

Forbidden Planet's the obvious reference here, but the business with the brains is more related to the 1957 D-movie dud 'The Brain From Planet Arous', which I think MCA claims to have shown in one of the DLC's scrum meetings.

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As for the name I was born with, like the Think Tank, we were all programmed to forget them, take on new names. It enforces the recursion loop in our programming.

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(Science) You reprogrammed their names as part of a recursion loop? What, to trap them?

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Now 'trap' is a harsh word. Like 'excrement'. Not an inappropriate word, mind you, but harsh. But...yes...I did take some liberties with their programming. It's all right, they don't remember.

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A recursion loop is designed to prevent the flow of information. So...

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The Radar Fence to keep the Think Tank hemmed in here wasn't really enough. They keep testing things, they would have found a way to disarm it. So I had to do something to keep them occupied here. Or, as you say, 'trapped'.

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(Intelligence) Klein, Mobius, O, 8...they're all loops, I get it.

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You figured it out! No pun intended. Dr O, Ouro-borous, Klein...they have all forgotten themselves. And not only themselves, but the world, sense of time, and history. All that is left is what's here. I reprogrammed their chronometers, geometers and cartography programmes. Now here is their world, Big MT.

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It was a merciful lobotomy, really, looking back. They were my friends, but...sometimes they would take things too far. And the world isn't ready for that kind of thing-too-far-taking, in my professional opinion.

Cazadores, nightstalkers, lobotomies, killer robots, trauma suits that kill...yeah, maybe Mobius has a point here.

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Why can't the Intelligence check be used more often for its true purpose - pointless, nasal pedantry? EDIT: Hang on a sec, it isn't even Ouroborus, it's Ouroboros.

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If you lobotomised the Think Tank, why terrorise them?

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Well, it's simple. Despite their many failings, they are rather bright. Without something to distract them, make them afraid, they would simply deduce what happened. And when they start deucing it up...

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But there must have been other signs of a larger world.

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There have been other visitors, yes - but you were irrefutable proof that there was a world outside. And then there was the whole brain fiasco, which forced me to take steps. See, your brain had a unique wrinkle that they had never thought to try in all of their escape attempts.

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You may note that the game is now just openly using Perception in the place of Intelligence. Which is fine. I am fine with this. Note my utter calm and lack of psychotic raGe. I mean, fuck it, why not? Let's have Agility checks for Charisma, Energy Weapons checks for Speech, Spellcraft for Unarmed, the lion lying down with the lamb, rains of frogs, cats with three heads. This is the end times.

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Yes. Very good. I should have Mentats ingest you instead of the other way around. Bullets in the head are usually more fatal, and yours was a very mild case of bullet-head-itis. But it was enough for the Auto-Doc to alter its programming, and so the brain extraction, for once, worked. That gave the Think Tank knowledge they couldn't...shouldn't...shcouldn't possess. With that knowledge, their own lobotomies can be reversed.

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If they do so, they can use their newfound knowledge to slip past the Radar Fence, I'm sure of it.

Then we'll just have to stop them. We can't have the Think Tank in the vanilla game, they'd totally fuck up the tone.

But first things first - let's retrieve our brain.

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Are you...my brain?

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Ah, lovely, figured that out, have we? Would you like a cookie?

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There's no need to be so sarcastic. Meeting your own brain is a slightly odd event.

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Yes, well, believe me, the opposite is equally true. Good Lord, have you bathed at all since they pulled me out of you?

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All good answers, but none so succinct as,

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Why are you such a dick?

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Well, there's a fine how-de-do! Me, a quote dick unquote? As if I'm the one responsible for the way you carry on, gadding about the Wastes. I'm not the one that makes us clamber around tetanus-infested Vaults or go charging off to New Vegas on ill-conceived missions of revenge! And have you forgotten who got us shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave, hm? Do you think I enjoyed that little moment?

No matter who we are, our brain will be a male, prissy type, but there are plenty of smaller variations. If we have one of the sexy perks, we can flirt with it, freaking it out, if we're dumb we can infuriate it - if we have bad karma it'll be more malevolent (no, I don't know how anyone manages to have bad karma in New Vegas without being a uterus-eating serial killer in waiting).

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Of course you're responsible! You're my brain!

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I most certainly am not! I am the seat of all reason and logic in our little partnership. All those...feelings that motivate you, that sense of righteousness and rush you get when you help someone, you know where those come from?

