(no subject)

[camwyn]

Current missions: Blood Ties and The Superhuman Gambit. Ellen picked up some company at Milliways and is currently traveling with Tyler Marlocke. When she, Tyler, and Dogmeat returned to the Scrapyard, I said that Dogmeat's previous owner had been carrying the note that one can find in a random encounter that leads to John's Treasure Box. They've found the box; it contained a book on firearms maintenance, a military guide to heavy weapons (I went with 30 Handy Flamethrower Recipes for the title), and a 42nd edition copy of the Cecil Textbook of Medicine, rather than the Grognak the Barbarian issue that's in there in-game. I also added a few issues of Captain Cosmos just for the heck of it, but they're not for skill-raising...

Anyway, in order to get onto the Superhuman Gambit track, I had Ellen go to look for possible Vault doors hidden under the concrete structures in the Scrapyard, and she disturbed a mole rat. Dogmeat took off after it, so she and Tyler went after Dogmeat. The rat got killed, but there'll be a yao guai showing up shortly to get them even more lost, and once that's dealt with they're going to head for the buildings they'll spot off towards the horizon- Canterbury Commons. Tyler will be sticking around for that whole trip and both crazy superheroes and the giant ants and killer robots. With any luck Ellen will be able to send him home from Canterbury Commons, but if not she'll get him home from Megaton. She'll then report to Lucy West, thus ending the Blood Ties segment.

Next mission: I'm going to send her in the direction of Arlington with those books from the treasure box, or at least with two of them. The gun manual is important, but I think she's really going to want to keep the medical textbook. The other two, she figures, are probably of more use to the Brotherhood of Steel, and the only place she knows where to find the Brotherhood is at Arlington Library. She's not going to find them there, though. Scribe Yearling sent the holotape Ellen gave her back to the Citadel and was told that, yes, it contained everything in the Library, so they pulled out. Normally this would be a logical point at which to send her to Andale, since it's nearby, but I don't want to have her deal with cannibals again so soon. Some blundering around should lead her to Hubris Comics. I'm going to have her run into Pek in the area, who'll still be an initiate as that training mission in Falls Church wasn't his test for paladinhood. Probably Hoss, too, although I'm not sure of that. Either way he'll fill her in on why the Library's empty, and tell her that if she ever makes her way to the Citadel there are a lot of caps waiting for her. This, of course, will make her very happy, and she'll want to go immediately- but she'll ask about Vaults first. Pek doesn't know any, and Hoss only vaguely remembers a map with some Vault locations on it. He'll indicate the approximate vicinity of one in the far north. After some talk about establishing credentials, she'll head for the Citadel. She won't be there long, as they won't let her in, but she'll get enough caps to choke a yao guai, and then she'll stop at Rivet City for supplies and be on her way.

After: I'm skipping her straight to Vault 92. There will be screaming. There will also be great wtf at the sight of the violin. And she will find every single tape in Vault 92 and be absolutely horrified. I may send her back to Milliways after that, if only briefly, but from there she's going to get kind of lost again and find Agatha's House by mistake, and the violin will be dealt with. If I am feeling especially cruel I will have her get lost again and find the Temple of the Union by mistake, which will force her to go into DC because, well, you can't just say no to escaped slaves. That may be a mission that calls for help from Milliways, since there's the museum aspect plus the Memorial to clear out. It's almost dead certain that she'll discover Underworld in the process. If she does, I may have her hand over the Cecil Textbook of Medicine to Dr. Barrows for Reilly's sake, and have her agree to help Reilly's men out in exchange for any map data Reilly may have about Vaults in general. That will at least give her an excuse to wander around some more.

There is, however, one other possibility. I may send her to Oasis on the way to Vault 92. Hey, it's north, it's in rocky territory, you'd put a Vault under all that rock, right? It'll give her some powerful 'oh, God, my world is COMPLETELY POPULATED BY CRAZY PEOPLE' to deal with, along with the moral question of Harold...

Comments

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

I haven't played Fallout 3 yet; are there any references to the previous games? Fallout 2 was set 60-70 years past Fallout 1, and there were several conversations about the "Wastelands Wanderer." I was wondering if anything like that had popped up.

[camwyn]

Fallout 3 is set in 2277, so it's a good time after Fallout 2. It's set on the East Coast, so as to divorce it from the Fallout 1 and 2 story line and make it more accessible to people who haven't played the original games. There are, however, plenty of references. You have the opportunity to recruit a Blue Heeler named Dogmeat as your follower- he's a descendant of the Dogmeat from the first game. One of the computers in the Brotherhood of Steel fortress, the Citadel (formerly the Pentagon), contains notes from Elder Maxson about his close ally, the original Vault Dweller from the first game. And Harold, up in Oasis, is the same Harold from games 1 and 2. He's, um... he's got a little case of very weird FEV that's kept him alive.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

Dogmeat's been in every game. He's even in Arcanum, the design team's attempt at a Steampunk game, back when they were with Troika Software.

