Gaige's ECHO Logs 
is a Borderlands fanfic by Discar.
The premise of this story is that upon arriving on Pandora, Gaige the Mechromancer continues to do her ECHO broadcast of her adventures. The story is written in text only, as it is Gaige recounting what has happened, or is happening, as a Character Blog, with others chipping in their own opinions of matters. It covers Borderlands 2, and most of the DLCs.
There is also a side story for Krieg's perspective of things, found here.
Gauge's ECHO Logs contains examples of:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: This story was written before the Commander Lilith & the Fight for Sanctuary DLC, or the sequel game for that matter, but does leave with a teaser of an alternative ending, where the Vault Hunters have captured a Hyperion engineer with the Fast Travel codes to allow the Crimson Raiders and allies to assault the Helios space station directly. Story ends with them making preparations for it.
- Animal Mecha: The Badassasaurus during Mister Torgue's little tornament.GAIGE: But that fricken' dinosaur...okay, so, first off, it was bulletproof, right? Or, you know, close enough that it didn't matter. Torgue guns got through the armor pretty well, but Axton and I were the only ones that had any! And that's just the defense! It had turrets, and fire breath—
SALVADOR: The fire breath was awesome, though.
MAYA: It almost killed me and Zero when it did that spinny thing.
SALVADOR: Still awesome.
GAIGE: And NUKES! It had actual, small-scale, nukes! Who the frick puts nukes on a giant mechanical t-rex!?
[pause]
AXTON: Well, actually...
GAIGE: Okay, yeah, that was a stupid question, I would have put nukes on it too. - Black-and-Gray Morality: Unsurprisingly given this is Pandora, the Vault Hunters fall into this. Several of the Vault Hunters are only present for glory, wealth, and the challenge, and bunch of people in Sanctuary are very much not nice people. Maya, Gaige, Roland, and a few others are decent people, and stick with them because they are their friends, and because Handsome Jack and Hyperion are so very much worse.
- Chef of Iron: Zero is surprisingly the team chef, despite never removing his helmet to eat with them, and bakes delicious food. Unfortunately, the main ingredients available tend to be the savage wildlife that was previously trying to kill them all, so the other Vault Hunters had to learn to never ask what exactly they were eating.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: To a degree with Gaige. In the beginning she is able to be desensitized to deaths committed by Deathtrap, but once she starts killing people personally she has a breakdown. As the story progresses though, she thinks nothing of how many people they keep killing, and all the violence. Occasionally though certain deaths slip through her mental barriers and she has a breakdown. Especially if she is splattered with blood and gore like the bully Deathtrap killed way back at school.
- Cutscene Incompetence: Subverted for when the Vault Hunters are at Angel's Core. Instead of just standing around uselessly when Roland is shot from behind like in the game, the sheer intensity of the fight leading up to taking out the Eridium injectors left everyone collapsed on the ground in exhaustion. Hence why they took too long to react. Also, when Angle's bubble-shield went down, it released a pulse of energy which busted every other shield in the room, hence why Roland was killed so easily.
- Death World: A matter of life on Pandora, and the Vault Hunters are not impressed.
- Healing Shiv: Maya gains the ability to heal people by shooting them. Gaige and the others would have preferred to have known that before she started shooting them.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Once the other Vault Hunter see that Salvador's bounty poster lists cannibalism among his crimes, the cut him off whenever he starts making the slightest offer to cook, make any meal recommendations, or anything regarding what to do with all the corpses littered about. It’s implied he doesn’t know his poster says this.
- Instant Expert: Despite have no previous combat experience, Gaige proceeds to become a hardened, veteran combatant herself, able to kill people without relying upon just Deathtrap.
- Intangibility: Deathtrap's going through walls at times is not a game glitch, but actually a deliberate feature Gaige put in to make him even more terrifying. Particularly deadly for enclosed spaces…
- Intrepid Reporter: Gaige unintentionally becomes this by essentially becoming one of the two, and later only, source of news of what is happening on Pandora. Because she already came to Pandora with 50,000 subscribers, people were already paying attention to what she had to say. As she continued to tell of her adventures as a Vault Hunter while Handsome Jack was crushing down on any resistance to the Hyperion occupation, her number of listeners continued to skyrocket. Eventually her friends spell out to the shocked teenager just what an impact this is happening.TINA: Wut are we talkin' about? Ooooooh...you're doing an ECHO-thingy? I do a teeny one. [false modesty] Just a couple k subscribers, no big deal.