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Glands. They come from glands. Free of the tyranny of your ape-like and primitive endocrine system, I can see how foolish your motives are.

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(Medicine) But you're the source of most of those glands. Unless you're arguing my thyroid is to blame.

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I...well, look, it's all a very complex system of biofeedback and things I wouldn't expect you to understand.

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Are you going to get back in my head or not?

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I'm not going to lie to you - the prospect is not all that appealing. Here, I have peace, quiet and safety. In your head, I've got poison, radiation, grisly injuries and biological function. Do you know how much more you can get done when you're not constantly looking for places to urinate? It's a lot, I can tell you.

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But what about the good things? What about a cool breeze on your cheek...the smell of food...love?

So it's come to this. I plug myself into a virtual reality game so that my avatar can lecture its own brain on how much it enjoys the senses that aren't present in the game and which it doesn't possess, and one of the deepest and unfalsifiable of human-to-human relationships which it cannot ever experience. Once this LP's over, I'm going to go live in a fucking tree for a year, and plait my beard with sea-shells and write a song about Mother Earth and how modern culture makes us lose touch with reality, all while taking an obscene amount of hallucinogenic drugs.

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Overrated biological feedback. Believe me, you only feel that way because you're oozing with hormones.

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(Speech) Isn't it just as true that you only feel that way because you're lacking those hormones?

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Hmmm...I suppose you're right. That does call all sorts of assumptions into question, doesn't it?

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We have to trust each other and acknowledge that we aren't complete if we're separated.

We don't actually have to convince our brain to rejoin us - if we leave it in its jar, it'll hang out, humming a little tune, having a whale of a time.

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Well...I suppose you've convinced me well enough. I'll rejoin your body if that's your final decision. Unfortunately, we have a problem - the Think Tank will want me for themselves. Once I'm delivered into their clutches, they'll find a way past the radar fence and then the whole Mojave will be their playground.

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(Speech) You're part of me. You know I don't want that to happen any more than I do.

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Well, I suppose I do miss those endorphin rushes when we save the day. All right - what's the plan?

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If the Think Tank won't hold up their bargain, we'll make them. Let's go.

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Right! Look out, Think Tank! This brain is coming out of its jar!

Leaving Mobius to his devices (we can fight him if we want, but it seems a bit unfair on the kindly old duffer), we return to the Sink - where we can use the Auto-Doc to replace our heart and spine, gaining new perks in place of the old ones.

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...this ain't good.

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THE LOBOTOMITE RETURNS. HAS DR MOBIUS BEEN DENOMINATORED INTO SCRAP METAL AS REQUESTED?

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I'm not handing my brain over to you, Klein...there's some things we should discuss.

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AND WHAT COULD WE POSSIBLY HAVE TO DISCUSS? WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. YOU HAVE THE BRAIN. ALL YOU NEED DO...IS SURRENDER IT. WITH IT, WE CAN FINALLY LEAVE. I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW BORING THIS PLACE GETS, CHOPPING UP THE LANDSCAPE AND EVERYTHING IN IT. AND WE HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR BRAIN ABOUT THIS...MOJAVE PLACE. A FERTILE TESTING GROUND FOR OUR EXPERIMENTS.

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Maybe you should confer with your colleagues first.

Yeah! Take that, Klein! The Courier's played his badassest card...calling for a committee, motherfucker.

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Dr Klein...I must intersect. Please...do not harm the Lobotomite.

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I'M NOT GOING TO HARM IT, DALA, I'M GOING TO DISSECT IT UNTIL IT'S DEAD. WHY THE SUDDEN INTERSECTION?

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*Klein...uh...you know, the Lobotomite? It's a great sounding board. It's...well, it's got good ideas.*

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SILENCE, DR O-

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*You know what, Klein? Stick a straw in your tank and suck yourself. And my name is Zero - a big, fat zero with a slash through it. The Lobotomite taught me that. Taught me a name is more than...um...that I should take pride in...things. Like names...and...and I hate you, Klein. And your theory of brainal beam oscillation? The Chinese came up with it first, you copycat!*

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(Noises)

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ET TU, 8?

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(Extended noises)

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A NOBLE SPEECH, BUT THERE IS NO ROOM IN MY VOCABULATORS FOR 'FRIEND' AND 'LOBOTOMITE' IN THE SAME SENTENCE. THE VERY IDEA IS...REVOLTING.

