Notes From New Vegas 47
Jun. 10th, 2012 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynNotes From New Vegas 47: Make Your Own Damn Brain Puns Here, Okay?
When last we saw our heroine, she'd just finished an extended conversation with Dr. Mobius, and had developed what can only be described as a Srs Bastard Headache (Med-X Pls) as a result despite not actually having anything organic inside her cranial cavity. The headache was about to get worse; she'd gotten out of the Mobius convo by pleading the necessity of talking to her own brain.
From a player's point of view, this is an example of "Fallout canon means ALWAYS having to say you're sorry. Because yeah. It's like that." From Janice's point of view?
Mmmyeah.
Well, it wasn't gonna get any nicer or easier no matter what she said or thought, and unless she wanted to pop a Mentat there were no mood-altering chemicals lying around to make her any happier, so she just sort of had to sigh and stomp on up the stairs to the foomping, steaming tank that had her brain in it. And try very, very hard not to do a spit-take despite not actually having a drink in her mouth when her brain snapped at her, in a male, British voice: "Well, well, look who finally dragged themselves in out of the Wasteland. And where have we been? Crawling through bits of radioactive muck again, hmm?"
Now, what are you supposed to say to something like that? Janice blurted out, "You sound like a guy." Stupid, I know, but she was TALKING TO HER OWN BRAIN OKAY. PHYSICALLY TALKING TO IT. IT WAS IN FRONT OF HER. IN A JAR. TALKING. You try coming up with an intelligent response under the circumstances.
On the bright side, her brain was at least a little understanding, if miffed-sounding: "You'd be surprised how hard a feminine-sounding voice modulator is to find in the Forbidden Zone. It's not as though brain sustaining life support tanks grow on trees. I had to take what I could get." The understanding, unfortunately, ended there; her brain started ranting at her about what she'd been doing and all the weird goings-on and worked its way up to shouting, "Good Lord, have you BATHED AT ALL since they pulled me out of you??"
Yes, Janice answered, because running around a crater of bizarre killer bloodthirsty science experiments, hygiene is a top priority. Also there was NO BATHROOM IN THE SINK.
"Well," said her brain, "I see sarcasm hasn't eluded you. fine, perhaps now isn't the best time, but it's the principle of the thing."
Fine, Janice said, they could talk about something else- ike how the hell did Mobius get hold of it?
"After the Think Tank finished the extraction, they fell to bickering among themselves and we were quite forgotten about. Dr. Mobius saw an opportunity to gain some leverage and had me spirited away." How? "I don't know. I'm afraid I didn't come around until I was safe in this tank." Well, Janice couldn't blame HER OWN BRAIN for passing out when it was PHYSICALLY EXTRACTED FROM HER SKULL, but that was kind of a coincidence, wasn't it? The Mobius grabbing, that is? "Hardly. He keeps a close optical sensor on the goings-on at the Think Tank. As soon as he saw the opportunity, he took it."
It made some other sniffy comments at that point, so Janice asked, quite reasonably she thought, why it was being such a jerk. "Me?" it answered. I'm not the one who sends us around tetanus infested Vaults or insane poisonous casinos in search of a vacation!" (Side note: in the actual game the brain instead says 'charging off to New Vegas on ill-conceived missions of revenge', but considering how hard Janice had been trying to AVOID charging off to New Vegas on an ill-conceived mission of revenge until absolutely forced to, I figure her brain probably said something different.) "You think I enjoyed it?"
Well, Janice said, it was kind of RESPONSIBLE for all that, wasn't it? It was her BRAIN. "I most certainly am not responsible! I'm the seat of logic and reason in this partnership! All those feelings you get, the sense of righteousness and the rush you get when you help someone, do you know where those come from? Glands. Free from your apelike tyranny I can see how foolish they are."
Janice had enough knowledge of medicine at this point to point out to the brain that it was the source of most of those glands' signals, unless it was arguing that her thyroid was to blame. It sputtered a bit and then said, "I- well, look, it's all a very complex system of biofeedback and things I wouldn't expect you to understand."
