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Dec. 5th, 2012 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynIn response to hellkitty's response to this post:
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND WHILE WRITING ROGER MAXSON
First – Roger is a product of the Old World. I know this is a thing with all my characters, that I try to make sure they come across as products of their particular time and place and community, but with Roger there's a certain amount of extra effort put into it. Regardless of whether I'm playing him from the grandfather part of his life as I did at Trans9, or from just after the nukes as I did at Axiom, or whether I'm playing him from before 2077 as I've done at several sandboxes, Roger is my window character into the world that gave rise to the Fallout setting. He remembers an entirely different world. His references, his comparisons, his assumptions were all shaped by that bizarre Future Fifties setting and everything about him is influenced by that.
Second – Roger is a soldier. What little canon we have from him directly- instead of from his grandson in Game 1, or from sources that spoke about him in other games- is a diary of two of the worst weeks of his life and a set of written orders that he issued the day after the nukes. He followed procedure for as long as he could when things started going to Hell. He imposed military order on his people to keep them civilized. His last attempt at putting things right before the bombs fell was to turn to the War Department and demand answers. He was heavily invested in that system and as far as I'm concerned that stayed a part of him until the day he died. Which leads me to:
Third – Roger has a conscience. Yes, he's a disciplined man accustomed to obeying orders, but he got hit by a dual-whammy crisis of conscience when hell broke loose at Mariposa- first in terms of 'what kind of atrocity have we been guarding, what horrors have we been party to', and then in terms of 'how is it possible that the people who give me my orders could knowingly be responsible for this'. When it became completely clear to him that yes, the experiments were government-ordered, he tried one last time to call his superiors out on having perpetuated it all- by declaring himself and his people to be in mutiny and secession rather than take that kind of order any longer. When it was all over he buried the scientists he'd shot for their participation, largely out of a sense of guilt- he'd realized that they were at least partly under orders too. I believe severing his people's association with the old government and old military and completely changing the style and structure of the group was his attempt to establish something that would be more honorable and less prone to taking that kind of fall. Any of his other actions, in writing or in RP, are going to be influenced by the fact that they're coming from a man of conscience who knows all too well what happens when the right thing doesn't get done.
Fourth – Roger has a sense of responsibility. He pulled himself together and stepped up when his commanding officer not only locked himself in his office for days on end, but when said CO blew his head off in front of him, because somebody had to keep the men from turning into barbarians. He led several hundred, maybe more, people through a post-nuclear California landscape and a massive attack by people with nothing to lose, all so that he could find them safety somewhere more secure. He deliberately reengineered a bunch of strung-out soldiers and overwhelmed scientists into an organization with an honor code and a long-term goal so that humanity could have a chance at a future. This is a man who takes his duties seriously and who plans for the long term on a very large scale; as far as I'm concerned he feels he owes the people around him that much, and he owes the people yet to be born that much more.
Fifth – He has terrible taste.
No, seriously. The man's human and one facet of that is that you really shouldn't ask him to recommend a movie or a book or an album. The only reason he survived on the diet he had pre-War is because he was the end result of an awful lot of Wisconsin natural selection for 'can maintain cardiac health even in the face of all the saturated fat ever'. He would've been first in line to see Raz Bastion And The Amazons of Xarn if he could've gotten off the base to see it when it premiered. He's read every Edgar Rice Burroughs novel ever because he's really, really fond of the pulp stuff- he prefers Barsoom but hell, he'll take Tarzan or Pellucidar if that's all he can get. When Dirge-with-Soundwave's-mental-powers (an Axiom plot) started rooting through his thoughts, he cast the mech out of his mind by bombarding him with "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas". You get the idea. The man is an unabashed, completely unironic fan of stuff that most people I know (myself included) would consider tacky or cheesy and isn't afraid to let people know about it. I have a minor bit of headcanon in which he discusses the reforms he has in mind for what's about to become the Brotherhood of Steel and the others in his inner circle vote down his proposal to use Barsoomian terms for rank and position, and it's mutually agreed upon that the subject will never be spoken of again. I'm pretty sure he'd love karaoke if the idea were ever introduced to him…. It's a thing, you know?