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-If I may, I believe I must be the voice of reason here. This Lobotomite is much like us, regarding animals and even pets as avenues to promote Science! There is good here, Klein-

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WHY AM I EVEN LISTENING TO YOU MUTINOUS FOOLS? I COUNT AS FIVE. LIKE THE MIGHTY HUMAN HAND I ONCE HAD, WITH ITS FIVE PENISES CLENCHED IN A FIST-

Well, we've got the rest of the Think Tank on our side, but let's see if we can't talk Klein down, too.

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(Speech) (Lie) You think I am the Lobotomite? No...for my skull houses the BRAIN OF MOBIUS!

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THAT IS THE MOST INSANE THING I HAVE EVER HEARD. THERE IS NO WAY SUCH A THING COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED. IT'S UNPOSSIBLE.

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YOU...SPEAK THE TRUTH. AND THE DECIBEL VARIATION IN YOUR VOICE...IT IS MOBIUS. HOW DARE YOU BREACH THE THINK TANK? WHAT DO YOU WANT HERE?

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He...er, I...offer a DEAL. Stay HERE. Stay PUT, and he...I'll let you live.

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THAT'S NO DEAL AT ALL! THERE'S A WHOLE WORLD OUT THERE BEYOND THE CRATER, FILLED WITH IDEAS AND POSSIBILITIES! WE COULD HAVE ESCAPED, SEEN IT ALL FOR OURSELVES, TESTED IT, PRODDED AT IT, MADE IT SQUIRM.

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I will PERMIT you to do this. For ME.

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PARTNER WITH YOU? MY FOE? MY RIVAL? MY FOREMOST CRITIC? I HAVE A STRANGE SENSATION THAT...I WOULD LIKE THAT. HOW ODD.

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VERY WELL...PARTNER. THE THINK TANK IS AT YOUR SERVICE, SO LONG AS YOU DO NOT DESTROY US.

And that's it. Klein and the Think Tank back down, returning to their posts. (We could have just lied to Klein from the start, which would've meant a short and rather anticlimactic ending). Our brain pops back into our head, giving us the Big Brained perk - a DT improvement, a resistance to addiction, and an inability to have our head crippled. And we can now return to the Mojave, though we can also come back to Big MT at any time. The first time we do, the ending slides pop up:

As it had been in the years before the Great War, Big MT... the Big Empty... became home to one of the brightest minds of the 23rd century. The Courier watched over the Big Empty for years to come, caring for it, and keeping its discoveries safe until they were needed to help others. Which had always been Big MT's purpose. Past the laboratories and Science, it had always been intended as a place to build the future of all mankind.

The Sink Central Intelligence Unit was impressed by the amount of exploration the Courier had undertaken. Facilities believed lost, destroyed, or ones that had simply gotten up and walked to new locations had been re-discovered by its intrepid new master. Internally, the artificial personality debated as to whether it preferred the old management to the new... and concluded that the Courier's thorough approach to research and investigation was admirable and worthy of its respect.

The ending slides for OWB are often great - but they're also very peculiar. For some reason, all of the Sink robots get their own individual, conditional endings, sometimes with three different variables (including the cyberdog you were fairly unlikely to have picked up in one level and used for the duration of that level only). But none of the Think Tank do, and as far as I can tell, the slides refer to the Courier repeatedly as being smart, even a genius, even if he's an Intelligence 1 dimwit.

Dr. Mobius continued his research undisturbed in the Forbidden Zone. As much as he had attempted to create better scorpions, he tried the same with humanity, with considerably less success. These failures didn't bother him overmuch. Once the rush of Mentats wore off, he forgot he had failed in any event. After all, the bright young mind who had come to visit him in the Forbidden Zone had already exceeded his expectations.

The Sink atop the Dome bustled with the voices of a small town, constantly chirping, arguing, and snarling at each other. Still, this all happened productively in the interests of its new owner. The Sink Central Intelligence Unit discovered, despite its inversion code, it was comforted by the sense of community the other personalities gave it.

The Biological Research Station, obsessed with seeding everything in sight, requested a transfer to the X-22 Botanical Garden... so that it might, in its own words, "sensually fertilize the garden's smooooth contours." The Garden sent back a polite refusal, saying it had prior commitments with a Vault it had helped infect before the war.