Admit it, Janice said, it was as glandular as she was.
"Oh, all right, perhaps I am, but at least I'm logical about it."
Okay, Janice had won a point there. She figured she got to ask the brain if it wanted to get reunited. It said, "I'm not going to lie to you. The prospect is not that appealing. Look at it from my perspective. Here I have peace, quiet and safety. In your head I've got poison, radiation, grisly injuries, and biological functions. Do you know how much you can get done when you're not looking for places to urinate?"
It was kind of hard for her to blame the poor organ for thinking that. On the other hand, if there was one thing Old World scifi had taught her and everyone else, any organism that claimed to be totally ruled by logic and reason could generally be defeated by pointing out the nice bits of emotion. So she asked about the good things, like a cool breeze on your cheek, the smell of food... love, et cetera. The brain, as such things are wont to do in such circumstances, sniffed and said, "Overrated biological feedback. Believe me, you only feel that way because you've got all that meat... oozing hormones."
Right, logical parrying time... wasn't it just as true that the brain only felt that way because it was lacking those hormones? "Hm," it said. "I suppose you're right. that does call certain assumptions into question, doesn't it."
Woot, she'd won a point. So, it couldn't feel what she felt, and she couldn't think the way it thought- impasse time. "Quite the conundrum," it agreed, and asked, "How do you propose we resolve it?"
Woot woot. Trust each other, acknowledge we're not complete if separated, etc. You know. The usual SF logic-vs-emotion hoo ha. The brain's response: "I suppose there might be some advantage to that, yes... there's a chance it would create some improved synergy."
So, would it join her for some more wild adventures? "I suppose you've convinced me well enough. Unfortunately, even if I could settle myself back in your skull and reconnect the nerve endings, Dr. Mobius doesn't have the tools here. We'd have to use Dr. Klein's lab and I doubt the brains are inclined to share."
Well then! They'd just have to MAKE them share. Come on, brain, it was stomping time!
"Oh, lovely, we've reached the mindless violence portion of the program. What do you propose we do?"
Ah, no, Janice pointed out it was anything but mindless. She had a holorifle and it was a very good one, so she intended to show the brains what was REALLY the brightest thing in the room. This, I think, was on the order of Schlock Mercenary's "Captain, you do realize violence is the last resort of the stupid?" "Yes. The intelligent know to turn to violence long before it's last resort time."
Fortunately, her brain agreed with her. "Ooh, energy weapons!" it said. "I'd almost forgotten how much fun those are! How do we proceed, then?"
If the think tank wouldn't hold up their bargain, Janice figured, they could make them do it. She... probably could've shot all of them to death from some distance off, if they could keep the door open and she could get line-of-sight from outside the pacification field, but when it came right down to it, she mostly just wanted her brain in her skull, and her other body parts back where they belonged. The Think Tank had been horrific murderous experimenters, but she was beginning to think there might possibly be some way to make them atone for that. Shooting them would just take them out of the equation forever, and all that would be left would be a legacy of quite a lot of pain. If they could be stopped non-violently, somehow, talked into taking a different course of action, one which didn't send them out into the world in search of more horrible experiments... maybe they could compensate for all the hell they'd unleashed.
Maybe. Maybe. If not, screw it, she had the holorifle and they would go splat exactly like everything else.
Anyway, her brain was far too cheerful to let her speculate for long. "Right! Look out, Think Tank! This brain is coming out of its jar!" it said, before informing her that she could use the autodoc to put her other organs back in place as well if she really wanted. Its last comment was, "Right, then off we go! Klein will be in for a nasty shock when he realizes the pacification field won't work on a mind and body united!"
Ooh. Maybe she wouldn't have to prop the door open after all.
