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| 7 | %% Fridge that demands an answer goes on the Headscratchers tab. |
| 8 | %% If you want to add a fridge example that needs an answer, or see a fridge example you want to answer, move it over to Headscratchers. |
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| 12 | '''As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.''' |
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| 14 | [[foldercontrol]] |
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| 16 | [[folder:Fridge Brilliance]] |
| 17 | * In "One for My Baby", Boone trusts you to help him find and kill the person who sold his wife into slavery because you're a stranger. Who does Jeannie May Crawford frequently tell you to watch out for? |
| 18 | * New Vegas and Nevada have the same initials. |
| 19 | ** Not just the same initials - those are a postcode. Fitting for a Courier. |
| 20 | * The unique Fatman in ''Gun Runners Arsenal'' is called Esther. In biology, ester bonds connect lipids (fats). |
| 21 | ** Esther, much like Gehenna, is named after Hebrew Bible concepts. Esther, both the name of a book in the said bible and the name of the Persian queen of Jewish descent, helped prevent a Jewish genocide, by convincing the Persian king to allow the Jews to arm and defend themselves. This ended with the death of 75,000 Persians. |
| 22 | ** Gehenna - the unique Shishkebab, is named after a valley in Jerusalem, in which - per the Hebrew Bible, some of the kings of Judah sacrificed their children by fire. It also doubles as a reference to ''VideoGame/FalloutVanBuren'', where would be a new type of enemy called Gehennas, mutants that are always on fire, created when the Powder Gangers blew up a radioactive coal mine in the city of Burham Springs in Utah. |
| 23 | * Cass' sidequest is called "Heartaches By The Number". In addition to referencing the Guy Mitchell song on the soundtrack, Cass inherited her father's heart condition. |
| 24 | * In Vault 11, the vault mainframe tells you that while being a martyr isn't as fun as driving a race car, it's every bit as important. The thing is, driving a race car isn't important at all, and neither is being a martyr. The vault computer was never going to wipe out Vault 11 if they disobeyed, so nobody needed to die. |
| 25 | * Many folks might find it strange that the Legion is such an effective military force against the NCR given the latter's guns and modern technology, and that the 1st Battle of Hoover Dam was won by the NCR leading the Legion into what is a fairly obvious trap at Boulder City, that is if you're unaware of Roman military history at least. The historical Roman Legion at its peak was nigh unstoppable in a straight pitch battle (unless your name is Hannibal Barca), however, it did suffer a few catastrophic defeats like Teutoburg, Carrhae, and Trasimene. The commonality between them? They all relied on the Romans being led into a position where ambushing forces could take advantage of the terrain to surround and cut off enemy forces while taking most of them out through an initial surprise attack, just like the 1st Recon did in Boulder City. |
| 26 | * The only people outside of the Legion who use the Latin pronunciation of "Caesar" are Marcus and Easy Pete. Marcus is a highly intelligent, well-traveled Super Mutant and Easy Pete... is a prospector. Now how would Easy Pete know how to say Caesar correctly? If you talk to him he mentions that he had a camp out by the Colorado River. The Legion has camps along the Colorado too, and usually doesn't bother merchants. Easy Pete used to trade with the Legion and as a result, picked up some of their speech patterns. |
| 27 | ** Why does Arcade Gannon address Caesar with the typical English pronunciation in spite of his own literary wisdom? Well, why would someone who utterly '''loathes''' the Legion ever address their leader the correct way? Especially when you listen to Arcade's reasons behind his hate towards Caesar's Legion. |
| 28 | ** Likewise, Joshua Graham always uses the English pronunciation, despite him obviously knowing better. He has every reason to slip in a small insult towards Caesar at every opportunity. |
| 29 | * In VideoGame/Fallout3 and VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas, blood packs heal 1 hit point per pack. In 3, you can get a perk from the leader of blood-consuming people which increases the hp gain to 20. Why do blood packs heal so little hp, when blood transfusions can save people from the brink of death sometimes? Because the [[PlayerCharacter player]] actually drinks the blood instead of replenishing his/her lost blood from an injury. The Lone Wanderer is taught how to more effectively gain health from drinking blood. |
| 30 | ** This explains how the Sole Survivor gets more out of blood packs in VideoGame/Fallout4 as well; the protagonist either fought in a war or was married to someone who did, so it's not impossible for them to know how to perform a blood transfusion. Notice that in 3 and New Vegas, you hear a gulping sound when consuming a blood pack, implying the drinking of blood. In 4 you hear a rustling sound as though plastic is being squeezed. This sound is identical to you using Radaway - implying a different way of introducing blood into the body. |
| 31 | ** Which drifts into FridgeLogic again when you consider the fact that, after 200 years at least, the blood in those packs has certainly expired no matter what kinds of advances the US had made in preservation technologies. With this taken into account, the Sole Survivor injecting the blood into his veins would do more harm than good. Drinking it would actually be more helpful, which makes sense considering that a high medicine Courier/Lone Wanderer would certainly be aware of the expiration date of blood and the concept of a blood transfusion. |
| 32 | *** Except you can find blood-packs in plenty of places including the New Vegas medical clinic and Doc Mitchell's house. Who's to say the blood packs are ALL pre-war? Plenty of them could be modern, taken from willing donors, or just dead people with blood to spare. After all, the only people you really see with them are the types who would know how blood transfusions work anyway. It's not too impossible to think they might be the ones making the blood packs in the first place. |
| 33 | * At the end of the game (assuming you're not backing the Legion), you can use your Speech skills against Legate Lanius to convince him that the Legion's attempts to expand into the west will cause the organization to weaken due to its policy of fully integrating conquered peoples into a mono-cultural centralized government. A similar factor in real life caused the Roman Empire to collapse. And in the event that you don't successfully convince him to withdraw, one of the easiest ways to defeat Lanius is to set numerous explosives at the conveniently-placed stairway landing just before him, falling back when he attacks and letting him run on top of those bombs and blowing himself to the moon. Why is this FridgeBrilliance? Because this scenario directly parallels how the Legion, then led by Joshua Graham, was defeated at the First Battle of Hoover Dam by way of trickery and explosives; so for all of them boasting the Legion and Lanius himself makes of him being superior to Graham, he can be [[DeathByIrony personally defeated by the same tactics]]. |
| 34 | * Power armor factions: |
| 35 | ** At first, it seems like FridgeLogic that wearing Brotherhood of Steel power armor will get you shot on sight by NCR, while no one in the Wastes bats an eyelid at you storming around in a suit of Enclave power armor. Then you realize that not only are the Brotherhood a present threat, but the Enclave has been gone for a couple of generations, not to mention the number of Wastelanders who've ever actually seen an Enclave soldier ''and lived to tell the tale'' is probably extremely small. |
| 36 | ** On a similar note, the non-faction T-51b Power Armor does not get you shot by NCR, despite being the same armor the Brotherhood uses. Brotherhood Paladins keep their equipment well-maintained according to Brotherhood standards, so their armors are always shiny and well-kept. The non-faction T-51b is rusted and weathered with age. You don't look like Brotherhood wearing that armor. You look like someone that lucked out and scavenged a working suit of old PoweredArmor in a cave somewhere. And you very likely did; all three non-faction T-51bs in non-DLC ''Fallout: New Vegas'' are found underground. |
| 37 | * If you take a look at Caesar's SPECIAL stats you will find out that he only ranks 4 in both Charisma and Intelligence. It first seems like FridgeLogic since he is supposed to be extremely charismatic and also possess very high intellect. But after you find out that he is suffering from a brain tumor, it makes sense that his skills were being affected as a result of it. |
| 38 | ** Additionally, he acts extremely rude to the Courier and trusts them, and only them, to deal with a problem, without anyway of preventing the Courier from undermining and/or sabotaging his plans. The context of his brain tumor changes this from lazy writing and GameplayAndStorySegregation to incredibly subtle {{Foreshadowing}}. |
| 39 | * Why does the voice of Dean Domino in the ''Dead Money'' DLC not have the typical ghoul's rasp? Remember what ghouls call non-ghouls: ''smoothskins.'' Dean speaks like a non-ghoul because he is a con man - in other words, a ''smooth talker.'' |
| 40 | * In the deck of cards that come with the collector's edition, [[ColonelBadass Colonel Cassandra Moore]] is the Queen of Hearts. She's a ball-buster. The King of Hearts? President Kimball. Fittingly, the King of Hearts is called the Suicide King, and Kimball's [[TooDumbToLive obstinate insistence]] of making a frontline visit with a wily [[CombatPragmatist pragmatic]] foe just over the hill gets him killed without the Courier's intervention. |
| 41 | ** The two Jokers in the deck, Benny and the Courier, have those cards for more reasons than just being the Wild Cards. First, in Euchre, the Joker is called the "Benny" card. Second, the Joker cards in Tarot have significant meaning, one Joker meaning the Fool, the other the Magician. The Fool, being the Courier, is the spirit in search of experience (although XP might be a better word for it), and represents [[CrazyIsCool mystical cleverness, not bound by normal reason]], and possessing an ability to tune into the inner workings of the world, and is often represented by a wanderer walking aimless, often one foot hanging over a void, a step away from falling to his death. Meanwhile, the Magician, being Benny, is a man who practices sleight of hand, trickery, and deception, a stage magician with the initial appearance of great power, but later revealed to have no ability of his own, and can also indicate a manipulator, a trickster, and the ego, as well as the pursuit of personal power, and is often associated with the first step in the Fool's Journey, as well as the potential for a new adventure. Not to mention the phrase "Revenge is a fool's game." It's a good thing that the Courier holds the fool card then, isn't it? |
| 42 | ** While we're talking about the collector deck of cards... We already mentioned Kimball is the King of Hearts. The other kings are Caesar (Clubs), Mr. House (Diamonds), and the King (Spades). Does this selection of four [=NPCs=] remind you something? They are the four characters you need to eat in order to gain the hidden Meat of Champions perk. |
| 43 | ** Another point on the collector's deck: While three of the Kings make sense, despite his name The King sounds like the odd man out. He is the leader of a gang that you meet relatively early but plays little part in the grand scheme of the Mojave. So why is he so notable? He represents the Wild Card ending. He says that the philosophy he learned from the School of Impersonation is that "Every man is a King." The Wild Card ending has you prove his philosophy right as you go from a simple courier to the leader of an independent New Vegas. Also, the Spades cards gather various groups (Freeside, the Van Graff, the Kings, North Vegas Square, the Followers of the Apocalypse, the Fiends...), ''i.e.'' non-faction groups. |
| 44 | ** Another point about the Spades color. 11 out of the 13 Spades cards are [=NPCs=] and groups from Freeside[[note]]the exceptions being Jules (a guard from North Vegas Square) as the 3 of Spades, and Motor-Runner as the 4 of Spades[[/note]], while the King is Freeside's ruler. |
| 45 | * Some might wonder why there would be a tribe full of crazy, drugged-up psychos west of New Vegas. Then, you visit a Vault a little south of the Fiends territory, which, by reading the logs, you find was a Vault-Tec experiment, filled half with crazy people, the other half people that were intentionally driven insane (the only people who knew what was going on was the overseer of the "sane" group, and the Vault medical staff, including armed guards). The Vault had, amongst other things, an extremely well-stocked pharmacy, since it had to medicate some of its crazies to keep them from hurting other residents. When you get there, you find that there are no bodies and no damage that would be implied to have come from a serious fight, despite the fact that a dangerous gang had moved in. In fact, Vault 19 is in better condition than any save Vault 21, which was still occupied by its original residents. Put this together, and it becomes clear: the Vault Residents, after getting rid of the small number of people who were supposed to control them, left the vault and migrated north and became the Fiends. Why else would there be so many chem-addicted psychos gathered together into one group, and why else would their highest ranking members also be the most insane? Because they were descended from people who were already chem addicted and crazy! |
| 46 | * In Novac, a sniper who's been helping defend the city asks you to help him uncover and take deadly revenge on the person who sold his wife into slavery. It turns out that's quite a bit easier than you'd think because the person responsible is keeping the bill of sale in a safe in their office. It even has their signature on it. Why would anyone do something that stupid? As it turns out, the Legion has agreed to pay the person an additional 50% of the sale price if the PREGNANT wife gives birth to a healthy baby. Without the signed bill of sale, the seller has no proof that the Legion owes her a bonus, and the Legion is notorious for reneging on any promise not put in writing (and some of the promises they do put in writing if they can get away with it). Of course, it turns out the seller would never receive the bonus anyhow, but nobody in Novac except the [[MercyKill self-widowed]] husband can possibly know this until he tells you. |
| 47 | * Chris Haversam is a human who believes that he is a ghoul due to radiation exposure from the vault he grew up in. When we visit his home, Vault 34 is filled with ghouls. He either got out just in time, or both the unexpected loss of the reactor engineer and the civil war helped contribute to the reactor being damaged. |
| 48 | * How do you make [[BulletTime Turbo]]? By using chems and poison from one of the fastest, most jittery enemies in the game, the [[DemonicSpiders Cazador]]. |
| 49 | * There is an unmarked quest in which you help an NCR soldier working as a chef at Camp [=McCarran=] to repair his food processor. To do so you will have to either meet a really high repair skill check or gather a massive list of junk for the replacement parts. And your award for finishing this quest? Just a small discount when buying food from the camp's cafeteria. There is no NCR fame gain, no caps, no increase in karma, and not even any experience points. What is the name of this unmarked quest? Not Worth a Hill of Corn and Beans. |
| 50 | * All of the organic companions have this really annoying habit of saying something loudly every time you crouch to sneak anywhere. Everyone except Boone, that is. One of his three tag skills is sneak, so it's entirely possible he's the only person out of six who knows that you shouldn't talk when you're trying to get the jump on someone. Additionally, he's a former member of the NCR's most elite sniper unit; being a sniper is all about getting in, delivering your "one shot, one kill," and getting out without being detected, and Boone is one of the best of the best. |
| 51 | * If you head toward Nelson from Novac, the highway will be littered with Legionaries' bodies, even if you have never been that way before/are a Legion sympathizer. After a moment, you realize they're dead because they've been shot down by Manny and Boone. |
