![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Notes From New Vegas 15
Notes From New Vegas 15: Wait, No, I Lied, Sorry
When last we saw our heroine she and her faithful companions were trundling southward to hit Novac for some equipment repairs before going north again to the Vegas general area. There were no giant ant attacks and no GRR ARGH incidents with Jackals or Vipers, and this made Janice glad. There was a merchant meandering northward, which was okay but nothing special. And then there was HELIOS One, which Janice decided to stop in and check up on, just to be on the safe side in the event that someone had gotten Clever. It was just barely possible that Fantastic, the moron in the sunglasses, had decided to play with the settings on the now-functional array and made things worse- or, in the words of Invader Zim, better. You know. In a way that was totally worse.
The NCR soldiers at the gates let her through without even blinking. Fortunately, Fantastic was just as much of an idiot as always, so Janice skittered past him and went over to have a talk with Nacho instead. Nacho confirmed that the technology here was still dormant and that nobody had pursued the Brotherhood goal of activating the weapon, and reiterated everything he'd said about how the tech here was reminiscent of Enclave tech in odd ways, and promised that he would continue to keep it secret. Which was just fine with Janice, so she turned to leave.
At which point ED-E started talking.
Well, not talking, not really. Playing back a recording, more like. "Subject E: Diagnosis complete. Begin Recording. My name is Whitley..."
There was some staring all around as 'Whitley' announced that he had been working on a project with the duraframe series of Enclave Eyebots and this was his prototype and he had to stop the research now because all the resources were going into Hellfire armor and he was sending the bot to Navarro and and and. When the recording stopped Janice just kind of poked at ED-E, but it didn't talk any more. Neither Veronica nor Nacho really had much to say about it. What Janice knew about the Enclave could've filled a thimble, as it'd all been pretty much provided by, well, Nacho himself, so she didn't freak out the way someone from Fallout 3 might've. She ultimately just decided to take the robot and keep doing what she'd been doing. Maybe somebody else could poke the thing into talking again.
Old Lady Gibson couldn't, unfortunately, and neither could Veronica. Although when Janice talked to Veronica about things she did find out some interesting stuff. For one, Veronica was roaming the Wasteland with her because she was trying to see for herself where the Brotherhood's philosophies and actions fell short. For another, she was gay, or possibly bi- somehow the question of 'have you ever been in love' came up and Veronica said yes, but the other girl's parents broke them up on the grounds that everybody in the bunker had to reproduce, dammit. Since it was an essentially closed society and all. Janice didn't really know what to make of that, since it seemed to her like any population small enough to fit into one bunker would probably wind up composed entirely of first cousins within a generation or two, but hell, wasn't her business.
They started moseying north again after that. Well, they fast-traveled to the 188 and then started moseying but I'm not really feeling all that meta today. Somewhere along the way Janice thought to turn on her Pip-Boy radio, just for the heck of it. It reported it had access to three radio stations: Mojave Music Radio, Radio New Vegas, and Black Mountain Radio. Now, she'd heard Radio New Vegas back in Goodsprings, and Mojave Music Radio wasn't particularly interesting, so she decided to leave Black Mountain Radio on. It wasn't bad. Decent music, about the same as what she'd heard in Goodsprings, nothing un-
WHOA. Okay, the news segments were different. The last time Janice had heard a voice like THAT it was Davison. This, however, was a mutant claiming to be named Tabitha, and her close friend Rhonda, reporting on the all-mutant State of Utobitha and how it was a paradise of plenty of food and water and security and radiation and all humans who approached Utobitha were to be shot on sight. But mutants, come on in! Now back to the music...
Janice took the time to blink for a while there. Me, I have to go meta at this point whether I like it or not. I am something of a Transformers fan- not a serious one, but I have a fondness for a few of the shows and some of the toys. It just so happens that I like Beast Wars. And, well, Rhonda's voice sounded just like Scott McNeill's (it wasn't, Rhonda's voice actor was Fred Tatascione), and Tabitha sounded a lot less intelligent than Rhonda... basically, the Rhonda and Tabitha broadcasts sounded so much like they were being done by Dinobot and Beast Wars Scorponok that I just had to giggle hysterically. It got worse when Rhondabot led off on the segment called Know Your Mutants and Scorpitha talked about the 'dumb-dumbs', which is to say moronic second generation supermutants. I'm not sure how they were second generation given that supermutants are all sterile (West Coast mutants still have genitalia according to Fallout 2, East Coast ones don't, but they're all sterile regardless). Maybe they were the product of experimentation- anyway, it doesn't matter. You get the picture, I'm sure.