When last we saw our heroine, she'd just finished an extended conversation with Dr. Mobius, and had developed what can only be described as a Srs Bastard Headache (Med-X Pls) as a result despite not actually having anything organic inside her cranial cavity. The headache was about to get worse; she'd gotten out of the Mobius convo by pleading the necessity of talking to her own brain.
From a player's point of view, this is an example of "Fallout canon means ALWAYS having to say you're sorry. Because yeah. It's like that." From Janice's point of view?
Mmmyeah.
Well, it wasn't gonna get any nicer or easier no matter what she said or thought, and unless she wanted to pop a Mentat there were no mood-altering chemicals lying around to make her any happier, so she just sort of had to sigh and stomp on up the stairs to the foomping, steaming tank that had her brain in it. And try very, very hard not to do a spit-take despite not actually having a drink in her mouth when her brain snapped at her, in a male, British voice: "Well, well, look who finally dragged themselves in out of the Wasteland. And where have we been? Crawling through bits of radioactive muck again, hmm?"
Now, what are you supposed to say to something like that? Janice blurted out, "You sound like a guy." Stupid, I know, but she was TALKING TO HER OWN BRAIN OKAY. PHYSICALLY TALKING TO IT. IT WAS IN FRONT OF HER. IN A JAR. TALKING. You try coming up with an intelligent response under the circumstances.
On the bright side, her brain was at least a little understanding, if miffed-sounding: "You'd be surprised how hard a feminine-sounding voice modulator is to find in the Forbidden Zone. It's not as though brain sustaining life support tanks grow on trees. I had to take what I could get." The understanding, unfortunately, ended there; her brain started ranting at her about what she'd been doing and all the weird goings-on and worked its way up to shouting, "Good Lord, have you BATHED AT ALL since they pulled me out of you??"
Yes, Janice answered, because running around a crater of bizarre killer bloodthirsty science experiments, hygiene is a top priority. Also there was NO BATHROOM IN THE SINK.
"Well," said her brain, "I see sarcasm hasn't eluded you. fine, perhaps now isn't the best time, but it's the principle of the thing."
Fine, Janice said, they could talk about something else- ike how the hell did Mobius get hold of it?
"After the Think Tank finished the extraction, they fell to bickering among themselves and we were quite forgotten about. Dr. Mobius saw an opportunity to gain some leverage and had me spirited away." How? "I don't know. I'm afraid I didn't come around until I was safe in this tank." Well, Janice couldn't blame HER OWN BRAIN for passing out when it was PHYSICALLY EXTRACTED FROM HER SKULL, but that was kind of a coincidence, wasn't it? The Mobius grabbing, that is? "Hardly. He keeps a close optical sensor on the goings-on at the Think Tank. As soon as he saw the opportunity, he took it."
It made some other sniffy comments at that point, so Janice asked, quite reasonably she thought, why it was being such a jerk. "Me?" it answered. I'm not the one who sends us around tetanus infested Vaults or insane poisonous casinos in search of a vacation!" (Side note: in the actual game the brain instead says 'charging off to New Vegas on ill-conceived missions of revenge', but considering how hard Janice had been trying to AVOID charging off to New Vegas on an ill-conceived mission of revenge until absolutely forced to, I figure her brain probably said something different.) "You think I enjoyed it?"
Well, Janice said, it was kind of RESPONSIBLE for all that, wasn't it? It was her BRAIN. "I most certainly am not responsible! I'm the seat of logic and reason in this partnership! All those feelings you get, the sense of righteousness and the rush you get when you help someone, do you know where those come from? Glands. Free from your apelike tyranny I can see how foolish they are."
Janice had enough knowledge of medicine at this point to point out to the brain that it was the source of most of those glands' signals, unless it was arguing that her thyroid was to blame. It sputtered a bit and then said, "I- well, look, it's all a very complex system of biofeedback and things I wouldn't expect you to understand."
Admit it, Janice said, it was as glandular as she was.
"Oh, all right, perhaps I am, but at least I'm logical about it."