| 52 | * An interesting example of GameplayAndStoryIntegration: Arcade has ''very'' few dialogue options compared to the other companions. Why? Because he says he hates talking about himself. Which makes sense since he's hiding his past. |
| 53 | * Vault 21: |
| 54 | ** That photo of James and Catherine in there? Probably just an Easter egg, but it may shed some light on some of Fallout 3's plot. James being a native vault dweller himself certainly explains why the paranoid, xenophobic loon of an Overseer was willing to let him into the Vault, as well as Eden's belief that the Lone Wanderer would be free of mutations. It also explains why he thought a Vault would be safe, given how notorious they were for ending in the occupants' deaths/insanity/mutation/etc. He grew up in one of the only successful Vaults that didn't self-destruct. Given that Vault 21 was discovered and opened by Mr. House sometime between 2271 and 2281, it also means he had to have discovered a way to leave the Vault discretely since he had to have left sometime before 2258 and he didn't alert Mr. House to the Vault's location. This is supported by DummiedOut content that would have featured a secret passage between the Tops Casino and Vault 21. |
| 55 | ** Vault 21, the gambler's vault, was placed under what is now New Vegas. 21 is the highest possible winning score in blackjack and is also [[RuleOfThree three]] times [[LuckySeven seven]]. Vault 21 is one of the few Vaults that we know of that didn't implode in on itself or get ransacked by savage raiders, especially considering it wasn't a "control" Vault. This makes the inhabitants of Vault 21 quite lucky indeed. |
| 56 | ** The Vaults play only a minor role in the game, but the game has to start you out with a Vault Jumpsuit anyway for consistency's sake. But why Vault 21? 21=7*3. 777. JACKPOT. Also, 21 is Blackjack. In fact, Vault 21 is the ''only'' one in the Mojave known to have been a resounding success. |
| 57 | ** It's a Vault 21 suit because Doc. Mitchell lived in that vault, but left. He gives you either his old vault suit or that of his late wife. |
| 58 | ** Speaking of Vault 21, there is an unmarked quest where Sarah (the owner) needs more vault jumpsuits to sell. If you help her get enough jumpsuits, how does she reward you? By giving you a free room and letting you sleep with her as many times as you want. How's that for lucky? |
| 59 | ** Vault 21 being surprisingly prosperous with their gambling-based governance could be seen as a clever bit of GameplayAndStoryIntegration: as luck is a consistent attribute with characters in the game, someone who is lucky enough to win the games is likely to continue to be lucky in making good decisions in how to run the vault. |
| 60 | ** Additionally, Luck has been Deconstructed as a way of calculating odds and statistics in your favor, which is why luck has a much higher impact in blackjack, a game where card counting and weighing the odds of the draw, than in other gambling stations. Someone good enough with numbers and balancing odds to consistently win card games will have an edge in making decisions on behalf of the Vault. |
| 61 | * There's a child slave at Fortification Hill who has an unmarked quest to retrieve her teddy bear, which is named Sergeant Teddy, and was taken away from her by a Legionary. Consider that "Sergeant" is not a term in use in the Legion, and the NCR flag has a two-headed bear on it. |
| 62 | * At first, Rex seems like a cliche name for the dog. But Rex is Latin for King. Who is it that owns Rex when you first meet him? The King. One also finds out eventually that before Rex met The King, he was owned by Caesar. It also explains why Rex is allowed to run around in the Legion Camp, even when he is a cyborg. |
| 63 | * Almost every Nightkin killed by the Ghouls was reduced to a pile of ash. This means they were killed by a critical hit, which is based on luck. Nightkin are invisible most of the time, so it makes sense that lucky shots took them out. Harland, the only truly competent combatant in the group, is the only one that was able to reliably kill Nightkin with regular shots. |
| 64 | * Why does Mr. New Vegas, if the Courier kills Caesar, say it remains unknown how the assassin was able to evade security, regardless of how he was killed? Because it ''is'' unknown, even if the Courier slaughtered his or her way across Fortification Hill: there is an army camped ''outside'' the Fort proper, and the game provides no explanation for how the Courier and companions manage to evade or get through that obstacle when traveling to and from the Fort after killing Caesar. |
| 65 | * In Fallout 3, the color of the menus and icons of the Pip-boy is green tint at default. In New Vegas it is Amber. The reason for this is because, while you were given a brand new Pip-boy of your own in Fallout 3, you were given an old one used by Doc in New Vegas. Once during the course of his life, he changed Amber to become the default on the Pip-boy. |
| 66 | ** Alternatively, the Pip-Boy's default color in Vault 21 is amber. Amber is the perfect color for a desert setting. Why is the Pip-Boy color green in Fallout 3? Because Fallout 3 takes place in Washington DC, which has a coastal setting. The menus are green in VideoGame/Fallout4 because Boston is also a coastal city. |
| 67 | * The Mk. 2 Stealth Suit in Old World Blues is lonely because, as a stealth suit, she can't be seen. |
| 68 | * Why is the Courier consistently insulted by members of the Legion regardless of how much they do for them? To serve as a reminder that they don't necessarily need you. The Legion offers you few side quests, most of which are just minor preparations before the final battle because they have done and do most of the major work themselves. In comparison, the NCR has a significant amount of side quests including training low-rank troops, fixing malfunctioning equipment, rooting out spies in the infrastructure, exterminating extra problems like the Fiends, and reclaiming territory from the Legion. Result, by the end, the NCR sees you as a true hero which would lead to them being incredibly polite and in awe of your talents. But to the Legion, you're a complete nobody who's happens to be really good at fighting Profilgates, so they have little reason to treat you as anything more than a conveniently useful mercenary. |
| 69 | ** Even worse so if a female Courier helps them out because they make it clear the only reason you aren't collared and in the slave pens yourself is because you're a capable woman that Caesar deems necessary, but still ''a woman'', hence why fighting in their arena isn't even an option in this case. |
| 70 | * The origin of the expression 'Forlorn Hope' is a dutch saying, 'verloren hoop' that translates to 'lost hope.' It refers to the soldiers sent into battle who are not expected to survive. Camp Forlorn Hope is on the front lines of the Legion conflict, and stands to fall to the Legion at any time due to both lack of supplies and a high casualty rate. Well, darn. |
| 71 | ** Also, listen to how Mr. New Vegas pronounces the name. His pronunciation sounds suspiciously like he's saying the Dutch phrase, foreshadowing the actual state of Forlorn Hope when you get to it. |
| 72 | * Boone always inexplicably uses melee weapons, even though he's a sniper. There's a semi-serious possibility that he does this so he can run up to the person he's killing and make sure they're hostile, thus preventing another Bitter Springs. He may also be practicing in case any Legionnaire escapes his scope. There's a darker side to this as well, which combines FridgeBrilliance with FridgeHorror: the more you learn about his DarkAndTroubledPast, the clearer it becomes that a combination of grief over [[TearJerker what happened to his wife]] and guilt over [[PoorCommunicationKills what happened at Bitter Springs]] have made Boone at least [[DeathSeeker borderline suicidal]]. |
| 73 | ** It's also Boone's fitting way of getting revenge, considering how legionaries typically fight. He is pretty much copying their fighting style of close-quarters melee. |
| 74 | * An interesting point about the four DLC: they all seem to be related to one of the four main philosophies/Factions. |
| 75 | ** Dead Money is about the Remnant Elder of the NCR-Brotherhood War. |
| 76 | ** Honest Hearts is about the surviving former Legate of the Legion. |
| 77 | ** Lonesome Road is about the past of the Couriers. |
| 78 | ** Old World Blues is a little harder since it doesn't relate to Mr. House directly. However, OWB is about the pioneers of the Old World, and its technology surviving into the Fallout world. Mr. House is one of those pioneers and is also responsible for the technology that saved the Mojave and New Vegas from being a total shitstorm. There's also the mini-securitron and its creator, who hates House. |
| 79 | * Along the same lines, all of the DLC's motifs are based on older media. |
| 80 | ** ''Dead Money'' is based on the film ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' |
| 81 | ** ''Honest Hearts'' has many biblical references and also takes elements from ''Dances With Wolves'' |
| 82 | ** ''Old World Blues'' has much in common with ''The Wizard of Oz'' and ''Forbidden Planet'' |
| 83 | ** ''Lonesome Road'' is based at least in part on passages from ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner''. |
| 84 | * In Dead Money, you can exchange your Sierra Madre chips for pre-war cash, and vice versa. However, the exchange rate seems ridiculous; a bundle of cash (one pre-war cash item) for a single chip. That is until you realize that the currency was already highly inflated before the war, as a single copy of the local newspaper cost 56 dollars! |
| 85 | * Veronica's ending if you convince her to stay with the Brotherhood of Steel and make peace with the NCR would seem like it should be the happiest outcome for her, yet that ending is somewhat bittersweet, and actually sounds a lot like Father Elijah. Why? Because if she stays with the Brotherhood she's living way she was raised to by him. |
| 86 | --> A distance had arisen between her and her fellow members that would never be bridged. She began secluding herself in crumbling libraries of the Old World, learning of promising technologies she knew the Brotherhood would never adopt. |
| 87 | ** This point leads to another realization that has been discussed in the WMG section. In the NCR ending with the Brotherhood truce, the Brotherhood is now in a position where it is forced to reform. Its members know that they have to keep being useful to the NCR or else be wiped out, as they only have a few people left. They will have to start recruiting outsiders, work with other communities to patrol the I-15 and I-95, and basically do a bunch of things that go outside the Codex, if not outright defy it. However, there will still be resistance from regressive Brotherhood members, and here is where the initial point about Veronica's ending comes into play. Think about what you have to do in order for Veronica to stay with the Brotherhood: in order to achieve that ending, and NOT fail the quest, you more or less have to deal with the group of asshole Paladins peacefully (you might be able to kill them without failing the quest, but it is pretty damn hard to do). Considering the Mojave Brotherhood's fairly small numbers, of course, those Paladins are going to have much more influence, both by themselves and through their negative peer influence. Even with the NCR truce, they will continue to make the lives of progressive members like Veronica and Elder [=McNamara=] miserable. But in the ending where Veronica leaves the Brotherhood? You kill those pieces of shit after they murder the Followers at the outpost. And there is no penalty at all for killing them, to the point that the other Brotherhood members never even ask about them. Thus, it is implied that the rest of the Brotherhood did not approve of their actions, or at least now understand that there will be consequences for that kind of behavior (in the NCR-Brotherhood ending where Veronica leaves, this notion is further supported by the fact that Veronica remains pretty friendly with the Brotherhood's outside patrols). Moreover, with some of the worst, most toxic fish in a small pond gone, combined with the Brotherhood essentially having to work for the NCR if they want to survive, the more progressive Brotherhood members will now have an easier time following Veronica's example and trying to reform the Mojave chapter. |
| 88 | * There are heavy inconsistencies about what you hear about Legate Lanius. One person says that he was the strongest warrior in his tribe, another says that he became a praetorian at thirteen. Neither are really compatible. But this suddenly makes sense once Ulysses implies that Lanius is a LegacyCharacter. His origins don't match up because they're different people. This also explains why his face isn't messed up underneath the mask when you kill him. The Lanius that got damaged was a previous one. Not to mention why Joshua Graham doesn't recall hearing of Lanius in his time as the Malpais Legate. In addition, Ceasar when refering to his backstory, calls him "the warrior who was not yet Lanius"Implying that there were others with the title Lanius. |
| 89 | * Blowing up the Brotherhood of Steel's bunker may seem like a strange case of AMillionIsAStatistic, being as it subtracts significantly less Karma than just killing everyone in it individually. However, it should be noted that the self-destruct sequence is neither instantaneous (to allow all personnel to evacuate), nor secretive (thanks to the alarm that goes off). Judging by this, one could see destroying the base as the more merciful option (provided you don't kill anyone in the process), for as [[KickTheDog dickish]] a move it may be, it at the very least gives the Brotherhood a chance to evacuate. It can be safe to imagine that at least some got out alive, though we don't get to see that due to GamePlayAndStorySegregation. |
| 90 | * The entire naming convention for Big Mountain reeks of Fridge Brilliance. For starters, after the Great War it is nicknamed the Big Empty, due to its vast swath of supposedly empty land, as seen from the outside of the crater. Now, Big Mountain is also abbreviated Big Mt. Big M T. Doctor Klein even Lampshades it: |
| 91 | -->'''Courier''': 'I've heard this place called the "Big Empty."' |
| 92 | -->'''Klein: YES, BECAUSE THE INTELLECTUALLY CHALLENGED SEE AN "M" AND A "T" NEXT TO EACH OTHER AND TAKE OCCAM'S RAZOR TO IT.''' |
| 93 | ** Not only that, but there is actual location in Arizona called Big Mountain. While it isn't home to any scientific labs, it is known by another name. [[VideoGame/HalfLife Black Mesa]]. Amazing, the coincidences that make up life. |
| 94 | * Mobius and ''Old World Blues'': |
| 95 | ** While speaking with Dr. Mobius in ''Old World Blues'' about how to defeat the Think Tank without violence, he'll shrug (as much as he can, anyway), and suggest appealing to their humanity. He quotes: "Well, there's many things they have forgotten sitting in their bowls. Friendship. The thrill of discovery. Love. Masturbation. The usual." At first glance, this just seems like some funny line of dialogue with a BreadEggsMilkSquick joke to it...except ''all'' of those things are ''exactly'' what you can do to talk the Think Tank down! [[LargeHam Borous]] can recall his love and fondess for his dog, Gabe. [[TheUnintelligible 8]] can be thrilled when he sees how well the Sonic Emitter he created works after it's upgraded, as well as learn a thing or two about empathy if you opt not to hack into him. And [[CovertPervert Dala]]...[[CaughtWithYourPantsDown gets quite excited at watching you breathe]]. This also accounts for how thick the innuendo is spread over the whole DLC, what with sonojaculation, X-13 ''filling'' the stealth suit up, and other instances. You're in a research facility, isolated from the outside world even before the great war, especially with only one female on the team. It makes sense the Think Tank would be sexually pent up, especially after they had to be put in brain jars to survive. |
| 96 | ** Another instance with Mobius is when you ask about why the Think Tank needs the technologies, he explains that each one is representative of the Brain, Heart, and Courage (represented with the spine) and that the process of getting them is to reclaim those lost concepts of humanity. He likens the whole concept to some old story about "a band of murderous thugs" who sought them out without realizing they had them all along. This sounds like a FutureImperfect recollection of ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz''. However, a popular interpretation of the story is that [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Dorothy and company were]] [[DesignatedHero Designated Heroes]] who set out to murder the Wicked Witch of the West, despite her never actually doing anything all that villainous anywhere in the story, simply because the Wizard told them to. Looks like he might have shared that view. |