They continued trundling north and eventually the giant tower of the Lucky 38 casino, which was meant to resemble the central spike of a roulette wheel, was close enough to make out details on. Actually getting into Vegas rather than just being within sight of it proved to be a little more of a challenge, though. For one thing, there were city walls. And they went on a long way. Janice wandered along the length of the walls for a while until she got disgusted with trying to find anything, at which point, of course, she found a gate. It didn't lead into the city proper, though. She'd managed to stumble across the entry point to the NCR's Camp McCarran, which had apparently been McCarran Airport before the Great War. These days it was chock full o' tents and soldiers, one of whom greeted her shortly after she made it in. Apparently they were pretty grateful to her for getting HELIOS One up and running. Yeah, Fantastic had wanted to put all the power to McCarran and the Strip and she'd sent power to everywhere in the region instead, but hey, they had electricity even if it wasn't the plant's full output. That was still pretty cool- anyway, normally they didn't let civilians in but this was her and the NCR liked her, so she was welcome.
She did some nosing around outside, since there were a lot of tents and you never knew what you might find. One of the things she discovered was that there were worse gangs in the world than the Khans and the Vipers and the Jackals; they were chem-crazy blood-thirsty rapist maniacs called the Fiends, and they lived in the southwestern Vegas ruins, and they were maybe two steps up from animals, and did Janice know there was a big honkin' bounty on the heads of each of their leaders? Seriously, bring back the heads and the NCR would be forever in her debt. Oh, and also there was stuff around the base that needed attention, like dealing with an intelligence leak and interrogating a Legion prisoner and inventory problems that might be the fault of the supply officer who seemed kinda sketchy and and and.
Well, now. Decapitating drug-crazed maniacs who probably didn't even realize they were being shot until they stopped moving sounded like a great way to die horribly, but the other stuff sounded as if it would pay. Janice figured she could go a long way by ingratiating herself with the NCR brass, so why not go and see about the intel problems first. That was the kind of thing that probably involved hiding a lot and not getting noticed, and therefore boiled down to getting paid to not get shot. Right up her alley.
Main quest? What main quest? Benny could go rot for all she cared.
When last we saw our heroine she and her faithful companions were trundling southward to hit Novac for some equipment repairs before going north again to the Vegas general area. There were no giant ant attacks and no GRR ARGH incidents with Jackals or Vipers, and this made Janice glad. There was a merchant meandering northward, which was okay but nothing special. And then there was HELIOS One, which Janice decided to stop in and check up on, just to be on the safe side in the event that someone had gotten Clever. It was just barely possible that Fantastic, the moron in the sunglasses, had decided to play with the settings on the now-functional array and made things worse- or, in the words of Invader Zim, better. You know. In a way that was totally worse.
The NCR soldiers at the gates let her through without even blinking. Fortunately, Fantastic was just as much of an idiot as always, so Janice skittered past him and went over to have a talk with Nacho instead. Nacho confirmed that the technology here was still dormant and that nobody had pursued the Brotherhood goal of activating the weapon, and reiterated everything he'd said about how the tech here was reminiscent of Enclave tech in odd ways, and promised that he would continue to keep it secret. Which was just fine with Janice, so she turned to leave.
At which point ED-E started talking.
Well, not talking, not really. Playing back a recording, more like. "Subject E: Diagnosis complete. Begin Recording. My name is Whitley..."
There was some staring all around as 'Whitley' announced that he had been working on a project with the duraframe series of Enclave Eyebots and this was his prototype and he had to stop the research now because all the resources were going into Hellfire armor and he was sending the bot to Navarro and and and. When the recording stopped Janice just kind of poked at ED-E, but it didn't talk any more. Neither Veronica nor Nacho really had much to say about it. What Janice knew about the Enclave could've filled a thimble, as it'd all been pretty much provided by, well, Nacho himself, so she didn't freak out the way someone from Fallout 3 might've. She ultimately just decided to take the robot and keep doing what she'd been doing. Maybe somebody else could poke the thing into talking again.
