Fallout 3: End Game

Welcome to the final installment of Fallout Week.

I didn’t originally plan to write this last post, but it occurred to me that telling how my unique Fallout 3 misadventure ended is probably an expected (and logical) conclusion to this blog series.

*WARNING: SPOILERS*

DISCLAIMER:  What follows is the account of how I dealt with the situation - to the best of my moral understanding, as though I was actually there.  Keep in mind that outside of how the people reacted to me, everything I said and did were entirely my choice.  It didn’t have to play out this way… at all…

WASHINGTON D.C.

Several people had warned me not to rush the storyline because I would miss out on so much of the world.  I took the advice a little too much to heart. Two months later, I was getting bored.  Even after 50 hours of free-roam, I had not visited even half of the playable map.  It was time to finish the game.  Next stop, Washington D.C. 

D.C. was no different than the rest of the wasteland, just more concentrated.  Feral ghouls infested the city understructure and subway system, while the surface was a contested warzone between human factions and the Super Mutants.

Super Mutants are hard to take down.  The 8-10 foot tall brutes don’t believe in the whole, “Ask questions first, shoot later.”  No, they operate off the idea of “Shoot first, keep shooting, charge the pesky humans, and then bash them, bash them to goo!  Kill!  Kill!  Kill!” 

That is to say nothing of the Behemoths…

I was being escorted by a faction known as the Brotherhood of Steel to their base when one of the juggernauts attack us.  The thing was 20 feet tall!  It was knocking buses over like they were end tables and letting them explode against the surrounding buildings.

Yeah, you try to fight one of those!

Needless to say, D.C. is a hard place to navigate.

With the aid of the Brotherhood I eventually located my father (voiced by Liam Neeson), and discovered why he left the fallout shelter that was our home.

PROJECT PURITY

My father was working with the scientists of Rivet City to finish a massive water purifier.  If successful, it would use the Jefferson Memorial as a hub to purify all the water in the Tidal Basin and rid it of its toxic radiation.

Make a long story short, we visited the Jefferson Memorial to get things underway when the Enclave, under the direction of the self-proclaimed President Eden, infiltrated the building in attempt to steal Project Purity out from under us.  Being the heroic guy that he was, Liam Neeson went ahead and flooded the chamber with radiation, sacrificing himself in order to take down the Enclave soldiers and give us a chance to escape.

Sad, but maybe it was for the best.  Just before he died, Daddy-o was starting to ask questions about Megaton that I didn’t too much appreciate.

We fell back to the Citadel, the stronghold for the Brotherhood of Steel.  From there I was directed to locate a device called the G.E.C.K. inside Vault 87.  It was the vital piece of equipment needed to power the purifier.

The G.E.C.K.

Vault 87 was destroyed.  Half of it was flooded with so much radiation that there was no way I could access it without looking like a hamster left inside a running microwave… try not to picture that.  Of course, guess where the G.E.C.K. was sitting.  Yep…

Vault 87 also had become a medical experiment lab like the ones you find in those type of horror films you’ll never find me watching.  One of the patients (a.k.a. “victims”) had been horribly deformed by contaminants until he had morphed into a Super Mutant.

Well that explains that.

Trusting that I had the gun power to drop the brute, I agreed to free him of his prison in exchange for his help.  Having a high tolerance to radiation, the big boy was able to casually waltz into the aforementioned “microwave” and retrieve the G.E.C.K.

That was nice of him.  I let him live.  However, before I escaped the vault, a flash grenade knocked me out, and the Enclave took me hostage.

RAVEN ROCK

I awoke in the very metallic, futuristic facility of Raven Rock.  Without escort, I was allowed to enter President Eden’s chamber upon his summons.  Eden, it turns out, is a computer terminal that had at some point become self aware, and then directed all its energy towards protecting the American people.  The Enclave followed his will.

He set for me because he, like everyone else, needed my assistance.

Very simple.  Project Purity would slowly decontaminate the water in the Tidal Basin.  All Eden wanted me to do was add an agent to the filtration system that would attack foreign cell structures.  In other words, kill anything that wasn’t human - namely ghouls and super mutants.

I spent the longest time deciding what I was going to do.  Do I poison the water or not?  Whose side was I on?  Was I on anyone’s side?  How do I make a choice and still be my own free agent? 

I let myself out of Raven Rock amidst an Enclave revolt. 

The whole time I asked myself if I would feel bad if the Super Mutants were gone.  Not at all.  In fact, the world would be a safer place. 

The ghouls, on the other hand, bothered me.  No, I couldn’t stand to be around them, but they were people still, with feelings and rational thought.  Was wiping them out worth it to take down the mutants?

Eden’s vision left only the human race left, like in old times.  However, it occurred to me that even the humans wanted me dead.  I was fighting my way through lines of Enclave infantry just to escape the complex.  Mercenaries were hunting me out in the wastelands for the bounty on my head;  between Megaton and Tenpenny, I’d become quite the celebrity... Not quite sure how.  I was pretty sure I was the only person still alive who knew anything about that.

I had no one on my side…

FAWKES

When I got outside, I found a lone Mutant shooting up the place.  Enclave soldiers were dropping all over the place, and their helicopters were desperately trying to vacate the premise.

When the coast was clear, the mutant charged up to me panting,

“Fawkes so glad he found you.  He saw them take you after he gave you the G.E.C.K.  You are the only person Fawkes knows, so Fawkes chase them all the way here to free you!”

I guess I had one person on my side.  It was a Super Mutant… hmm… that made things more complicated.