| 97 | ** The ''Wizard of Oz'' analogy goes further. In the movie, Dorothy's companions each wanted certain qualities, namely a brain, a heart, and courage. In the game, the surgery done to the courier removes their brain, their heart, and their spine. Stupid people are called brainless, unemotional/uncaring people are often said to be heartless, and cowardly people are often referred to as being spineless. Not to mention the similarity in the methods of arrival to the Big MT and Oz the characters went through. |
| 98 | ** Just like in the movie, the Courier realizes that in spite of their missing organs, they have the qualities they needed all along: it takes a ''heart'' to befriend the Stealth Suit, a ''spine'' to repeatedly brave the dangerous X-8 facility, and a ''brain'' to outwit the Think Tank once and for all. |
| 99 | ** Ulysses' unusual and utter ''dread'' in confronting the Think Tank despite their bumbling insanity and seeming weakness becomes evident if one puts into account Mobius' explanation on what he had to do to both keep them that way and sealed inside the Big Empty. For otherwise, their collective madness, focus and brilliance would actually ''make the Divide look tame.'' |
| 100 | * Chris Haversam was sainted after helping the Bright Brotherhood make their journey. St. Christopher was sainted after helping Christ cross a dangerous river. St. Christopher was offered a last chance to avoid martyrdom when the king of Lycia sent him beautiful women to tempt him away from his religion. You can convince Chris he's human and should sabotage the rockets at the nth hour if you're playing as a female Courier and have the Black Widow perk. Also, he's a revered religious figure who enabled the followers to reach a paradise in the heavens through his selfless dedication and sacrifice [[CrystalDragonJesus and Chris is one letter off from ... ]]? Also, Saint Christopher was the Patron Saint of travel. And oh, boy, do the Ghouls have a long trip in front of them. |
| 101 | * The Karma loss from stealing from even gangs like powder gangers: |
| 102 | ** Sure they are evil, but there has been a somewhat unsavory reputation with prospectors as Daniel will tell you. So by just plain looting everything on sight, you are being a filthy prospector. Although in a balance mod made by Project Director [[WordOfGod Joshua Sawyer]], the alignment of all Powder Ganger [=NPCs=] was set to Evil so that stealing from them would no longer affect your Karma. Take that as you will. |
| 103 | ** There is another piece of brilliance here. The Power Gangers technically don't own anything in that prison - the NCR does. You are not stealing from a group of rogue prisoners, you are stealing from The Bear, and they would very much like to reclaim all of that property once they eventually get around to storming the place. |
| 104 | ** But there are items in the prison that do NOT incur karma loss when you take them. The Powder Gangers have also been raiding caravans and nearby settlements, so not everything in the NCRCF is NCR property. |
| 105 | * There are many Ranger Stations throughout the Mojave, but the one just north of Searchlight happens to have a very large number of NCR Ghouls. Since Searchlight was hit with a dirty bomb and is now a radioactive hellhole, the NCR obviously decided to put all of their radiation-resistant rangers as close as they can to it in case they need to get into the town. |
| 106 | ** The Ranger Station is also right next to patches of radiation which are likely unrelated to what happened in Searchlight. As this is the closest station to Cottonwood Cove, the radiation provides a good "natural" defense against the Legion, since, with their aversion for high technology, they would be unwilling to use anti-radiation drugs or radiation suits. |
| 107 | ** Even more brilliant considering the quest Eye For An Eye. Lucullus is the only Legionary who will use preventive equipment against radiation. |
| 108 | * It is figuratively impossible, even with a critical hit, for Maria (the gun used by Benny to shoot the Courier in the head) to kill the player in the opening cutscene using the combat damage tables. Even at level 1, Endurance 1, no armor, and assuming Benny has maxed Guns skill (which he doesn't), it does not do enough damage to kill with the critical and headshot bonuses to damage. This is either a bow to realism (this ''is'' a lethal injury) or FridgeBrilliance (those two shots to the head ''don't'' kill The Courier after all…) |
| 109 | ** One of the first things Doc Mitchell says to you upon waking up: "You've been out cold for a couple days, now." You were in a coma for days. Not weeks. Not months. Not years. ''Days.'' That's how long it took you to get shot twice in the head, undergo surgery to remove the bullets, heal, and recover enough to stand, let alone walk across the room to the Vigor Tester. Either that's how hardy the Courier is at Level 1, or that's how crap Benny's gun is. |
| 110 | ** Maybe you weren't lucky. You were BLESSED. The gun Benny used is called Maria. You seemingly "died", but rose again. Now, why does that sound familiar? |
| 111 | * Caesar and Graham: |
| 112 | ** Caesar's arrogance under IdiotBall: After 'killing' Joshua Graham, the only other well-educated and independent man in the Legion, Caesar will be constantly surrounded by obedient subordinates that worship him as a god-figure. He's living inside an echo-chamber where his ideas and opinions are always right and no one will ever consider anything else. The courier is probably the first free agent that he's met in a very long time, and Caesar would naturally assume that you too will bend under his will like so many others. He may even be so far gone into megalomania that the idea that you'd defy him is something he can't even admit to himself anymore. |
| 113 | ** The fact that Joshua Graham retained his name and identity even in his time as the Malpais Legate implies that even then, he was beginning to be seen by Caesar as a threat to his power and worldview. Similarly, Graham's actions defied the ''modus operandi'' of assimilating under a single, unified will, thus threatening the future of the Legion itself. In this light, the first defeat at Hoover Dam accelerated the process, while also giving Caesar a convenient opportunity to remove all opposition to his authority. |
| 114 | * California, Caesar, and House are all kinds of salads. As is Cobb. |
| 115 | * Everyone talks about how corrupt NCR has become under Kimball. But flashback to Fallout 2 and you'll see an NCR that's aggressively trying to expand, is willing to let you beat up a prisoner since he's a jerk and they really need the information, is unduly influenced by brahmin barons, has a shoot-first approach to criminals, and is in a state of imperial presidency. NCR is no more corrupt than it ever was--it's just that over the last forty years its citizens have become more idealistic and now expect better of their country! |
| 116 | * Why is pre-war money worth anything? |
| 117 | ** Genuine pre-war money is nearly impossible to forge and there only exists a finite amount of it in post-war America. While the value of the numbers on it is long gone, the actual material and markings have rarity value. Once said value is supported by enough merchants via the backed currency or useful materials, it becomes a usable trading material. |
| 118 | ** Alternative idea: toilet paper. Do you see any toilet paper in the world? No, no you don't. American "paper" money is actually a type of cloth, so it would be sturdy enough to wipe your ass with. |
| 119 | ** We finally have an answer as of Fallout 4, it is used in Bedding. Which really says awful things about the beds in the wasteland. |
| 120 | * I Put a Spell on You (a quest in which you have to root out a spy in camp MC Carran) is a GuideDangIt, since if you follow the compass markings and report to Captain Curtis about the break-in in the radio tower, you fail the quest. Why is the compass pointing at him then? Because he leads the investigation. Unless you are smart enough to figure he is in the ideal spot to both spy on the camp and escape being identified as the spy, you have no reason not to report to him. So the game cleverly uses the interface to put you in the Courier's perspective. |
| 121 | * Why are there no long haired options for the Courier? You're in a desert. Long hair would be rather impractical, especially being a courier. You were also very recently shot in the head. It stands to reason that Doc Mitchell might have trimmed your hair, if it was long before the game started, to make operating easier. Also, long hair is a bad idea if you plan on fighting. If you have long hair, it becomes easier to grab it. The world being what it is, quite a few [[TheCombatPragmatist pragmatists]] are likely to be around. |
| 122 | * A couple characters, namely Caesar and Yes-Man, speculate that House keeps a giant robot in the bunker under Fortification Hill. At first, this sounds like a MythologyGag that references Liberty Prime from ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}''...except in game, you can actually find [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110303133341/fallout/images/b/bc/House.jpg pre-war photographs of Mr. House posing in front of a large robot]] (which may very well ''be'' Liberty Prime, being as it was a joint project between the US Army, General Atomics International, and House's own [=RobCo=]). Looks like their speculation wasn't so baseless after all. |
| 123 | * Save for the Lucky 38, all of the casinos on the Strip [[GangOfHats have some sort of theme going on]]: The Ultra-Luxe is "classy", The Tops has a "Rat Pack" motiff, and Gomorrah is...[[WretchedHive Gomorrah]]. The Lucky 38, however, could almost be called "generic": there's no discernible theme or asthetic to the place. But it ''doesn't need one'': The Lucky 38 is from ''Pre-War'' Vegas, which presumably had far more casinos to pick from--it may have even sold itself as an alternative to the themed casinos back then--and the whole place is really just House's MissionControl. It's also been sealed for 200 years anyway, so no-one's been in there since. |
| 124 | ** Speaking of the "Lucky 38": Why 38? Because there are 38 slots on a roulette wheel; 0, 00, and 1-36. |
| 125 | * When thinking about it, it seemed odd at first how "ED-E My Love" turns out--that the Followers increase his offense and the Brotherhood increases his defense. However: While even the lowly Fiends use energy weapons left and right, ''only'' the Brotherhood uses Power Armor. That is if you don't count the Remnants... |
| 126 | * The prevalence of Rad-Away and Rad-X in Jason Bright's room seems like simply a funny oversight. However, it's actually for ''Chris.'' Since Chris believes he's a ghoul and would ignore radiation dangers, Jason must either trick or cajole Chris into taking it, or have it ready if Chris gets sick. |
| 127 | * The Fallout world: |
| 128 | ** The world as a whole is a warped, post-apocalyptic late-20th/early-21st century vision of TheFifties, Caesar's Legion is warped, post-apocalyptic, late-20th/early-21st century vision of the Roman villains of SwordAndSandal epics which reached their apogee in the fifties, such as [[{{Film/Spartacus}} Spartacus]], [[Film/BenHur1959 Ben-Hur]], Film/QuoVadis, etc. |
| 129 | ** The Wild West theme makes perfect sense too. TheFifties was a golden age of the Western. So that makes Fallout New Vegas a pastiche of ''multiple'' Fifties genres. |
| 130 | ** Its also representative of the Fallout [[TakeThatAudience Fandom]] as well. Right now, its split between the "classic" game fans who love the west coast series (developed by this game's devs starting with Fallout 1 at Black Isle), and those who prefer Fallout 3's East Coast sensibilties as created by Bethesda Softworks. Worth noting that both Creator/ChrisAvellone and Josh Sawyer both have stood up for Bethesda to the fans, to the point that Avellone wants to nuke the NCR to reset the core region to be closer to Fallout 3's bleaker wasteland. |
| 131 | ** Even the Katana introduced in Gun Runners Arsenal fits the fifties theme. Japanese swords were common trophies for Americans who served in Japan during the Second World War. |
| 132 | ** It's TheFifties, yes, but a steam/laser/whateverpunk version of it. With dead Chinese [[DirtyCommunists Communists]]. |
| 133 | * Ghouls in the Mojave: |
| 134 | ** Compared to the Capital Wasteland, Ghouls in the Mojave seem to be accepted by society or at least aren't actively discriminated against (except for the Legion anyway). While this could be the result of the NCR's expansion bringing in ghouls from California, it could also be the indirect result of both the Vault Dweller and Chosen One's actions in the previous games removing their stigma. It'd make sense that over time, they'd spread outside not only the NCR but also out of the West Coast. |
| 135 | ** One of the founding cities of the NCR was Dayglow, a community founded by Ghouls from Necropolis who used their radiation immunity to salvage technology from the nearby Glow (a large heavily radiated pre-war research facility) to trade it. Based on its location on the Fallout 1 map, the Glow is very close to the western border of the map, close to Nevada. It's likely that contact with ghoul traders who brought valuable technology has made the people of the Mojave more accepting. |
| 136 | * Killing the NCR: |
| 137 | ** Given how it's possible to destroy most factions in-game (whether at gunpoint or indirectly), one, in particular, seems to stand out as immune: the New California Republic. With the exception of spreading the Cloud in ''Dead Money'' and targeting the nukes westward in ''Lonesome Road'', one may notice that even in the least pleasant endings, it's nigh impossible to ''really'' take down the Bear, the worst case scenarios being a humiliating retreat to California and the surviving leaders either tried for incompetence or having the last laugh. This could very much be due to just how ''powerful'' the NCR's become since its origins in Shady Sands, to the point that not even the Courier's history-changing acts could really harm it. |
| 138 | ** It's also a testament to the real power of democracy. Take out Caesar, and the Legion falls apart. Take out Lanius, and the Legion falls apart ''faster''. Take out House, and all his machinations fall to pieces as well. Three well-placed bullets and two of the biggest players in the Mojave are gone. But take out Kimball and Oliver, and, well...the Bear's government remains perfectly viable and they just elect a new leader and promote another officer to fill the vacant spots. Authoritarian governments can be destroyed by a well-placed blow to their leadership, but democracy can't die that easily. |
| 139 | ** At the same time, choosing to spare Kimball and Oliver shows that this strength is a double-edged sword. Killing them (or letting them die) turns them into martyrs for their cause; letting them live with their failure, however, turns them into scapegoats for the general population, who need someone to blame for the massive [[ShaggyDogStory pooch screw]] that the NCR just went through. |
| 140 | ** And even then, that's not a ''bad'' thing for the NCR, as you just made the warhawks scapegoats and the population likely to elect a more reasonable set of leaders (indeed, the Indepedent ending can have Hanlon, a staunch opponent of Oliver and Kimball, rise to the Senate). |
| 141 | ** Even if one takes Ulysses' word for it that the Tunnelers are gradually digging their way out of the Divide towards the Mojave with the potential of making life hell, not even ''that'' possibility would be enough to hold back the Bear short of launching nukes westward. Given the resources, manpower and firepower on hand as well as some warning ahead of time from the likes of the Courier, it's just as possible that their dreaded arrival would be ''at worst'' an organized withdrawal back to California, not total collapse. |
| 142 | ** There's also the fact that the NCR has a fuckload of territory under their flag. It's not Pre-War America, but they can pack up and cut their losses, while still having more territory to obtain. Granted they'd have to deal with whatever the fuck's set up shop in the Midwest, but still, New Vegas and Hoover Dam are just expendable(ish) to the Bear. |