[camwyn]

Really? Coolness. Didn't know that.

(There's a Perk you can get if you add on the Broken Steel downloadable content pack. Broken Steel raises the game's level cap to 30 and adds some new weapons, armor, and enemies to the game, but for a lot of people the perk to add in was Puppies- if you have this perk and Dogmeat dies, a puppy from his litter will appear in front of Vault 101 for you.)

[leeshajoy.livejournal.com]

So when exactly is Mothership Zeta going to happen? Or did you decide to skip it?

[camwyn]

I'm tossing that one around, still. I plan on keeping it, but I have to work out how to handle the ending- probably by breaking communications between the ship and the homing beacon, so I have the option of repairing it and giving people access to the alien ship eventually. (It's just kind of cheesy to say 'nope, can't ever go back'. It smacks of the 'status quo is God' trope.)

I'd originally planned on inserting it into the plot after finding Ellen's dad, but the more I think about it the more I want it to happen before then. Just for the 'Dad, I love you, but your brilliant plan to keep me safe by keeping me ignorant got me shot at, bitten, irradiated, spat on, and KIDNAPPED BY ALIENS, and so I have to hit you now' factor. I might, if I am feeling mean enough, do it during the runaway slaves quest. "What took you so long?" "you would never in a million years believe me if I told you..."

[leeshajoy.livejournal.com]

I am sorely tempted to bring Alyx along on that plot, but she informs me that she is SO done with getting abducted by aliens, thanks.

[camwyn]

Fair enough! I'm debating having Ellen locate a number of random scars on her body after the kidnapping, since after you're beamed aboard you get a brief, blurry vision of the probe-o-chair and hear some surgical noises before everything goes black. "What the hell? I had tonsils when I looked in the mirror last! And what's this down here? ... you know, I'm pretty sure I used to have an appendix, too..."

[prodigal.livejournal.com]

Damn, this is making me want to sign up at Milliways something fierce.

[camwyn]

Ellen is one of two of my characters, ever, who can really give me the opportunity to yell "NOTHING should have that many tongues!"- and have it be solely the fault of her own canon.

(Ray is the other.)

[leeshajoy.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting for this statement (http://camwyn.livejournal.com/705627.html) to show up in one of Ray's EPs sometime.


(I just spent an hour and a half searching your journal for that post. I am a sad, sad person.)

[leeshajoy.livejournal.com]

Do it! DO IT DO IT DO IT! >:D

[duane-kc.livejournal.com]

You are a rotten, evil person, you know. After reading what you're doing to Ellen, I had to go buy the darn game. Evil, I tell you!

(Neville's up to Level 6 now...)

[camwyn]

Hee. I bought my copy because I'd heard a little bit about the first two games in passing on TVtropes, and because of one commercial I saw for it- the opening cinematic, essentially. (I thought it was for Half-Life 2 Episode 3 at first, because the Washington Monument looked like the Citadel in City 17.) Kinda got sucked in after that.

PC, Xbox, or PS3?

[mmexlibris]

You are not the only one.

I can't walk passed a decrepit shopping cart now without my eye twitching and it's all Cam's fault.

(And I say that with Love.)

[camwyn]

If it helps at all, I walked past the back door of a local bar a while ago, and one of their trash bags had ruptured and spilled an ungodly amount of bottlecaps on the sidewalk. I literally stopped in my tracks and stared at it for most of a minute before I could get myself to get going again.

[mmexlibris]

ROFLMAO.

CAPS!

[camwyn]

If you ever wanted to test out the Moira headvoice at MM, for some reason, do let me know. I'm sure I could arrange something.

[mmexlibris]

~facepalm~ Gods. I think I need a little more backstory on her before I can pull that off convincingly.

Otherwise it'd just be Mad Scientist meets the Church Lady.

"Maybe we can train the Mirelurks! Maybe we can ride them! That'd be fun!" ~double facepalm~

[camwyn]

There isn't much canonical backstory other than the fact that apparently she's from Canterbury Commons, so, yeah, you'd have to work something up.

[aeons_crackshot]

*Volunteers Annabelle for the crazy* Annabelle may actually find killing things in Ellen's world to be useful therapy once Mr. Saturday (j_harley) shows up in Milliways.

[bastets-place.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

Hi, My name's Ellen, and my torso is a mass of scar tissue of relatively under explained origin.

No, I'm not kidding.

[camwyn]

Pleased to meet you! I hope for your sake that if the explanations surface, they aren't anything like the explanations for my Fallout character's scars. And that, regardless, you don't mind I've been using the name.

[bastets-place.livejournal.com]

Delayed response due to overwork:

No, why on earth should I mind? As for my scars, they were supposed to be three tiny incisions that turned into three big incisions and one long scar running just under my ribcage, as well as many, many smaller scars due to pregnancy and weight gain/loss. There are also three that I can't explain at all; I don't even know exactly when they turned up, they may have been there for a while, and only showed up when I lost some weight or something.