I didn’t trust Fawkes.  He was my travelling companion now, but I was afraid once we encountered his kind, he would turn on he.  Anytime I talked to him, he was immediately defensive.

“Has Fawkes done something to anger you?”

It was like he was looking for a reason to resent me.  And maybe it was my tell-tale heart.  After all, I was still carrying the poison in my pocket that could euthanize his entire species if that’s what I decided.

Ultimately, Fawkes wasn’t enough of an influence to make my decision.  One mutant wasn’t enough to forgive every other mutant that I had ever encountered.  I just hoped that some deciding factor would surface quickly enough.

Fawkes and I wasted no time in trekking all the way from the middle of nowhere back to the Citadel.  Part of this was thanks to our combat strategies.  Fawkes was a little hard to keep in line.  A typical encounter played out like this:

“Fawkes, wait here.”

“Has Fawkes done something wrong?”

“No, I’m just going to scout ahead.”

“Well, if you think it is best.  Fawkes just hopes he has not angered you.”

“No… you’re fine. Calm down, big boy.”

“Alright, but don’t forget Fawkes.  Fawkes would be sad if you did, but he would understand.”

“Yeah, whatever, I’ll be back.”

“Fawkes hopes so.”

“…grrrr….”

This codependent crap is followed by some of the finest ninja-stealth movement that you can possibly imagine.  I am able to sneak up into amazingly close proximity.  Only a line of shrubby and a pool of toxic water divides me from an Enclave patrol….

Then, I hear a drunken battle-cry, followed by a spray of bullets that would make a stormtrooper’s aim look phenomenal as Fawkes charges into the water and perforates the Enclave soldier.  His suit shorts out in electric spurts like I imagine Iron Man would it you ripped him in half.  What’s left of the man and his suit hits the water, turning the pool an electric blue on impact.

Meanwhile, I now look like I’ve been cowering in a bush the whole time…. thanks Fawkes.

DOG MEAT

To my surprise, Fawkes didn’t do a damn thing when we encountered a wild dog in a semi-truck junk yard.  After determining that the animal was domestic, and without an owner, our party grew to three members. 

However, having Dog Meat around did nothing to solve my dilemma regarding poisoning Project Purity either. 

LIBERY PRIME

I still had not made a decision by the time we reached the Citadel.  The leaders there asked me if anything had transpired with Eden that they thought I should know.  I refrained from telling them about the poison for fear that the decision would be taken away from me.

The next thing I knew the Brotherhood of Steel was scrambling the troops, and "Liberty Prime" was activated.  I had no idea what they were talking about until I saw the facility’s roof separate, and a crane lifted the five-story transformer out of the Citadel’s hold.  It led the way into D.C.  shooting waves of energy into the city, blowing cars and super mutants and enclave soldiers away with massive laser beams from its eyes like a robotic Cyclops.

The whole time my blood was pumping as Fawkes, Dog Meat and I were running right in front of the goliath, car’s detonating on either side of us, enemies firing down on us from skyways and rooftops briefly before Liberty Prime decimated them.

We beached the grounds of the Jefferson Memorial, and my trio charged into the understructure. 

We got to the main chamber to find ourselves in a stalemate.  Just inside the door was a bunker of sandbags.  Enclave gunfire was cutting out of the dust and the shadows.  I was firing blindly into the room; pitching grenade after grenade after grenade inside.  Rockets were blowing chunks out of the wall across from me after they barely missing my head.  The shootout was insane.

Suddenly everything froze, and a little green message box popped up in the middle of the TV screen.  All it said in tiny green print was:

“Dog Meat is dead.”

Just like the game, my world came crashing to a halt.  Dog Meat, my dog, that I had grown so close to over the course of the last… 35 minutes… was gone!  Those bastards!!!!

I charged headlong into the dust cloud with a combat shotgun with no regard to my livelihood (because I can reload my game if I die).  I found Enclave soldiers and I blew them away at point blank range.  The blasts threw their bodies over tables and embankments and into walls.  I swore I would take down the Enclave, and everything they stood for.  That was my mission now.

You see, it was never about what I decided to do really, but rather why I chose to do it.

FALLOUT

The last of the Enclave dropped, and Fawkes and I reached the containment cell that my father had sacrificed himself in.  The radiation levels inside were beyond lethal, but someone had to go inside to activate the purifier.

Screw it.  I’ll do it.  They killed my dog.  My father was dead.  Let me in!

And so they did.  I charged in, and they locked me inside.  The radiation levels in my suit rocketed up quickly.  I had to flip the machine on.

Right inside the door was the filtration system.  I had to decide, now or never, if I was going to poison the water.

In that moment I realized something:  Fawkes had followed me into the chamber.  He didn’t have to.  He could have stayed outside and lived.  But I was the only person he knew, and he would rather be with me than to find a place out there on his own. 

(Quick Note:  Yes, I understand that because of game programming, if I had not entered the chamber as quickly as I had, he would have been locked outside, and it would be just me.  But we’re getting into character here.  That was the whole point of this exercise.  So, no, I’m not crazy.  Eccentric and overly-committed, yes.  Crazy, no.)

Fawkes’ altruism convinced me right then and there to forgo the poison.  Purify the water, give everyone an equal chance.  Besides, it would piss the Enclave off.  And knowing that was satisfying enough of a reason to pull the level, activate the purifier, and incinerate myself and Fawkes in the ensuing surge of radiation.

Let the world sort itself out on its own.

War... War never changes...                                                                                                                         .

<-- Part 3 of 4