| 143 | ** "No need to destroy the Bear. Just cut its throat." |
| 144 | * Ulysses's targets for the Nukes in Lonesome Road. He goes on in detail how the I-15 is a critical route for the NCR's occupation of the Mojave, and could possibly end the NCR as a nation. Dry Wells was the home of his tribe, a personal point in Ulysses's history that gave him much grief. Destroying his "home" would validate his philosophy about a Home being one's destiny rather than a place of birth (As well as his ultimate plan in Lonesome Road). However, a glaring flaw in this plan is that he doesn't nuke Hoover Dam/New Vegas/The Fort instead; figuratively ending the conflict in the Mojave as well as destroying all factions. This appears to be a Wallbanger at first until one remembers how Robert House saved Vegas by shooting down and redirecting nearly all incoming missiles (And this was without the platinum chip.)Ulysses would have likely realized this after researching more about House, thus he wouldn't dare waste an attack on one who could defend against his missiles(He also has a grudging respect for relics of the Old World such as the Think Tank. His dialogue for a House aligned character is mostly criticism for following a shadow.). Ulysses's targets are optimal since they undermine the Legion and the NCR, not House. House wouldn't bother stopping against either faction since his ultimate goal is to remove them both anyway. Ulysses's plan is brilliant since it not only cripples both main factions but also indirectly harms Vegas because of House's hubris. |
| 145 | * In the Legion Ending, when the Courier receives his/her reward, she's kneeling before Caesar, but standing before Lanius (if he ends up in charge). This seems odd before you realize it sums up your relationship with character: no matter your competencies, Caesar will always see the Courier as a servant/inferior, whereas Lanius sees you as an equal and acknowledges the Courier's worth even if she's a woman. |
| 146 | * The entire Theme of Dead Money is "Letting go". While it seems to be referring to letting go of the Madre and the gold in it, it could also be applied both to all the other DLC's and the Base game. Think about it; In the base game, House cannot let go of the past, the NCR cannot let go of Hoover Dam or the Mojave despite how much it's costing them, and the Legion simply will not let go of the Mojave either, unable to accept it's defeat earlier at the hands of the NCR. For the other DLC's, Joshua Graham couldn't let go of his burning desire for revenge against the white legs as well as the Legion, unless you help him. The Think Tank is unable to let go of the idea that despite the fact they are basically repeating experiments and making zero progress, they are still helping with advancing SCIENCE or Mankind. Again, the Courier can help them with this, giving the Mojave access to the technology in a controlled fashion. Finally, Ulysses cannot let go of what you did to The Divide unless you (again) convince him to step down. In fact, this applies to YOU, the Courier, even outside Dead Money. If you choose to kill Benny, you've been unable to let go. Sure, he deserves it, but the lengths you go to achieve this are ridiculous! |
| 147 | ** Speaking of fortune, you can still be very wealthy even if you do not win vouchers or get gold bars. Play the DLC carefully and you still save thousands of Sierra Madre chips to trade for useful items. You can also collect and save a crap ton of pre-war money in reserves to trade for caps. You at least have 100 chips stocked up in the dropbox every 3 days. Not only this, the packs and cartons of cigarettes can now be traded for Sierra Madre chips, and Fiends and Vipers continuously drop those items. Trade in enough amounts and you can purchase good amounts of weapon repair kits to fix weapons without paying a cent. So you are not completely out of luck. |
| 148 | ** And why would you need the Sierra Madre to be wealthy? Think about it. The wealth in the vault is temporary, as there are a limited number of gold bars. Even without them, you can still accumulate a vast fortune. You can always stack up a huge cache of very good-conditioned weapons and sell them (bar unique weapons) for hundreds-thousands of caps per weapon. Of course this method takes more time. You would need to kill shitloads of enemies for valuable loot and XP to raise your barter and repair skills. You may also need to complete quests for quicker rates of XP gains. But even along the way, you still earn great amounts of caps with right savings. Add up the values and you can eventually get over 100,000-200,000 caps without gold bars. You won't need the legendary vault because [[SelfMadeMan you worked for your own wealth like Mr. House did]]. Greed may gives you goods in a short time, but letting go can reward you just as handsomely in a long run. |
| 149 | ** I'd say this has been something of a constant theme of Fallout. The Enclave is unable to give up America and their power. |
| 150 | * If you read the Courier's Mojave Express delivery order, you'll notice some fine print that states that the Courier is under contract to deliver their assigned package to the correct recipient. It goes on to state that the Courier assumes full liability if that package gets lost, stolen, or damaged in transit, and that the Mojave Express can charge them as a criminal and send mercenaries after them if they fail to deliver as ordered. The Courier is obligated under the terms of their contract with the Mojave Express to go after Benny, reclaim their package from him, and complete the delivery. Paying Benny back for shooting them while they're at it is just extra motivation. |
| 151 | * Mr House cannot be targeted with VATS. Since the [=PipBoy=] is a [=RobCo=] product, it's likely House [[CrazyPrepared had a subroutine programmed in]] [[ProperlyParanoid just in case somebody attempted to assassinate him while wearing one]]. [[CurbStompBattle Not that]] [[AndIMustScream this saves him]]. Alternatively, [[WasOnceAMan he's so far gone]] that VATS can't even recognize him as a possible target. |
| 152 | * When going in the old Mormon fort where the Followers of the Apocalypse operate from, you can see mostly gamblers inside. [[TheGamblingAddict Gambling addiction]] is a mental illness, and can be quite debilitating in New Vegas. |
| 153 | ** Casinos also provide an easy access to booze and prostitutes. Thus, a lot of chances of getting alcohol intoxication or an STD. |
| 154 | * The Miss Fortune perk. Miss Fortune is another name for Lady Luck, fitting, since you need to be lucky for her to appear to help you. But it is also fitting since she inflicts bad luck (or misfortune) on your enemies. |
| 155 | * If you have the remnants aiding you in the battle against the Legion, Cannibal Johnson is the only one who actually joins you in the Legion camp. Besides the possible balance reasons (having 4 heavily armed allies would make the final boss a little bit too easy) Johnson is the only one out of the old Enclave members who actually hates the Legion, to the point that he walks out if the courier asks the remnants to aid the Legion in the final battle. |
| 156 | * No-Bark: |
| 157 | ** If you ask [[CloudCuckooLander No-Bark Noonan]] if anyone has been acting strangely, he states that he doesn't trust anyone who acts too normal, and his description fits Clanden to a tee. |
| 158 | --->'''No-Bark:''' If a man's wearing his pants on his head or if he says his words backward from time to time, you know it's all laid out there for you. But if he's friendly to strangers and keeps his home spick-and-span, more often than not he's done something even his own ma couldn't forgive. |
| 159 | ** On the other hand, No-Bark's words can also refer to Jeannie May Crawford, a seemingly sweet old lady who sold Boone's wife and unborn child into Legion slavery. Most of the other Novac character's often casually mention their own burdens (if not nearly as much as No-Bark does), but Jeannie doesn't. |
| 160 | * The opening song for New Vegas (Frank Sinatra's Blue Moon) was how Victor saved you from certain death. Since in an uncaring wasteland where your death will just be another casualty. It was really rare to see someone save you from certain death. Very meaningful indeed. Talking to Mr. House reveals that Victor finding you ''wasn’t'' due to chance - he was discretely tracking you all the time and saved you the best way he could, considering he was just one robot so far away from the Strip and with no backup. |
| 161 | * Let's look at the iconic factions the games revolve around. For ''Fallout'', it's the Brotherhood of Steel (descending from US military), ''Fallout 2'' has the Enclave (a remnant of the government) and sort of a cameo by the Brotherhood, ''Fallout 3'' has both, and the other games prior to ''New Vegas'' tend to focus on the Brotherhood as well. ''New Vegas'', meanwhile, focuses on the showdown between New California Republic and Caesar's Legion. Both of these factions draw inspiration from the old world, but claim no descent, and look to the future carving their own destinies. It stands to reason that, as the previous games focused on remnants of the old world, ''New Vegas'' is the first game in the series to (thematically speaking) let go of it. The NCR Ranger may wear pre-War gear, but instead of a remnant of the past, he represents new order arising amidst the wasteland. |
| 162 | ** You see a continuation of both patterns in VideoGame/Fallout4. The Brotherhood are back, as remnants of the US Army. The Minutemen draw inspiration from [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution pre-independence Patriot militias]] that were the precursors of the US Army. These are the “nostalgic” factions. The Institute on the other hand completely changed CIT by moving the whole academic department underground, have a futuristic Trekkie look to them and want to “redefine Mankind”, making it the “futuristic” faction, while the Railroad is a healthy mix of both - they use a lot of equipment, methods and strategy borrowed from pre-war intelligence agencies (DIA in particular) but use it ''only'' for their pet cause to help synths - which is entirely futuristic. |
| 163 | * Some people were disappointed that the House path forced you to destroy the Brotherhood when there was originally dialogue to save them (thus a patch was made to re-enable it). But the decision to remove that choice better fits one of the themes of the game-that all sides of a conflict are grey as opposed to black and white. Think about it - on the other three paths, the Courier eventually has to kill or disable House, thus earning negative Karma. Therefore, a quest was made for the House path that requires you to lose karma to make it so no choice is 100% righteous. |
| 164 | ** On the other hand, there was an option to convince House to spare the Brotherhood by completing the Brotherhood's quest and passing a speech check with House. This, like all of New Vegas' DummiedOut content, is restored through a famous GameMod |
| 165 | * Raul's Equipment, his choice in weapons hints that he had firsthand witnessed the [[Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior White Line Nightmare]]. |
| 166 | * In Lonesome Road: "You Can Go Home Courier" signs all along the path are placed there NOT as a discouragement. Instead, they are a bitter taunt from Ulysses, who, because of the Courier's actions, no longer has a home to return to. |
| 167 | * The ambient music that tends to play while exploring REPCONN headquarters, unnerving it as might be, is ''Metallic Monks'' from the first ''Fallout'' game, which also happens to be the leitmotif for the Brotherhood of Steel. Which foreshadows the fact that two dead Brotherhood Paladins are found on the uppermost floor, crushed under a pile of rubble. Odds are, this would also be the first time the Courier encounters power armor as well. |
| 168 | * One quest involving homophobia in the NCR Army (specifically, a GayOption mechanic warning the Courier that "friends" weren't exactly tolerated) was obviously meant to be a TakeThat to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies in the real American Army (and thus now HilariousInHindsight with it being repealed). However, similar homophobia in what remained of The Brotherhood of Steel gave the explanation that they had very few numbers left, and thus needed as many of its members as possible to reproduce -- since this was AfterTheEnd, the homophobia in the NCR may have also arisen from a stigma that citizens needed to reproduce, and while they're now far better than the Brotherhood of Steel, that stigma still hangs for a reason beyond the pre-War homophobia. |
| 169 | ** This neatly explains why both of the Brotherhood members you can get as followers, Veronica and Christine, are lesbian women; as the Brotherhood of Steel has a level of institutionalized homophobia on the "we need to breed future generations" grounds, lesbianism is particularly stigmatized. Thus giving both women a particular need to get out and away from the Brotherhood's base on missions, where they don't have to put up with hostile speculation or outright discrimination, and a reason to be open with an outsider. Especially an attractive female Courier who just might be interested in them. |
| 170 | ** In the East Coast Brotherhood, more tolerance of homosexuality is implied as you can eventually romance Danse as a male SoleSurvivor (although by this point he is actually exiled, but still a die-hard Brotherhood supporter, so this could have been being more open after exile). This could be because that chapter actively recruits human wastelanders and therefore doesn’t have a population problem. Particularly after Project Purity is completed. |
| 171 | * In fact, speaking of the game's GayOption, there's several bits of FridgeBrilliance related to that: |
| 172 | ** Why are the only romanceable followers two of the homosexual ones (Arcade for men, Veronica for women)? Because they're the only ones who are A: human, B: emotionally and mentally stable enough, and C: actively interested in romance. Boone and Waking Cloud are grieving the deaths of their respective spouses, Christine is too scarred from being trapped in the malfunctioning Autodoc to be interested in a new girlfriend, Raul and Dean are ghouls, Lily is a Nightkin (and was a grandmother before her transformation), Dog/God is an insane Super Mutant, Cass is too mentally messed up to be looking for a longterm bedmate, [=ED-E=] is a robot, Rex and Roxie are cyberdogs, Joshua Graham is a former preacher and currently a physically and mentally ruined wreck, and Follows-Chalk is too young to be thinking about settling down. |
| 173 | * Although consistent with the RetroUniverse atmosphere of the ''Fallout'' series, some of the songs played on the radio, in particular certain western-themed ones like ''In the Shadow of the Valley'' were released well after TheFifties in real life; the song in question in fact was from ''[[TheNineties 1998]].'' Combined with post-apocalyptic ballads like ''Streets of New Reno'', it's a subtle reminder that even the world itself is moving on from the lingering shadow of Pre-War America while incorporating its heritage. |
| 174 | * Brotherhood of Steel as the enemy: |
| 175 | ** Both Mr. House and Yes Man consider the Brotherhood of Steel their most dangerous enemy, and both strongly encourage you to dispose of them. In fact, Mr. House will refuse to hear any alternative you try to argue for. Most likely because Mr. House was monitoring the events that transpired in the [[VideoGame/Fallout3 Capital Wasteland]] between the Brotherhood and the Enclave. House concluded that the Brotherhood would see enough similarity between Mr. House and President Eden to label him and his Securitron army a new Enclave and set out to destroy New Vegas to stamp it out. Therefore, the only remedy he could think of is to destroy them before they gathered enough forces, resources, and intelligence to do so. Naturally, he had those conclusions filed away as data for Yes Man to find and agree with if you opted for the WildCard route. |