Old Lady Gibson couldn't, unfortunately, and neither could Veronica. Although when Janice talked to Veronica about things she did find out some interesting stuff. For one, Veronica was roaming the Wasteland with her because she was trying to see for herself where the Brotherhood's philosophies and actions fell short. For another, she was gay, or possibly bi- somehow the question of 'have you ever been in love' came up and Veronica said yes, but the other girl's parents broke them up on the grounds that everybody in the bunker had to reproduce, dammit. Since it was an essentially closed society and all. Janice didn't really know what to make of that, since it seemed to her like any population small enough to fit into one bunker would probably wind up composed entirely of first cousins within a generation or two, but hell, wasn't her business.
They started moseying north again after that. Well, they fast-traveled to the 188 and then started moseying but I'm not really feeling all that meta today. Somewhere along the way Janice thought to turn on her Pip-Boy radio, just for the heck of it. It reported it had access to three radio stations: Mojave Music Radio, Radio New Vegas, and Black Mountain Radio. Now, she'd heard Radio New Vegas back in Goodsprings, and Mojave Music Radio wasn't particularly interesting, so she decided to leave Black Mountain Radio on. It wasn't bad. Decent music, about the same as what she'd heard in Goodsprings, nothing un-
WHOA. Okay, the news segments were different. The last time Janice had heard a voice like THAT it was Davison. This, however, was a mutant claiming to be named Tabitha, and her close friend Rhonda, reporting on the all-mutant State of Utobitha and how it was a paradise of plenty of food and water and security and radiation and all humans who approached Utobitha were to be shot on sight. But mutants, come on in! Now back to the music...
Janice took the time to blink for a while there. Me, I have to go meta at this point whether I like it or not. I am something of a Transformers fan- not a serious one, but I have a fondness for a few of the shows and some of the toys. It just so happens that I like Beast Wars. And, well, Rhonda's voice sounded just like Scott McNeill's (it wasn't, Rhonda's voice actor was Fred Tatascione), and Tabitha sounded a lot less intelligent than Rhonda... basically, the Rhonda and Tabitha broadcasts sounded so much like they were being done by Dinobot and Beast Wars Scorponok that I just had to giggle hysterically. It got worse when Rhondabot led off on the segment called Know Your Mutants and Scorpitha talked about the 'dumb-dumbs', which is to say moronic second generation supermutants. I'm not sure how they were second generation given that supermutants are all sterile (West Coast mutants still have genitalia according to Fallout 2, East Coast ones don't, but they're all sterile regardless). Maybe they were the product of experimentation- anyway, it doesn't matter. You get the picture, I'm sure.
They continued trundling north and eventually the giant tower of the Lucky 38 casino, which was meant to resemble the central spike of a roulette wheel, was close enough to make out details on. Actually getting into Vegas rather than just being within sight of it proved to be a little more of a challenge, though. For one thing, there were city walls. And they went on a long way. Janice wandered along the length of the walls for a while until she got disgusted with trying to find anything, at which point, of course, she found a gate. It didn't lead into the city proper, though. She'd managed to stumble across the entry point to the NCR's Camp McCarran, which had apparently been McCarran Airport before the Great War. These days it was chock full o' tents and soldiers, one of whom greeted her shortly after she made it in. Apparently they were pretty grateful to her for getting HELIOS One up and running. Yeah, Fantastic had wanted to put all the power to McCarran and the Strip and she'd sent power to everywhere in the region instead, but hey, they had electricity even if it wasn't the plant's full output. That was still pretty cool- anyway, normally they didn't let civilians in but this was her and the NCR liked her, so she was welcome.
She did some nosing around outside, since there were a lot of tents and you never knew what you might find. One of the things she discovered was that there were worse gangs in the world than the Khans and the Vipers and the Jackals; they were chem-crazy blood-thirsty rapist maniacs called the Fiends, and they lived in the southwestern Vegas ruins, and they were maybe two steps up from animals, and did Janice know there was a big honkin' bounty on the heads of each of their leaders? Seriously, bring back the heads and the NCR would be forever in her debt. Oh, and also there was stuff around the base that needed attention, like dealing with an intelligence leak and interrogating a Legion prisoner and inventory problems that might be the fault of the supply officer who seemed kinda sketchy and and and.
Well, now. Decapitating drug-crazed maniacs who probably didn't even realize they were being shot until they stopped moving sounded like a great way to die horribly, but the other stuff sounded as if it would pay. Janice figured she could go a long way by ingratiating herself with the NCR brass, so why not go and see about the intel problems first. That was the kind of thing that probably involved hiding a lot and not getting noticed, and therefore boiled down to getting paid to not get shot. Right up her alley.
Main quest? What main quest? Benny could go rot for all she cared.