The Book Chute continued to devour all seditious materials until it nearly choked on a paper clip. It adamantly maintained it was a Chinese paper clip, and the whole thing had been an elaborately orchestrated assassination attempt. Whatever the reason, it slowed down for a while, carefully appraising each document and clipboard that came to it.

The Toaster continued its psychotic spree, reducing all appliances in range to scrap electronics and spare parts. After one of its more psychotic episodes, however, the other Sink personalities decided enough was enough, and dumped the Toaster in a bathtub. Sparking and hissing, the Toaster swore its enemies would rue the day when they had bread - and no way to toast it.

Couriers with bad karma will teach the Toaster his malevolent talents - the appliance will go on a rampage, eventually setting up a Blood Shrine in a nearby cave and beginning a brutal, primitive religion based on the destruction of other kitchen units.

Muggy did his best to collect coffee cups, although in his quest, he accidentally trapped himself in Higgs' Village. It might have been the end for poor Muggy. Except... he found it peaceful there, tidying up the kitchens of the Think Tank Professors back when they had been flesh and bone. Well, except for Dr. O, who was an asshole for having created Muggy in the first place. Muggy left O's house deliberately dirty, punishing the dishes and cups that lived there in blind revenge for serving Dr. O.

Blind Diode Jefferson, with sounds the Courier brought him, created a symphonic counter-frequency that saved Big MT from sonic invasion in 2910. If you didn't hear about it - good.

Odd fact; 2910 is the furthest forward the Fallout timeline goes, to date.

Auto-Doc, always gentle and methodical, kept sewing up the Courier in all the right places when the skin split open from repeated wear and tear. The Auto-Doc was just glad to have purpose again. It heard its simpler brothers and sisters who got shipped to the Sierra Madre were bored out of their skulls in that toxic, dead city.

As the Courier ran through the X-8 facility multiple times, the computers analyzed the test subject's movements. Rather than performing a superficial observation, they realized the subject barely knew what Communism was - or even what a high school was. This confused them for a time, until the facility finally realized that its research had... succeeded. So it let its cyberdogs out into the wastes to help protect small communities from physical aggression rather than communist propaganda.

The infiltration program in X-13 felt spent, having repeatedly upgraded the Stealth Suit until it could upgrade it no more. It felt warm, fulfilled, and a bit sluggish. It realized not long after, the Stealth Suit had left it without so much as a note on the nightstand. So the infiltration program sent out robobrains into the wastes looking for its wayward technology. It eventually found REPCONN HQ, and set up a new research center, testing and murdering Fiends who kept breaking into the facility.

The Courier, organs intact, continued onwards, a little less heavy of step, but with all the organs in the right places. As they should be. After all, brains can develop a life of their own when left to their own thoughts, and the Courier's brain was more clever than most.

Dr. Klein and the Think Tank remained alive, unaware of the world outside. They looped through their daily routine, none the wiser about the world beyond... although perhaps "wiser" was the wrong word. The world outside belonged to the Courier, and if anyone would shape it... well, the Courier had already called dibs.

There is an expression in the Wasteland: "Old World Blues." It refers to those so obsessed with the past they can't see the present, much less the future, for what it is. They stare into the what-was, eyes like pilot lights, guttering and spent, as the realities of their world continue on around them. Science is a long, steady progression into the future. What may seem a sudden event often isn't felt for years, even centuries, to come.

In the times following the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, however, Old World Blues took on a new meaning. Where once it was viewed as a form of sadness, nostalgia, it became an expression describing the potential for the future. It can be easy to see Science as evil, technology unchecked as the source of all ills, all misfortunes. With the Courier at the helm, Science became a beacon for the future. There was Old World Blues, and New World Hope. And hope ruled the day at Big MT.

Sink Central Intelligence Unit: We could say more, but the stories in the Big Empty speak for themselves. Now armed with the Transportalponder, the Courier could return to the Dome at any time and crack open the secrets of the Big Empty, one by one. The Sink sat vigilant, waiting for its master to return, shoes covered in Mojave dust. Only one road yet remained, and it was one the Courier had to walk alone.

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Right. About time. I'm heading to the Divide...to meet this other Courier, and hear his message. MCA will be there, too.

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Courier, you're no fool. Surely you know it's a trap?

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Indeed I do.

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But as someone once told me...traps work both ways.

END OF OLD WORLD BLUES.
 

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