| 176 | ** Not to mention, the Brotherhood itself has earned a justified reputation for being dangerous to anyone who isn't them. Way back in the first game, they were essentially nothing more than a particularly xenophobic bunch of raiders with a tech fetish, who justified their willingness to do stuff like mugging travelers for their energy rifles or destroying a settlement's only generator as "keeping technology out of the hands of those who'd abuse it". All they needed was the right excuse and they would have set themselves up as kings, and in fact, you could actually trigger such an ending, with the Brotherhood sweeping across the California wasteland and brutally conquering it, by killing Rhombus. In the second game, it's established that the Brotherhood have become a power in decline due to both picking fights with everybody who refuses to just meekly hand over their tech and because other factions have managed to find their own stockpile of advanced tech, undercutting the supremacy of the Brotherhood -- the NCR in particular has fought quite often with the Brotherhood, to the point that people on both sides in this game mention warring against the local chapter of the Brotherhood. The Capital Wasteland Chapter from ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' is an exception to the rule that the Brotherhood are a bunch of {{Jerkass}}es who're not so different to the raider gangs, which is admitted InUniverse, and they're all the way over on the other side of the continent. In fact, when that chapter becomes more orthodox in VideoGame/Fallout4, Gage (who is a raider himself) outright says that the Brotherhood are just high-tech raiders too. 1st ''Any'' faction that doesn't want to submit to the Brotherhood of Steel would recognize them as a deadly threat, between their ideology, their past behavior and their arsenal. Mr. House and Yes Man just happen to have reasoning beyond that; Mr. House's power base stems from his stockpile of incredibly advanced tech (which the Brotherhood would want to steal as much as they could before blowing up the rest), while Yes Man is an Artificial Intelligence (aka, something the Brotherhood would want to blow up). |
| 177 | ** Despite all of that, though, if they're spared and you complete the WildCard ending, they do ''not'' try to take over New Vegas, as predicted by House. Because by that point, there are too many factors making it not worth the effort. For one, the Mojave Brotherhood doesn't have the manpower to occupy New Vegas even without the Securitrons taken into account, having lost most of their total force to the NCR before the game even started. Even if they did have the manpower to occupy New Vegas, the upgraded Securitrons have enough firepower per unit to render the Brotherhood's PoweredArmor useless in combat. Even if they manage to get around ''that'' problem, the Courier still knows where the Brotherhood's base is and how to blow it up if they suspect the Brotherhood may be planning an attack on the Strip, and they have an uncanny ability to find ways past whatever security the Brotherhood puts in their way. If the Courier joined the Brotherhood as a Paladin to unlock access to Powered Armor, then one of their own Paladins is already in control of whatever pre-war technology exists on the Strip, which could be taken as it being claimed for the Brotherhood, anyway. |
| 178 | ** Mr. House wanting to destroy the Brotherhood also makes sense from a business perspective. He tells you that his best customers are NCR troopers. The Brotherhood are enemies with the NCR; thus, Mr. House wants to dispose of his customers' enemies. |
| 179 | * Despite being clearly signed as a school for Elvis impersonation, the Kings' headquarters doesn't play any Elvis music, nor does any radio station in the game. Because there are no surviving records of Elvis' music; the last recordings of the man's voice broke down years ago. If there were any, Mr. New Vegas would be playing them, and/or you would be asked to retrieve them for the King. |
| 180 | ** Another one about the Kings. You find them not enjoying the high roller life on the Strip under House’s rules, but in a segregated dilapidated crime-ridden poverty-stricken slum i.e. a ghetto! Now what was Music/ElvisPresley’s last hit before his untimely death? “In The Ghetto”! |
| 181 | * Why the vault security armor from vault 34 has a better protection rating than its vault 101 counterpart in fallout 3 makes sense from both gameplay and in lore viewpoints. The gameplay reason is that Vault 101 security armor is at the start of the game and is a low-level armor that would be quickly rendered obsolete, while vault 34 security armor is encountered at a much later point of the game and would have to require better stats to be viable. A in lore explanation is that the conditions of Vault 34 and Vault 101 are completely different. In vault 101 the security at most would on a regular have to deal with troublesome youths and radroaches which could be easily be dealt with so they don't need anything heavier than 10mm pistols and the vault armory was secured on a tight control from the overseer. However, vault 34 was filled with easy access guns and explosive weapons, meaning the chance of somebody suddenly just losing and go on a shooting rampage was extremely high. This results in the vault security requiring to needing a better standard of protection to be able to perform their duties. |
| 182 | ** This explains why the vault security ghouls are difficult to kill. Their bodies are merged with the same security armors, so they receive much better protection. |
| 183 | * Not so much Fridge Brilliance since it's no secret romance options were cut from the final game, but when you step back and look at your four human companions, it's still interesting to note that not only do you have a straight and gay option for each sex (Cass's bisexuality being downplayed) each one corresponds to what a person of their counterpart persuasion would stereotypically be looking for in a partner. |
| 184 | ** For gay men there's Arcade, a cultured intellectual with father issues and a history of hiding something about himself (both related to the Enclave-thing rather than his homosexuality, but nonetheless). |
| 185 | ** Straight men have Cass, a badass and [[AManIsAlwaysEager promiscuous]] redhead that can handle herself equally well in battle, the bedroom and at the bar. |
| 186 | ** Straight women have Boone, a [[MercyKill devoted husband and father]] that, despite being able to [[MemeticBadass kill everything in the Mojave]], is still a broken man that needs someone to save him [[DeathSeeker from himself]]. |
| 187 | ** Gay women have Veronica. She leaves the Brotherhood's bunker to collect supplies because she needs to escape their homophobia, and an attractive female Courier who accepts her would sound like a lesbian wet dream to her, no? |
| 188 | * In ''Lonesome Road'', though he doesn't outright tell you, the way Ulysses talks it's pretty obvious he knows what the Platinum Chip is. However, there is no realistically conceivable way he could know, until you think back to Primm. The guy running the Mojave Express post there mentions him being chosen for the Platinum Chip run before you. When he saw your name, he ducked out, knowing you'd meet in the Divide, which you acess from the Mojave. |
| 189 | * Why is the game significantly biased against the Legion? Because for the majority of the game you're in territory controlled by either the NCR or Mr. House, both of which are unlikely to tolerate Legion sympathizers or those from across the river, leaving either those who either despise or are indifferent to the Legion behind. (And because Zenimax gave Obsidian six fewer months to make the game than they said they needed.) |
| 190 | * House being the leader of New Vegas is rather funny. At first, you don't understand. Then his questline, The House Always Wins, pops up. The casino is often referred to as the house. The saying The House Always Wins comes from the fact that most gamblers net a loss to casino gambling, while the casino profits, therefore, one can't beat the house. This also ties into the Lucky 38, as the only way to beat (or break even with) the house is to not play. Even the quest you complete if you kill him, The House Has Gone Bust!, fits, as The House has literally gone bust. The validity of The House Always Wins is up to you. |
| 191 | * Mr. New Vegas ''always'' remaining vague about the Courier's involvement in things fits in perfectly with WordOfGod stating he is an AI under House's supervision: House has every reason to not make the Courier a notable figure as that could draw attention to his plans, and possibly cause factions he opposes to seek to enlist the Courier to their own side (which they always end up doing anyway). |
| 192 | * The nicknames of the two major factions is a veiled but brilliant metaphor. The NCR, following the First Battle of Hoover Dam has been seen to be more or less in decline in the region; while actively building outposts and bringing in some troops, they are nevertheless unable to prevent incursions by the Legion, stamp out raider problems, make inroads in the Strip, or even really engage with the populace. The Legion, meanwhile, is strongly on the rise, with their numbers reportedly increasing daily and locals believing the next battle for the Dam to possibly go the Legion's way. Their nicknames - the Bull and the Bear - perfectly mirror these situations in their stock market metaphors: the Bear (the NCR) is, if not in retreat, certainly weakening, while the Bull (the Legion) is growing and building strength. By siding with House or Yes-Man, you defeat both factions, sending the “bear” into further decline and causing the “bull” to catastrophically crash. So, you essentially rigged the stock market and made out like a bandit. |
| 193 | * The polarity between NCR and Legion's respective unarmed fighting styles, the Ranger Takedown and Legion Assault. The Ranger Takedown requires one to go backward and perform defensive kicks and palm strikes. On the other hand, the Legion Assault requires one to go forward and launch aggressive palm strikes. This is a good metaphor of the relationship between the two factions, giving how they deliberately counter each other. |
| 194 | ** Speaking of fighting style, notice how Legionaries fight. If you get too close, they'll charge forward and fight with melee weapons. Legionaries also hurl spears at long range. Now notice they all wear football gear. The Legionaries' fighting style is similar to how American football athletes play. |
| 195 | * Cannibal Johnson's reasons for hating the legion are never explained but he mentions that he married a tribal girl and given [[EvilColonialist what the legion does to tribals]], that may have a factor in it. |
| 196 | * If you get a vilified reputation from either the NCR and/or Legion, they will sent squads of assassins to kill you. Besides gameplay scaling, the reason they start with lower-level weapons early on is because they don't consider you to be a serious threat. The assassins, assuming you are a fairly easy kill, will not have anything more than low-ended weapons. However, killing them repeatedly later on will prompt their respective factions to send higher-level assassins against you. The NCR and/or Legion by that time realizes the significant threat you poses, and their assassins will arm with higher-end weapons. All just to kill one person. This also explains why they have a crap ton of health compare to most soldiers of their factions. They were ''really prepared''. |
| 197 | ** More specific towards Legionary assassins. Notice how their hit squads change leaders as you level up. The lowest-level squads are led by decani; the mid-level squads by centurions; and the highest-level squads by praetorian guards. Why would the Legion send praetorian guards at higher levels instead of centurions? Because centurions are too valuable to be sacrificed. Caesar specifically saves them for major operations (i.e: Hoover Dam) due to their war experience and strategic leadership. He wants you dead, but also can't afford to keep losing his highly ranked officers. Caesar's solution pretty much amounts to using his own bodyguards to do an assassin's work. Also counts as Fridge Awesome when you realize this means Caesar is ''afraid of you killing his highly prized officers''. |
| 198 | ** Furthermore, check the assassins' weapons. Of course praetorian guards don't have melee weapons. They specialize in unarmed combat and ironically compromise their own fighting style by using guns. |
| 199 | * Young Hearts is a Boomers quest where you hook up Jack and Janet together. In other words, you are a [[StealthPun wingman]]. |
| 200 | * Why is the unique fire axe called Knock-Knock? [[AxeBeforeEntering Think about it.]] |
| 201 | * The Strip cannot be discovered on the map, meaning you can't directly fast travel to the place. Mr. House coded the Pip-Boy so people will be forced to go through the North Gate. The Strip is surrounded by a wall, meaning you can only use the gate or Monorail (with high NCR reputation). |
| 202 | ** But Fast-Travel does not exist lore-wise, it is a game mechanic to not have the player actually have to walk on the other side of the map, but story-wise, the character actually walk that entire length at the slowest pace it can. If fast-travelling while Hardcode mode is on, you'll notice that the needs increase as if you walked in a straight line to your destination. And beside, even if fast-travel was an actual thing that House wanted to prevent, you only have to pay the 2000 caps fee once. After that, you can freely pass the gate without paying any additional fees. Not to mention that the gate came after the Great War, meaning that there were already thousands of pip-boys in circulation that House wouldn't be able to wirelessly update to not make the Strip available, unlike the VATS thing previously mentioned, where he could be paranoid about someone trying to kill him with his own product, and installed a failsafe. |
| 203 | * Joshua Graham being affected by the Sneering Imperialist Perk is quite ironic when learning his past history. He served the Legion as the first Legate and was known for his extreme brutality against his enemies. In other words... Joshua was a [[{{Pun}} sneering imperialist]]. Since then, he now leads a tribe and is affected by the same perk. |
| 204 | ** He's affected by the perk due to engine reasons. The perk checks for the "race" in the GECK (the game development tool) and affects the "Raider" race (this is why Raiders look filthy, they're technically a different race). Joshua Graham is coded as a "Raider" racewise so he can have a dirty-looking skin texture since Obsidian couldn't really come up with a good-enough "burnt skin" texture due to time/memory limitations. The Zion tribals are likewise their own "race" since the Gamebryo engine couldn't handle overlays over existing skin textures so Obsidian had to make entirely new races and skin textures. |
| 205 | * Ever notice how a lot of the Legionnaires you kill are packing Antivenom? The NCR watches the roads, so when they travel, Legionnaires go cross-country to avoid being detected. This takes them through the nesting territories of the Mojave's venomous wildlife, such as Cazadores and Radscorpions. |
| 206 | ** Their entrance into the Mojave from Fortification Hill is in the southeast corner of the map, where Nightstalkers like to nest. The Legion has access to a constant supply of Nightstalker blood, and so can manufacture enough Antivenom for every Legionnaire to carry at least one dose. |
| 207 | * There are a few places where you have to bluff your way past NCR guards and soldiers. Even if Boone, who insists on wearing his 1st Recon beret, is with you. Why doesn't he vouch for you? Well, one of the NCR Rangers you talk to spells out that the NCR Rangers are not part of the chain of command over the normal rank-and-file soldiers; they don't have the authority to give out orders or grant special permissions. The 1st Recon snipers are very likely bound by the same rules. |
| 208 | ** On top of that, Boone couldn't issue orders even if he wanted to: he's a '''retired''' 1st Recon sniper, not active duty. |
| 209 | * Looking into the GECK, 10 of Spades has higher Melee skills than Guns. This is odd at first for a sniper, until you realized he trained his CQC after the incident with Cook-Cook, so that kind of scenario never happened again. |
| 210 | * With Wild Wasteland on, you can find a UFO and aliens at the edge of the map northwest from New Vegas. In reality, Area 51 is located northwest of Las Vegas, though nowhere near that close (it is about the same distance from the city as Searchlight is in the opposite direction). |
| 211 | * In real life, the planes that dropped the first two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II were modified B-29 Superfortresses. Only fitting, then, for a B-29 to get featured in a ''Fallout'' game. |
| 212 | ** If you follow the intended storyline, you'll come to Nipton and find it's been razed by the Legion. The only survivor in Nipton after the attack is Boxcars, the Powder Ganger that won second place in the Legion's torture lottery and got his legs crippled with hammers. His name may be a reference to the B-29 that dropped the original Fat Man on Nagasaki, ''Bockscar''. His [[SirSwearsALot dropping F-bombs in every sentence]] and appearing in a destroyed town may have been an attempt to push the reference further. |