hellkitty's response to this post:THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND WHILE WRITING ROGER MAXSON
First – Roger is a product of the Old World. I know this is a thing with all my characters, that I try to make sure they come across as products of their particular time and place and community, but with Roger there's a certain amount of extra effort put into it. Regardless of whether I'm playing him from the grandfather part of his life as I did at Trans9, or from just after the nukes as I did at Axiom, or whether I'm playing him from before 2077 as I've done at several sandboxes, Roger is my window character into the world that gave rise to the Fallout setting. He remembers an entirely different world. His references, his comparisons, his assumptions were all shaped by that bizarre Future Fifties setting and everything about him is influenced by that.
Second – Roger is a soldier. What little canon we have from him directly- instead of from his grandson in Game 1, or from sources that spoke about him in other games- is a diary of two of the worst weeks of his life and a set of written orders that he issued the day after the nukes. He followed procedure for as long as he could when things started going to Hell. He imposed military order on his people to keep them civilized. His last attempt at putting things right before the bombs fell was to turn to the War Department and demand answers. He was heavily invested in that system and as far as I'm concerned that stayed a part of him until the day he died. Which leads me to:
Third – Roger has a conscience. Yes, he's a disciplined man accustomed to obeying orders, but he got hit by a dual-whammy crisis of conscience when hell broke loose at Mariposa- first in terms of 'what kind of atrocity have we been guarding, what horrors have we been party to', and then in terms of 'how is it possible that the people who give me my orders could knowingly be responsible for this'. When it became completely clear to him that yes, the experiments were government-ordered, he tried one last time to call his superiors out on having perpetuated it all- by declaring himself and his people to be in mutiny and secession rather than take that kind of order any longer. When it was all over he buried the scientists he'd shot for their participation, largely out of a sense of guilt- he'd realized that they were at least partly under orders too. I believe severing his people's association with the old government and old military and completely changing the style and structure of the group was his attempt to establish something that would be more honorable and less prone to taking that kind of fall. Any of his other actions, in writing or in RP, are going to be influenced by the fact that they're coming from a man of conscience who knows all too well what happens when the right thing doesn't get done.
Fourth – Roger has a sense of responsibility. He pulled himself together and stepped up when his commanding officer not only locked himself in his office for days on end, but when said CO blew his head off in front of him, because somebody had to keep the men from turning into barbarians. He led several hundred, maybe more, people through a post-nuclear California landscape and a massive attack by people with nothing to lose, all so that he could find them safety somewhere more secure. He deliberately reengineered a bunch of strung-out soldiers and overwhelmed scientists into an organization with an honor code and a long-term goal so that humanity could have a chance at a future. This is a man who takes his duties seriously and who plans for the long term on a very large scale; as far as I'm concerned he feels he owes the people around him that much, and he owes the people yet to be born that much more.
Fifth – He has terrible taste.
No, seriously. The man's human and one facet of that is that you really shouldn't ask him to recommend a movie or a book or an album. The only reason he survived on the diet he had pre-War is because he was the end result of an awful lot of Wisconsin natural selection for 'can maintain cardiac health even in the face of all the saturated fat ever'. He would've been first in line to see Raz Bastion And The Amazons of Xarn if he could've gotten off the base to see it when it premiered. He's read every Edgar Rice Burroughs novel ever because he's really, really fond of the pulp stuff- he prefers Barsoom but hell, he'll take Tarzan or Pellucidar if that's all he can get. When Dirge-with-Soundwave's-mental-powers (an Axiom plot) started rooting through his thoughts, he cast the mech out of his mind by bombarding him with "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas". You get the idea. The man is an unabashed, completely unironic fan of stuff that most people I know (myself included) would consider tacky or cheesy and isn't afraid to let people know about it. I have a minor bit of headcanon in which he discusses the reforms he has in mind for what's about to become the Brotherhood of Steel and the others in his inner circle vote down his proposal to use Barsoomian terms for rank and position, and it's mutually agreed upon that the subject will never be spoken of again. I'm pretty sure he'd love karaoke if the idea were ever introduced to him…. It's a thing, you know?