Okay, Janice had won a point there. She figured she got to ask the brain if it wanted to get reunited. It said, "I'm not going to lie to you. The prospect is not that appealing. Look at it from my perspective. Here I have peace, quiet and safety. In your head I've got poison, radiation, grisly injuries, and biological functions. Do you know how much you can get done when you're not looking for places to urinate?"
It was kind of hard for her to blame the poor organ for thinking that. On the other hand, if there was one thing Old World scifi had taught her and everyone else, any organism that claimed to be totally ruled by logic and reason could generally be defeated by pointing out the nice bits of emotion. So she asked about the good things, like a cool breeze on your cheek, the smell of food... love, et cetera. The brain, as such things are wont to do in such circumstances, sniffed and said, "Overrated biological feedback. Believe me, you only feel that way because you've got all that meat... oozing hormones."
Right, logical parrying time... wasn't it just as true that the brain only felt that way because it was lacking those hormones? "Hm," it said. "I suppose you're right. that does call certain assumptions into question, doesn't it."
Woot, she'd won a point. So, it couldn't feel what she felt, and she couldn't think the way it thought- impasse time. "Quite the conundrum," it agreed, and asked, "How do you propose we resolve it?"
Woot woot. Trust each other, acknowledge we're not complete if separated, etc. You know. The usual SF logic-vs-emotion hoo ha. The brain's response: "I suppose there might be some advantage to that, yes... there's a chance it would create some improved synergy."
So, would it join her for some more wild adventures? "I suppose you've convinced me well enough. Unfortunately, even if I could settle myself back in your skull and reconnect the nerve endings, Dr. Mobius doesn't have the tools here. We'd have to use Dr. Klein's lab and I doubt the brains are inclined to share."
Well then! They'd just have to MAKE them share. Come on, brain, it was stomping time!
"Oh, lovely, we've reached the mindless violence portion of the program. What do you propose we do?"
Ah, no, Janice pointed out it was anything but mindless. She had a holorifle and it was a very good one, so she intended to show the brains what was REALLY the brightest thing in the room. This, I think, was on the order of Schlock Mercenary's "Captain, you do realize violence is the last resort of the stupid?" "Yes. The intelligent know to turn to violence long before it's last resort time."
Fortunately, her brain agreed with her. "Ooh, energy weapons!" it said. "I'd almost forgotten how much fun those are! How do we proceed, then?"
If the think tank wouldn't hold up their bargain, Janice figured, they could make them do it. She... probably could've shot all of them to death from some distance off, if they could keep the door open and she could get line-of-sight from outside the pacification field, but when it came right down to it, she mostly just wanted her brain in her skull, and her other body parts back where they belonged. The Think Tank had been horrific murderous experimenters, but she was beginning to think there might possibly be some way to make them atone for that. Shooting them would just take them out of the equation forever, and all that would be left would be a legacy of quite a lot of pain. If they could be stopped non-violently, somehow, talked into taking a different course of action, one which didn't send them out into the world in search of more horrible experiments... maybe they could compensate for all the hell they'd unleashed.
Maybe. Maybe. If not, screw it, she had the holorifle and they would go splat exactly like everything else.
Anyway, her brain was far too cheerful to let her speculate for long. "Right! Look out, Think Tank! This brain is coming out of its jar!" it said, before informing her that she could use the autodoc to put her other organs back in place as well if she really wanted. Its last comment was, "Right, then off we go! Klein will be in for a nasty shock when he realizes the pacification field won't work on a mind and body united!"
Ooh. Maybe she wouldn't have to prop the door open after all.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-10 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-10 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-11 05:19 pm (UTC)Nonetheless, we should all hope to handle such a situation with as much sangfroid as she manages.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-11 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-11 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-11 11:09 pm (UTC)Also, there was a chapter in the book in question entitled "The Tin Woodman Talks To Himself," in which Nick Chopper has a lengthy conversation with his severed head. It's not much more polite than Janice's brain.
Yes, I remember all that off the top of my head.
Yes, I am a huge dork.