| 213 | ** A much more thematic symbolism can be drawn. In craps, boxcars refer to a bet on two 6s. An unlikely bet that requires a lot of luck. |
| 214 | * Why do creatures respawn a few days after you kill them? Because they continue to reproduce from their nests. The new creatures recently hatched out of their eggs or mothers. |
| 215 | ** This is evident in quests "Bleed Me Dry" and "Claws Out". Red Lucy needs eggs to produce creatures in The Thorn, including Deathclaws. Killing the Deathclaw Alpha and Mother stops Deathclaws from respawning in Quarry Junction. |
| 216 | * If you somehow manage to make it out of the Sierra Madre with a gold bar from the Vault, you find it has a value of 10,539 caps. This despite gold being essentially worthless in the world of ''Fallout''. Why the high value? Father Elijah says in the intro that the Sierra Madre is a wasteland legend that's been lost to time for two hundred years. Very few people have ever seen the casino, and fewer still made it out alive to tell about it. Each bar of Sierra Madre gold serves as material proof that the Sierra Madre is real, and that you have been inside of it. That alone is worth more than the value of the gold itself. |
| 217 | ** Something clever here. There are 37 gold bars. Numbers 3 and 7 are lucky numbers. Number 37 is one value away from 38, the number of slots on a roulette...and what's 3 times 7? |
| 218 | ** How about 7 minus 3? Number 4 is associated with death. ''Dead Money''. |
| 219 | ** Also, the NCR did have their currency backed by gold until the Brotherhood of Steel did something to it, so gold is clearly still valued in the post-apocalyptic world. |
| 220 | * If you complete ''Lonesome Road'' before reaching the Strip or building reputation with any of the four factions vying for control of Hoover Dam and New Vegas, the Courier Duster you get bears the number 21. You haven't gotten far enough in the main game to carry any allegiance. So your duster bears the symbol you were wearing on your Vault 21 jumpsuit when you first stepped out of Doc Mitchell's house. |
| 221 | * The compass directions for each of the 4 [=DLCs=]. |
| 222 | ** Dead Money (Abandoned Brotherhood of Steel Bunker): East |
| 223 | ** Honest Hearts (Northern Passage): North |
| 224 | ** Old World Blues (Mojave Drive-In): South |
| 225 | ** Lonesome Road (Canyon Wreckage): West |
| 226 | * Black Coffee is an Honest Hearts recipe... Mormons don't drink coffee. Where do you get it, though? From Joshua Graham, who turned away from Mormonism to join Caesar in founding the Legion. |
| 227 | * If you are idolized by the NCR, Colonel Hsu will give you access to the NCR Ranger safe house with Ranger and Heavy Trooper gear. You are basically qualified to serve as an elite Heavy Trooper or Ranger. The only thing you won't have access to is the Ranger Sequoia...which requires 20 years of honorable service against all tyrants! |
| 228 | ** Similarly with the Legion, Lucius will give you access to the Legion safehouse along with Centurion and Vexillarius armor. They basically considered you worthy to serve as a high-ranking officer. |
| 229 | * How about the ranger uniforms? The civilian outfits don't disguise you as an NCR member, despite Rangers actually wearing them. Doesn't make sense, right? Well, between them along with the [[EliteMooks Patrol and Veteran Rangers]], who would stand out the most? Of course people will most likely remember the [[MemeticBadass ones wearing patrol or veteran armors.]] People won't really get such impression from seeing the Rangers wearing civilian outfits. Plus, the civilian outfits do not ''bear'' the NCR insignia like all other NCR clothing do. How are people supposed to know you are wearing an NCR outfit without it? |
| 230 | * The Followers' entire opposition to Caesar's Legion. After reading an entry about fascism in the [[FridgeBrilliance Fridge Brilliance]] page, their stance takes on a whole new level of brilliance. Fascist movements aim to establish societies and use very remote pasts to justify their reasons. The reason is because ancient civilizations did not have the technology or means to effectively document and store information. Ancient civilizations also used languages that are much harder to decipher or interpreted as intended. In other words, it's much easier for fascists to make shit up to suit their agenda. The Followers despised the Legion because they are akin to anti-intellectual fascists. |
| 231 | ** This also explains some of the hypocrisy one will notice among Legionaries. |
| 232 | * Cass is a complete aversion of a woman that is attracted to [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys bad boys/girls (depending on the Courier's sex)]]. She is also an example of a sexually open woman with strong morals, since she is the only companion that follows you based on karma. |
| 233 | * NCR Veteran Rangers will appear after you complete at least a couple main quests. This is because the Legion is preparing for war, so they are needed to monitor and repel the forces. But notice that they also level up along with you. Why? One possible reason: in case if YOU betray the NCR, the Veteran Rangers are prepared to shoot you down. |
| 234 | * If you take a closer look, you'll see that most weapons aren't all that different from each other. Most high-tier weapons are just better versions of the low-tier ones. |
| 235 | ** At least with the Service Rifle, Assault Carbine, and Marksman Carbine, this follows the real life development of the M16 family of rifles. |
| 236 | *** The NCR Service Rifle is the first of these you'll acquire and is based on the earliest M16s to be used by the United States military. Noteworthy in that this is also the only one that was made ''post-war'' as far as the game's canon is concerned, so naturally it isn't as high quality. |
| 237 | *** The Assault Carbine is based on the Colt 733 Commando which was a short barrel, automatic version of the [=M16A2=], introduced in the late eighties. While it uses a different caliber in the game, it retains the same sights as the Service Rifle, and as such could be viewed as an upgraded model for use in close quarters. |
| 238 | *** The Marksman Carbine is a semi-automatic M4 carbine, which is an offshoot of the M16 and has largely replaced it in the modern day. Like its real life counterpart, the Marksman Carbine is fitted with an ACOG style scope, hence its in game name. It also does higher base damage compared to the Service Rifle despite having a shorter barrel, which could potentially be explained with the fact that the original M16s had a much slower rifling twist rate in real life compared to their modern equivalents, and as such they can't stabilize heavier bullets which are in standard use today. According to WordOfGod, the Marksman and Assault Carbines are based on paratrooper oriented carbines, thus establishing them as pre-war guns that came from the nearby Nellis AFB. |
| 239 | *** This is averted by the unique Survivalist Rifle from Honest Hearts, which was a pre-war checkpoint carbine. The gun is absolutely run down, with the handguards being held on with hose clamps, the front sight bent, and the rear sight completely missing. Likewise, it uses the same wooden furniture as the post-war service rifle, instead of the plastic and aluminum furniture on the higher level pre-war rifles for some reason. The primary reason the Survivalist Rifle is better? It's a ''checkpoint carbine''. It was intended to stop ''moving vehicles.'' In game it is chambered in the 12.7mm cartridge, which is .50 Caliber when translated to moon-landing units. It's not ''that'' .50 caliber as that also exists in New Vegas as the .50 MG, but it is based on the real life .50 Beowulf conversion that really exists for the [=AR15=] platform. |
| 240 | * The Lonesome Road quest names all starts with definite articles, such as "The Reunion", "The Silo", "The Job", "The Divide", etc. This DLC centers around "The Courier", so it's appropriate for the quest names to have the same format. |
| 241 | * The Omertas at Gomorrah allying with the Legion makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Both TheMafia and UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire are Italian in origin, with Caesar even acting more like a capo than an actual emperor. There is another connection - if Veronica is to be believed, the Legion “mount each other” a lot. What is this act sometimes referred to? ''Sodomy!'' Which means that an alliance has formed between [[Literature/TheBible Sodom and Gomorrah]]. |
| 242 | * Why do characters in the game act like the camera is a gun, telling you to be careful when you use it near them, and running away screaming when you take their picture? Well, from a gameplay perspective, the camera is coded as a gun, but from a story one...well, it's a post-apocalyptic world, and few people have seen a camera. (In fact, this is the only working one in all Fallout games) For all they know, it IS a gun. |
| 243 | ** There are many cameras in Fallout 3, though they aren't working cameras. They are used to rebuild Liberty Prime. |
| 244 | * The NCR Salvaged Power Armor doesn't require Power Armor training to use because it actually ISN'T Power Armor; it's normal armor fashioned out of parts from dismantled (and possibly damaged) Brotherhood armor. |
| 245 | * One of Raul's dialogue tree conversations has him downplaying his abilities because of his age, to which the Courier tells him old people can still be useful to their communities, which Raul responds to by challenging him/her to show him some since he hasn't met any. His unmarked quest consists of you doing precisely that. |
| 246 | * Why don't you get sick from exposure to the spores from Vault 22? You're exposed to them three separate times: Once in the vault, once in Zion, and once in Big MT. You should have at least gotten sick from those encounters, right? But then you realize: ''You aren't technically human.'' When the bombs fell, a West-Tek facility suffered a direct hit, dispersing the vats of FEV into the atmosphere. This strain of FEV, combined with the massive amounts of radiation in the air, mutated all surviving life on Earth, including humans. Only vault dwellers and other humans inside airtight facilities (like the Oil Rig) remained 'authentically' human. (Which is why the Master needed vault dwellers to create super mutants: when surface humans were dipped in the vats they came out as particularly stupid super mutants at best, and [[BodyHorror Centaurs]] at worst.) Since you aren't a vault dweller, and therefore aren't the same species of human that the ''Beauveria mordicana'' was engineered to infect, you had a much more robust defense against infection, and Keely had an even more robust defense, being a ghoul and all. |
| 247 | ** Also worth noting is that you are only exposed for, at most, several hours at a time. Even if you were an unmutated human you wouldn't have gotten enough exposure to be killed and transformed. |
| 248 | ** All humans, even those outside of Vaults and the Enclave, are... well... humans. The genetic damage from trace atmospheric FEV isn't ''that'' severe. The only situations where it matters is that "tainted" humans have a slightly higher incidence of deformities or cancer, make worse Super Mutants, and can be targeted with bioweapons. Both "pure" and "tainted" humans can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, which is the criteria for what makes a species. That being said, it's perfectly plausible that the Courier is more or less immune, or at least highly resistant, to the spores due to accumulated genetic damage from FEV over generations. |
| 249 | ** Additionally, the time spend in Big Mountain pretty much ensured the Courier would never get infected. The corrosive effects of Biogel would be particularly harsh on fungal matter like spores, so your brain would have plenty of time to recover. Also, the after effect of having your brain replaced by Tesla Coils means there is nothing left for the spores to take root. One way or another, the Courier was never going to be infected. |
| 250 | * Why does Yes-Man have such an IrrationalHatred for the Great Khans? Because Benny hired them to help him kill you, in an attack Yes-Man coordinated. By expressing disgust towards them, he's downplaying his and his old boss' role in your attempted murder. |
| 251 | * Veronica's starting ranged weapon is a 10mm pistol, while her tagged skills include "Energy Weapons" but not "Guns". That's not necessarily an oversight: Veronica quickly tells she's a disguised member of the Brotherhood of Steel who went outside to gather food for the Brotherhood, and the game makes no mystery that her faction is quite unpopular in the setting. Why does she wield a relatively low-tech firearm instead of the fancier toys she's more used to? Because she wants to keep a low profile and make sure nobody would suspect she's part of the Brotherhood of Steel. |
| 252 | * A recurring motif within the Legion is the phrase “Render unto Caesar,” which while appropriate is also a Biblical reference. Which might not make much sense, given the Roman pretensions of Edward Sallow...until you remember that the phrase in question includes “give to God what is His,” and that Caesar has cultivated a god-like facade around himself, effectively conflating both. This would be seen by any Christian as sacrilege, which would very likely have contributed to a Mormon like Joshua Graham finding even more reason to hate Sallow. |
| 253 | ** There is a possibility that one of Sallow's primary sources on Roman culture would have come from Graham's knowledge of ''Literature/TheBible.'' Although its clear Sallow did have other sources, The Bible does have crucifixion prominently in it along with the after mentioned "render unto Caesar" phrase; while also painting the Romans as a frightening military force. Although Latter Day Saints like Graham shy away from CrucialCross iconography unlike other Christian faiths, it still seems likely Graham would eventually grow to detest seeing so many people suffering the same brutal method of execution under The Legion as Jesus Christ had experienced from the Romans. |
| 254 | * The [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/.45_Auto_pistol .45 Auto Pistol]] appears prominently in ''Honest Hearts'', with Joshua Graham inspecting a pile of them in Angel Cave. The .45 is [[AKA47 based on the]] Colt M1911, said by Graham to have been "designed by [[{{UsefulNotes/Mormonism}} one of my tribe]] almost four hundred years ago," in reference to legendary weapons designer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browning John Browning]]. Graham makes explicit mention of [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/New_Canaan New Canaan]] being Browning's hometown of Ogden, Utah. Graham also notes how each New Canaanite trains with a .45 as a "rite of passage". One wonders if Browning was as revered as Joseph Smith in New Canaan [[DoomedHometown before it fell to the White Legs.]] |
| 255 | ** Also a ShoutOut to [[{{Creator/StephenKing}} Stephen King's]] Literature/TheDarkTower series, with the gunslingers' homeland being named New Canaan. |
| 256 | * "Going postal" is an idiom for becoming uncontrollably angry to the point of violence. You work as a normal Courier, until you get shot in the head, and then turn into an UnstoppableMailman on a mission of {{Revenge}}. |
| 257 | * Zion's Tribals never go into the places of the old world or the caves where the Father in the Caves once lived. This is treated as a primitive superstition but makes much more sense when you go into the caves yourself and immediately run into land mines, bear traps, grenade tripwires, and rigged shotguns left by the CrazyPrepared Randall Dean Clark, the father in the caves himself. |
| 258 | * One of the many themes this game explores is the idea of factions and groups outliving their original purposes and having to either adapt to changing circumstances or go extinct clinging to outdated traditions, with the Brotherhood of Steel and the Boomers tribe being foils for each other as insular societies whose technological advantages for keeping the wider world away are running out. Once the Courier earns passage to Nellis Air Force Base, the missile launcher toting gate guard who is your first genuine contact with the settlement will endlessly repeat a canned line about being unable to believe that the Courier got past all the artillery. Hardly a strange occurrence gave the notoriously janky engine the game runs on but it does create an interesting statement in this context: People refusing to "believe" something unconventional is possible even when it happens right in front of their eyes and is actively capable of affecting their reality is part of how communities of people become stagnant, insular and conservative in the first place, leaving them only able to endlessly repeat stock phrases that have long since lost their practical meaning. |
