Philly Notes, Part 3

[camwyn]

- General Atomics International, aka the reason Ellen's going to Philly in the first place
- Things they make: Mister Handy robots (collaboration with RobCo), Mister Gutsy robots (almost exclusively a General Atomics product), Mister Orderly robots (secret project, only delivered to Big Mountain research facility)
- Things they also make: Vault-powering nuclear power plants and generators, also AER9 laser rifle parts
- Apparently they were at least partially responsible for Liberty Prime
- Given the picture of Mr. House with Liberty Prime's legs behind him I am going to assume GA's primary responsibilities here had to do with Prime's power systems
- Maybe his balance gyros
- Forty-foot walking robot with death laser eyes, that's gonna be a lot of power, so of course he needs a GA Special power system
- Needless to say, what's left of GA corporate headquarters is one hell of a MacGuffin
- Also it is probably flat out crawling with surviving robots
- granted, none of them are sentrybots
- But robobrains and Mr. Handys can still be pretty vicious
- And, hey, prototypes that go nuts, those are always fun
- The robobrains may have engaged a self-replicating defense protocol- better hope you die of a headshot if you try to invade the factory
- Probably they have some data from the medical research project that created Professor Calvert here, albeit encrypted
- Factions present in the city:
- The Blood Prince, who is on top because he was very very badass and is still harsh on his enemies, but mostly because he has the gratitude and loyalty of the majority of the city's people
- His army, such as it is, calls themselves the Flyers and is generally a well-equipped ice gang
- Oh, didn't I mention those- yeah, that's a callback to Goalie Ledoux and Sudden Death Overtime in Fallout 3
- I did say Wells Fargo Arena was still semifunctional
- The Blood Prince also has a small secret police force of sorts at his disposal
- They call themselves the Phantoms and wear something like this emblem, when they are not dressing like this to get things done
- There are not many Phantoms, but they are dangerous and extremely loyal
- Anyway there is another ice gang in the city, the Royals
- And while they are generally content to abide by the rules of domination for the city, it is aggravating to have lost every single championship combat to the Flyers since the Blood Prince came to power
- Especially since they want to take their show on the road and dominate the entire region instead of sitting around in just the Philly area
- They are especially aggravated about the fact that the Pitt dropped off the map years ago when they should've been participating in serious throwdowns
- (This was about the time of Lyons' Purging of the Pitt but they don't know that)
- (And Ashur doesn't know about this ice gang stuff because everyone who did know was killed in the Purge, or else keeps their mouth shut)
- The Royals would like very much to throw the Blood Prince out of power and quit sinking time and resources into the local area when they could be out claiming even more resources if they just had better guns, armor, etc.
- There are less well-armed and less well-organized violent people in the city as well; a not insignificant portion of them are probably in the Walnut Gang, which, see prior notes on the Vaults for their particular schtick
- A good portion of the city outskirts has been designated a no-go zone because of the damn robots
- It is really not advised to go too close to the river because HIPPOS
- You thought I had forgotten, didn't you
- Yeah, the local vicious wildlife is descended from the species in the zoo and the Camden Aquarium that survived
- Camden had a couple of female hippos, Philly had a couple of males, both enclosures broke open during the War
- While the hippos mostly eat plants they are still hippos and God help you if you get one on your tail
- Mutant hippos are somewhat faster than normal hippos and normal hippos can do 19 mph or a little better at a dead run so yeah
- Anyway that's wildlife, which is an area hazard, not a faction, so let's keep moving
- The Friends exist in the city, of course they still exist, don't be silly
- I do not know if they bought Vault space the way the Mormons did
- I have considered the idea of a total pacifist Vault protected entirely by robots since I'm pretty sure the Societal Preservation Project would have just loved to see how long an unarmed populace philosophically opposed to violence took to die
- On the other hand the Friends may have had moral issues with Vault-Tec before the War
- And it's not as if everyone had to survive in Vaults, yanno
- Anyway there are Friends in the city, and they are surprisingly badass
- In the sense that Desmond Doss was badass- go look him up, I'll wait
- They offer a great deal in the way of medical care and shelter, although they are unfortunately sadly deficient in technological knowledge
- They may have some role in maintaining the city's water supply
- More in the way of getting it from place to place than anything else
- They survive because they make a point of wearing their own emblem and everybody knows that a Friend genuinely won't attack and won't cooperate with an attempt to gather intelligence for an attack
- The possibility exists of there also being a small group of the Followers of the Apocalypse in Philly
- They are not supposed to be there
- They were originally aiming for Chicago
- "I TOLD you we should've taken the left at White Oaks"
- Long story short, they lost about half their number in the distance between NCR and Philly
- But hey, if the Enclave soldier who died of fire ant in Grayditch could make it across the country as a deserter, a bunch of Followers could get there as a group
- ANYWAY, Followers
- They do have technological and historical knowledge, but not much in the way of numbers
- While they are not a heavily armed faction, they will defend themselves
- They are holed up in the remains of the Ben Franklin Institute
- Which is not a particularly fortified place so you may be wondering why they haven't been splattered yet
- Two reasons, one being that their chemist makes cheez (she gets a lot of kidnapping attempts)
- The other is that their medical person made some unusual friends very early on who decided to stick around
- And by 'unusual' I mean 'prostitutes'
- Who took great interest in the prospect of improved hygiene, sanitation, safety, etc.
- And after some discussion they decided to stick around and continue plying their trade
- Things have gotten a little weird since Dr. D found him/herself (haven't decided which) in the position of madam
- I kind of want it to be a Ben Franklin-themed brothel because I'm pretty sure he'd go for that
- It brings in a nice chunk of cash and it makes the Followers more valuable
- Plus it gives the Followers information on a lot of what's happening around the city
- But between that and the guns, the Friends really don't want to deal with the Followers
- I'm pretty sure the Followers' leader, who may or may not be Dr. D, spends time each day with his/her face in his/her hands wondering what the hell happened to his/her life

Comments

[bjornwilde]

Mr. Gutsy! I remember those fondly from Ult. Ben Grimm's time. I was going to mention them in a future canon OOM that I never wrote where Ben joins the military and calls his drill sergeant Mr. Gutsy. The drill sergeant (who is basically Gny. Sgt. Hartman from Full Metal Jacket) demands an explanation and likes what Ben tells him; afterwards demanding all troops call him Sergeant Gutsy from then on.

[camwyn]

Hee. That would've been fun to see.