| 259 | * All of the dlcs deal with some form of TheFourLoves. |
| 260 | ** Dead Money deals with Storge, people who are lumped together by chance but can possibly grow into true friends united by more than just circumstance. It applies to all of the characters' in their backstories as well, not just their relationship with the Courier (who is given the chance to treat everyone kindly and befriend them): |
| 261 | *** Elijah/Christine both once considered the Brotherhood true family; Dog/God, while stubborn to admit it, deeply care for each other and hate their shared self-destructive nature; and while Dean may not be the best example for any form of love or companionship, he really does feel remorse for his actions and probably did consider Sinclair a genuine friend at some point. |
| 262 | *** The Courier is able to befriend/side with ALL of the main characters (Elijah, Christine, Dog/God, Dean). With Elijah it's [[WeCanRuleTogether sympathizing with his wishes for a new world and wiping the slate clean]]; for Christine, it's just being generally nice and considerate to her, something that's rare as is; same for Dog/God, but you can help them resolve their inner turmoil and leave a deep mark on the fused personality (who notes that while he can't remember exactly who you are, he knows that you were special to him and that he owes a great debt to you); and while you have to practically tiptoe around Dean to get his good ending, eventually he realizes that there really are people out there who aren't as insincere and conniving as he is and appreciates everything you've done for him (he remarks that any point you could've turned on everyone but you didn't, something that makes him drop his condescending attitude for once). |
| 263 | ** Honest Hearts, having the main theme of religion and such, is Agape, for everyone involved. The Sorrows have the Survivalist, the Mormons have ol' God, and the White Leg's reverence of Caesar is arguably this (although that applies to many of the tribes the Legion trains). |
| 264 | ** Old World Blues is Eros, with the brain jar folk being oddly... "sensual" at times, not to mention their lust/love for SCIENCE! and their respective interests. |
| 265 | ** Finally, Lonesome Road is Philia since it's the last DLC released and gives a WorthyOpponent / BacktoBackBadasses kind of vibe, with the ending slides describing it as an epic battle of two Couriers, either fighting with or against each other. |
| 266 | *** The way Ulysses talks even makes it seem that while YOU might have forgotten him, he still keeps up with what you do and all. Though that might just be StalkerWithoutACrush territory, you both still shared a job and a home at one point (and he even credits you for giving him a home in the Divide, although that kinda gets canceled out by the fact you were also the one to destroy it). |
| 267 | *** Even the ending slides where you fight Ulysses note that you saw him as an equal counterpart, and cover his body in an Old World Flag as a sign of respect (or disrespect, depending on how you interpret it). And over the course of the DLC it's clear that's how he felt about you too; the guy was even prepared enough to leave you several gifts (and a message telling you to BeYourself and that you should have faith no matter what path you follow) at the end. |
| 268 | *** Hell, if you deal with Ulysses peacefully you're free to just visit the Divide now and again and chat with him. The dialogue between you and him after finishing the DLC makes it clear there are no hard feelings at all; he gives you tips on dealing with Legate Lanius, teaches you some campfire recipes, gives you some stuff he scavenges here and there, and makes comments about stuff you've done in the Mojave. You can worriedly ask him if he's sure he wants to stay there as a concerned friend would, to which he just badassedly reassures you that he'll be fine. |
| 269 | * How did Victor get to Novac so much faster than you? Well simple, have you ever noticed how when you get to The Strip, Victor suddenly takes over a standard Securitron nearby and comes to talk to you? Well, who's not to say that he took over a Securitron that was closer to Novac once he knew you were close? And then did the same thing for when you were getting to Boulder City? |
| 270 | * Joshua Graham explaining how he survived is a fairly accurate summary for how the characters of the series have struggled to rebuild civilization in the wasteland. The fire inside Joshua burned brighter than the fire around him, which he attributes to the love of his family and tribe, and even moreso the love of God, giving him the passion necessary to survive. The fires of the nuclear war burned away civilization, burned away billions of lives, but the fire that burned inside the survivors burned brighter than the fire that surrounded them. Why struggle to survive if that was not true? Why not roll over and let their generation be the last? Humanity's fire burned brighter than the devastation that burned around them, and every struggle you've seen -- both good people and bad people -- is a testament to that fact. |
| 271 | * Looking at Joshua Graham and Daniel's respective weapons seems a bit strange at first when you take into account their attitudes towards violence. The BloodKnight ex-Legionary Graham carries a small (though heavily customized) .45 pocket pistol, while the ostensibly peaceful, near-pacifistic Daniel is armed with a huge, heavy .45 SMG (a Thompson in all but name). But thinking about it further, it makes perfect sense. Graham's gun, [[ICallItVera A Light Shining In Darkness]], is carried on the hip and can be easily drawn and fired in haste (in addition, the custom 'trench' sights it has are designed to aid in snap-shooting at close range). Being a relatively small gun firing a relatively large cartridge, it also takes a lot of strength and experience to properly handle the recoil and lots of practice at reloading to use a weapon with a small magazine effectively in combat (and the weapon does, in fact, have a high Guns skill requirement of 75). This is exactly the sort of weapon someone like Graham- restrained, but extremely experienced at solving problems with violence and itching for the opportunity to do so- would use. Daniel's gun, meanwhile, is carried in an awkward position on his back, making it difficult to reach for in a hurry. Being a large, heavy two-handed weapon means it's much easier to aim accurately and control the recoil (game balance dictating a low base accuracy aside). But when it is drawn and used, it has firepower to spare. While Daniel clearly detests violence, his status as a missionary does not mean he's unwilling to defend himself or others- thus he carries enough firepower to do exactly that. |
| 272 | * The nail guns found in ''Lonesome Road'' are worth a ridiculous amount of caps despite being not particularly amazing weapons, and don't seem that special compared to all the exotic guns and improvised weaponry you can find elsewhere. Why are they so valuable then? With all the efforts done in post-apocalypse America to rebuild civilization and proper structures to live in, tools like working nail guns are probably in very short supply and would be worth quite a bit to any group trying to rebuild, especially ones in pristine condition like how they'd often be sold by players. |
| 273 | * In ''Dead Money'', the Sierra Madre contains a copy of every single skill book minus the Survival one. The Sierra Madre is a place which was sealed from the day of the Great War (2077) until the time of the game (2281). Twelve of the skill books date from before the Great War, but the Wasteland Survival Guide doesn't: it has been written during the events of ''Fallout 3'' (2277), less than a decade before ''New Vegas''. |
| 274 | ** Actually the Barter skill book ("Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor") is post-war, as Junktown was only established a few years after the bombs fell. But that explains why you can find one, in the 200+ years between the apocalypse and the events of Dead Money it's not implausible a prospector carried one with them and died in the Sierra Madre Villa. Either that or the Barter skill book you find is actually a "pre-war" skill book but Obsidian didn't bother making a new asset (which checks out considering how chaotic New Vegas' development was) that player likely wouldn't recognize as a skill book so they just reused the old skill book asset. |
| 275 | * It always bugged me at first how the kitchen of the Cantina Madrid (which is supposed to be a fancy restaurant) in the Sierra Madre has a lot of [[IndestructibleEdible pre-war packaged/processed food]] (Cram, [=BlamCo=] Mac and Cheese, Potato Crisps, Sugar Bombs, Salisbury Steaks, etc...). Then I finally got a job in a gourmet restaurant and the ingredients in the fridges, freezers and pantry were virtually the same you'd get at the average grocery store, making the Cantina Madrid's stockpile of ingredients not so unrealistic after all. |
| 276 | * That a Good Karma Courier initially works for the NCR but eventually decides to go Wild Card makes sense within the story, considering that s/he must work for [[GeneralRipper Colonel Cassandra Moore]], and may come to the conclusion that people like her should not be in charge. |
| 277 | * The Gun Runners being able to replicate Pre-War designs also explains why there's seemingly little shortage of more sophisticated arms in the Mojave, such as the Assault Carbine and Anti-Materiel Rifle, despite these being otherwise available only in caches around Nellis AFB. Where there likely wouldn't be enough functional guns after 200 years to keep the NCR Rangers alone well-stocked, there's still enough for the Gun Runners to tinker with and reverse-engineer for mass-production, even if they're more expensive to produce than standard-issue fare. |
| 278 | * In Fallout 3, you get a perk every level. In New Vegas, you only get a perk every second level. The protagonist of Fallout 3 is a newbie to the wastelands, who has a lot to learn and as such is constantly taking in new knowledge and techniques. The protagonist of New Vegas, however, is already rather experienced in wasteland survival. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and as such the Courier is in a rougher point for learning than the Lone Wanderer. Additionally, the Courier starts out the game having been shot in the head by Benny; your brains may have been scrambled such that it's harder to permanently take in new information, like anterograde amnesia. |
| 279 | * The NCR Ranger stations are named after military alphabet designation (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc). Camp Golf, the Rangers' headquarters, is the House Resort, which has a golf course with some of the old signs being used around the tents. At first, it seems like Camp Golf is named so because of the golf course, but looking at military letter designations, "Golf" is for G. The '''f'''inal Ranger station is Foxtrot, for letter F. Knowing Obsidian, it was probably both, as a StealthPun. |
| 280 | * The NCRCF prison garb (worn by Powder Gangers) is predominantly blue, as opposed to the [[InstitutionalApparel stereotypical]] orange, because a sufficiently dirtied orange jumpsuit would blend in the desert much better than a blue jacket. |
| 281 | * During the quest "[=ED-E=] My Love", we discover that the the eyebot was sent from the East Coast by Dr. Whitley to the Navarro base on the west, carrying valuable data. [=ED-E=] is a Courier, just like you. And like Ulysses, which explains why he's a central player in ''Lonesome Road.'' |
| 282 | * If you decide to enter Vault 3 dressed as a Fiend, the guard will immediately notice that you are not part of the Fiends, and will attack you if you fail a Speech Check, instead if you are dressed as a Great Khan's member, she will give you free passage. The most likely reason is that the guard must recognize most of the faces of the fiends, so the Courier would have a face that she has never seen, instead her only contact with the Great Khans are the drug dealers who bring merchandise, so she has no reason to suspect a Great Khan's member she's never seen before. |
| 283 | * When Veronica asks the Courier what they know about the Brotherhood of Steel, a character with low Intelligence can mention hearing a rumor that BOS members can "shoot lasers from their eyes". Sounds insane, but where might they come up with that idea? Well, what about [[VideoGame/Fallout3 a certain Brotherhood aligned robot]] that ''can'' shoot lasers from his eyes (well, head)? |
| 284 | * How did Katherine Stone get elected in Vault 11 after killing members of the Justice Bloc, rather than being directly killed by them? If she was badass enough to kill multiple men, she may have been tough enough to beat anyone who directly confronted her and/or smart enough to hide away so nobody could find her until after the election. She may also have been under protection from those who felt pity for her and disgust at the Justice Block after they screwed her in more ways than one, as well as those who approved of her random selection policy. |
| 285 | * Fantastic is a useless nobody that the NCR put in charge of big control panels to [[TheDilbertPrinciple prevent him from going near anything important]], potentially on multiple occasions depending on the player's choices. He will ramble on about nothing given the opportunity, will talk up about how great he is despite accomplishing nothing of note, and will sincerely say that a low Intelligence Courier is way more qualified than he is if the Courier pretends to be there to replace him. The quest log even mocks him, calling him an "idiot wearing sunglasses". He's also the person with the best grasp on how to actually fix Helios One and is surprisingly self aware, especially about the fact that he has no useful skills and is coasting by on his good fortune. His stats reflect this as he actually has an above average Intelligence and a great Luck stat, but a terrible Charisma and no Skills of any sort. He may be TheFool and TheLoad, but he's smart enough to understand that and simply chooses to roll with it. |
| 286 | [[/folder]] |
| 287 | |
| 288 | [[folder:Fridge Horror]] |
| 289 | * Cook-Cook REALLY stinks. He also REALLY likes his pet cow. Guess what cows re-actively do when you try to shove them from behind... |
| 290 | * Think about it. If you activate the [[KillSat Archimedes II Orbital Weapons Platform]] BEFORE you get the targeter away from a young boy who thinks its a toy ray gun, and who is always playing with his little friends and shooting it at them... Fortunately, Veronica comments on the fact that the safety is still on when you get it. |
| 291 | * The Vaults: |
| 292 | ** There were 17 Vaults where absolutely nothing was built to go horrifically wrong. One of them was Vault 3... who lived happily and peacefully for years until they opened their door to let in a group of Wasteland survivors: the Fiends. |
| 293 | ** And the fiends are likely the survivors of a vault south of Vault 3, that was originally filled half with people suffering serious mental disorders, and the other half intentionally exposed to stimuli that would slowly drive them insane. If Vault 3 was a "safe" vault, which probably housed the descendants of Vault-Tec employees and executives seeking to avoid the horrors of the war (naturally, the Vault-Tec staff wouldn't want to be stuck in a Vault that wasn't expected to save anyone), then it might be LaserGuidedKarma that their descendants would be wiped out by the survivors of one of Vault-Tec's cruel experiments |
| 294 | ** The problem that Vault 3 had, which caused them to open the vault door in the first place, is nearly identical to what happened to the vault in VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}}. With a little bit worse luck or timing, the story of that game could have ended almost as soon as it began. Remember that the vault in Fallout 1 was in the mountains, where as Vault 3 was in the middle of a major, mostly spared city. |
| 295 | * Vault 22's Spore Carriers are the former residents of the Vault, infected with a fungus that basically kills them and reanimates them as mutated, zombie-like beings. There's a particular type called the Spore Carrier Runt, which is much smaller than the other ones. Since they were former vault residents, [[UndeadChild guess what the smaller ones were]]. |
| 296 | * Vault 21 actually did rather well, considering that it was filled with compulsive gamblers and every disagreement was settled by chance. Of course, Mr. House [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame took it over]], evicted the agoraphobic residents who didn't want to work for him, and filled most of the place with concrete...but the experiment itself was a success. |
| 297 | * The sign outside of the church in Searchlight has the Bible verse Revelation 9:6 displayed on it. For those of you that haven't been there yet the NCR garrison in Searchlight was wiped out due to Legion sabotage exposing them to overwhelming radiation from toxic waste. Most of the garrison became feral ghouls. A single survivor turned into a "normal" ghoul who remained sane and intelligent. What does Revelation 9:6 say? "During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them." |
| 298 | * The first time you're in the Silver Rush, you see Gloria Van Graff making a violent example of a poor unfortunate hostage to "convince" someone to pay what he owes. If you use VATS and focus on the hostage, he's a Van Graff thug. The logic continues when you ask Gloria for a job, she says "a position just opened up." You're filling in for the guy who just got vaporized. Explored in cut content; there was an extended scene, where, Gloria would talk about how the Van Graff thug was her lover that she caught cheating on her in Gomorrah. She states, though, that she loves him and asks the customer if he thinks her broken faith in him will make his punishment any less brutal. After he's vaporized, she warns the customer to never break faith with the Van Graffs. |
| 299 | * Cazadores are already fairly horrific, but it gets even worse when you learn that they are based on the Tarantula Hawk wasp. Why? Because the Tarantula Hawk, aside from having one of the most painful stings in the world, has toxins so that it can paralyze tarantulas and lay their eggs in them. This creates even more unpleasant implications than usual when your character dies to them. Similarly, Bloatflies have a very similar name to another, real life creature: bot flies, a species of fly that lays parasitic larvae on large mammals (in a few species, this includes humans) that munch on their hosts before pupating and emerging as full-sized flies. Those things they are shooting at you? [[AbnormalAmmo Weaponized larvae]]. They aren't just trying to kill you, they are trying ''fill you full of their young''. Now imagine what happens when a fly the size of a football tries pushing its way out of a person. At the rate they fire, this could be upwards of a half dozen of them, too. Thank God Bloatflies just do normal damage instead of continuous or eventual huge damage. Though if they did, perhaps there'd be an option to dig the larva out yourself or go to a doctor for surgery. Then get a [[KillItWithFire Fat Man]] to deal with the demon flies afterward. |
| 300 | * Melody, the little slave girl in the fort. Considering the Legion's attitude to women, the attitude the society they were based on had to children (Emperor Tiberius' "[[{{Squick}} tiddlers]]" come to mind) and Siri's remark about how Legion men ''usually'' "leave child and elderly slaves alone," the way she insists that all she does is carry food and tend to the brahmin seems just a [[BlatantLies little too fast]]. Bonus points for being kept in a pen figuratively just down the hill from the totally-looks-the-type Caesar, and even more bonus points for there being ''zero options to help her''. Even worse, though the Legion at least gives her some food, after trying to free her by killing all the Legionnaires, there's again no option to take her with you, and she'd very likely not survive on her own. The Legion boys probably wouldn't be able to survive on their own either, despite all the training they've had. There's sadly no Little Lamplight in the Mojave Wasteland. |
| 301 | * Should you ever encounter a dead female NPC with no clothes on as you find her, it is likely implied that she was raped before she was murdered. Example: the dead Crimson Caravan guard between the NCRCF and Goodsprings that was presumably part of Ringo's caravan. Particularly since there's also a dead, fully-clothed male guard in the same area. |
| 302 | * The Trauma Harnesses in ''Old World Blues'' were designed as exosuits that would take control when the wearer was maimed, bringing him back to base for medical treatment. It's revealed that no one designated a home base for the prototypes in the Big Empty, meaning that they still wander as literal walking dead. However, by gameplay mechanics, having a crippled limb isn't going to kill you in the Fallout universe...meaning that they likely starved inside the suits. |
| 303 | ** That, and they were forced to move around while having a [[BodyHorror broken limb]]. |
| 304 | * In the Divide, Deathclaws are most prominent on the highway/High Road and mostly absent in other areas. They don't spread to the other areas because they would have to pass Tunneler territory, [[AlwaysABiggerFish and either don't make it through that]] or because the Deathclaws are actually ''scared'' of another creature. You can find a dead deathclaw in the tunnel. One that seemingly died cowering inside an overturned dump truck. |
| 305 | ** The Tunnelers themselves are according to Ulysses, gradually digging their way towards the Mojave. Given how those things are described and if Ulysses is right, chances are (unless the Courier was that much of a badass that the Tunnelers are dealt with off-screen) they'll make whatever ending one chooses moot. Because they'd make life a living hell. On the other hand, given their weakness to light, odds are an NCR and House or Independent victory would at least give the Mojave a fighting chance. |
| 306 | * When Ranger Andy sends you to check on Ranger Station Charlie, if you visit the station before Andy asks you to do so, you might notice a legion strike team atop the nearby ridge, or in the nearby valley, watching the ranger station through binoculars. It was always going to happen, and you didn't do anything to stop it. (It'll just be another squad if you kill them, though.) |
| 307 | * Lonesome Road has ED-E's story of being raised by a nice Enclave Scientist who cared for it like a father. Then you come to the realization that Whitely was probably one of the no-name scientists the player gunned down as the Lone Wanderer. And if he wasn't, then he probably was executed for insubordination/treason by Colonel Autumn (Whitley ''did'' sneak away valuable Hellfire armor from the Enclave, and would be a top suspect for it given that he'd already indicated un-Enclave-like concern for the ED prototypes). |
| 308 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' both have instances in slaver camps where there are stripper poles with teddy bears scattered nearby. This has disturbing implications. |
| 309 | * There are ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}''[='s=] and ''New Vegas''' outcomes for some of the cities, if you kept Vault City independent from NCR, you effectively placed a good deal of the population in permanent servitude since without NCR's meddling, they will not bother with the servants in the city. Meanwhile, NCR's victory in New Vegas give Warhawks more political sway and will pave way to something worse. |
| 310 | * Vault 69 (999 Women, 1 Man) and Vault 68 (999 Men, 1 Woman) were created by Chris Avellone as part of the Fallout bible. At first glance, it looks like just a coy joke at the number 68 and 69 and were done by ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' for a Fallout book, but they're still claimed to be of existence in the series. Imagine the fate of the single man or woman in the vaults... |
| 311 | ** Whilst our first instinct is to assume that the lone man or woman had a fate worse than death, it is also possible that calmer heads realized early on he/she was their only means of repopulating and continuing their vault long term and thus treated them better than how most other people were living in the wake of the war. The horror comes when you start to think about the children who ended up being born from this, because if you're unlucky enough to have been born as a member of the ''missing'' sex, the chances are that you'll be a second class citizen whose only role is to reproduce whether you like it or not. |
| 312 | * Have you noticed how Victor is in the front of every elevator door in the Lucky 38 to guide you between the floors? Well, he also does this in your lounge. And he stays right in front of your bed. [[ParanoiaFuel Watching you sleep]]. And remember, [[BodySurf he can jump from any Securitron to another in seconds]] (you can see it happen when you first go to the Lucky 38), so he could be anywhere at any time. In all likelihood, he isn't even doing it consciously. House can make him do it directly. House has been watching you through Victor ''the whole time''. |
| 313 | * There are several hints suggesting that at least a good number of people in the days leading up to the War itself were aware that it was only a matter of time before the end. Whether it's Mr. House's ridiculously accurate predictions (and preparations), Sinclair's hastiness in building the Sierra Madre Villa or the details in Randall Clark's holotapes, the idea that folks knew that doomsday was coming, with most of them likely to die anyway and ''no way to avert it'' would have made Pre-War America essentially as horrifying as Cold War era America, which is terrifying. |
| 314 | * Did you notice the Necropolis Theme when you enter the Followers Outpost? If you complete Veronica's quest by defecting to the Followers, it becomes a necropolis. |
| 315 | * You will never forget walking through the Bison Steve hotel and finding a room of fantastic loot. Look at all the med-X and the knife, if I can just move this body out of that bathtub. It isn't until much later when you why someone may be in a locked bathroom with the bombs falling outside surrounded by morphine (Med-X) and a knife. |
| 316 | * It was confirmed by developers that the Legion only uses women as baby factories until their bodies can't take it anymore. The implication of what happens in the future if said baby happens to be female is deeply unsettling. |
| 317 | * When you think about it, it really is hard not to sympathize with the brains from Old World Blues. Can you imagine just how horrible it would really be to be nothing more than a brain in a floating jar for 200 years? You've got immortality, but you've sacrificed everything that made life worth living. Eating, drinking, love and sex, taking part in games... no wonder Mobius eventually got hooked on drugs if that is the only thing left to him. You can argue that being a Think Tank is superior to Mr House's method of slowly rotting away in a cryogenic chamber, but at least he is one of the most powerful men in the world; the brains have been living on their own in a radioactive bombed-out crater. As much as we may hate to admit it, a high percentage of us would take the change to steal a human body if it meant ''feeling alive'' again. |
| 318 | * Lily explains that she was living in a vault with her grandkids until she was kidnapped and dragged by the Master's army to be turned into a Super Mutant. The horror sets in when you realize what could have possibly happened to those kids. Either they were killed during the Super Mutants raid on the vault, the Super Mutants turned THEM into Super Mutants which could have been any of the first gen mutants even ones killed by the player in the various games, or best case they somehow escaped and are long dead. Either way, Lily risks sacrificing her sanity to remember children that one way or another are long gone. |
| 319 | ** It may actually be the case that her grandchildren *were* the Master. The master states humans taken from vaults were able to be assimilated, and presumably only turned to super mutants those whom he needed to act as soldiers or were exposed to enough radiation to become unsuitable for merging with him. His ultimate goal was the Unity, and since children may (or may not) be unsuitable as soldiers, it makes sense to think they'd be early 'citizens' to the Unity. |
| 320 | *** This would only make it even more unsettling, considering how she was one step from being with her grandchildren forever and the vault dweller shattered that to pieces. |
| 321 | * According to Randall Clark's logs the Sorrows tribe is descended from only a couple dozen children, meaning the modern Sorrows are all badly inbred or close to it. |
| 322 | * More like Fridge Squick, but in Lonesome Road you can craft "Rushing Water", a non addictive drink made from Purified Water and Jet that increases your attack speed with non-automatic weapons. Now, do we remember what a major ingredient in Jet is? |
| 323 | * Camp [=McCarran=] has a widowed member, Private Christina Morales, holding a gun. Her husband, Ranger Esteban was killed, and the NCR brass have every intention of leaving behind his body. If you didn't stop by, [[DrivenToSuicide imagine how badly this could have turned out]]. |
| 324 | * Daniel's plan to spare the Sorrows the horrors of war by evacuating from Zion may be well-intentioned but it becomes [[DidntThinkThisThrough increasingly misguided the more you think about it]]. Zion is a veritable paradise in the wasteland with plentiful food, clean water and comparatively few dangers, this fact combined with Clark's teachings is why the Sorrows are so peaceful in the first place. However, if they evacuate Zion then they'll be forced to deal with hostile weather and a lack of food and water as well as the fact that much of the water they could find would be irradiated. Not to mention the myriad of new hazards they'd have to contend with such as creatures that are far more deadly than what lives in Zion and bloodthirsty raiders who'd be more than happy to butcher them over the meager resources available. With this in mind, the Sorrows would either die out entirely or they'd become vicious killers just to survive. |
| 325 | * Think sealing Elijah in the vault seals his fate forever? Think again! That vault was originally built as a trap but Sinclair then had a bout of remorse and changed it to be a simple fallout shelter. He installed a vending machine and two [=RobCo=] terminals. Except the vending machine is actually a cornucopia technology - it can make anything you want, provided you feed it anything to use as raw material. It can turn hats and eyeglasses into ammo and weapon mods. Imagine what a technical genius like Elijah would get that thing to make for him, if he hacked it!! With either his Pip-boy or any of the terminals in the room. And there’s a huge TV monitor, furniture, decorations and what not to feed as raw material. Elijah could have the wending machines make just enough explosives to blast a way out! And then … he starts looking for you. |
| 326 | [[/folder]] |
| 327 | |
| 328 | [[folder:Fridge Logic]] |
| 329 | * In-universe when dealing with a FakeUltimateHero, if you have enough Intelligence your character can point it out. |
| 330 | -->'''Courier:''' You fired three shots and four of them fell down. |
| 331 | * For all that King attempted to research details on the role model whose' title he appropriated for his gang, he missed the fact that real life Presley HATED being called "The King" for two particular reasons: |
| 332 | ** In terms of accomplishments, Elvis viewed Fats Domino as a superior rock 'n' roll artist and regarded him as the true "King of Rock 'n' Roll." |
| 333 | ** As for the other and likely more prominent reason, Elvis Presley, being a fervent Christian who also dabbled in gospel music, was big on Jesus Christ and thus did not appreciate being given a title that was akin to idolatry. |
| 334 | *** Note where The Kings take up residence; an Elvis ''impersonation'' school, filled with all sorts of romanticized paraphernalia. The King didn't do research on "The King", who was an enigma to them, but pre-war society's ''idea'' of "The King", taking up the legacy of the fans. So, FridgeLogic becomes FridgeBrilliance; King doesn't even know Elvis' '''name''', why would he know anything like that?? |
| 335 | * The flags of the NCR and the Legion. In the world of Fallout, post-war bulls (brahmin) have two heads and bears (Yao Guai) have only one, yet their respective flags feature a two-headed bear and a mono-headed bull. |
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