GAIGE: This is my subscriber count.
[long pause]
TINA: DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAA— - The Leader: Maya as this, keeping the other Vault Hunters in line on and off of the battlefield.
- Mad Scientist: Tannis is unquestionably one, and Maya does not appreciate how the other woman keeps taking hair and blood samples from her as part of her Siren research. Made worse since sometimes Maya only finds about it afterwards.
- Magic from Technology: While also casually showcasing her genius, Gaige presents explanations for how the Vault Hunters end up meeting zombies, and fighting pumpkins, snowmen, etc. Also how shamans might 'empower' other tribal savages, use 'spells,' and wooden shields can stop bullets.
- Not So Above It All:
- While Maya may be the most moral of the Vault Hunters, and tries to hold the others to a higher standard, she has her darker moments. Like setting chefs on fire in a freezer because it seemed funny, or being very in favour of vengeance. She also hates the monks from back home.
- Zero may be trying to cover a checklist of how to be a cool, mysterious warrior, but he also takes his Echonet games very seriously, and will definitely kill you for giving a bad review to a game he enjoys. Also clearly enjoys Gaige's broadcasts, and follows Tina's as well.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Turns out Krieg, and to a lesser extent Zero whenever he disappeared, were off doing this. Most of this gets shown later in Krieg's one-shot, but he later still kills some assassins that the Torque company's President Smith sent to kill Mister Torque.
- One-Man Army: The five Vault Hunters consistently slaughter numerically superior enemies, usually without breaking a sweat, and only rarely (and temporarily) dying. Krieg, finding the aftermath of one of their victories, assumes it was just bandits killing each other, as his sane side doubted anyone could pull it off without casualties.
- Rag Tag Band Of Misfits: The Vault Hunters, both generations, are definitely this. Much too whacky and dangerous for regular society.
- Swamps Are Evil: Gaige has... opinions about the swamp DLC mission...GAIGE: I hate this place so much.
SALVADOR: What's wrong with Aegrus?
GAIGE: What's not wrong with it!? The entire place is a frickin' swamp so I've got stinking water everywhere, there are giant spore pods that rain down elemental death, these insect spider things—
SALVADOR: Drifters.
GAIGE: —that are like thirty feet tall and spit acid, billions of savages with weird tech who worship Handsome Jack, that crazy guy who we've never heard of, fan boats, AND ZERO HAS DISAPPEARED AGAIN!
[pause]
AXTON: Huh, you know, I really expected him to pop up from behind you just then.
GAIGE: Me too. I think I'm actually a little worried about him now...
MAYA: I'm sure he's fine. Why don't you just start over at the beginning?
GAIGE: Okay, okay, let's see...right! So, Hammerlock called us, said he wanted to go on a hunting expedition to Aegrus, which is off to the south of the Highlands. He gave us the Fast Travel coordinates, so at least we didn't have to hike all the way through...through I don't know what. I've got no idea how we would have gotten here otherwise. I think we might be in the middle of the ocean? I think?
MAYA: Salvador?
SALVADOR: I dunno.
GAIGE: We got there, right? And we're on this clifftop thing, at the top of a pretty waterfall. So, you know, I was kinda lulled into a false sense of security. I thought this would be a nice, pleasant little expedition, with like, I dunno, birds and stuff, and all that.
GAIGE: But no! Get off the mountain bluff whatever, we're in the middle of a swamp! With giant insect spider things—
SALVADOR: Drifters.
GAIGE: —spitting acid at us, and they nearly killed Maya by trampling her, and we had to run halfway around the mountain to find the old Dahl cave Hammerlock had holed up in. [click]
HAMMERLOCK: I'm nearby. Come find me and we'll fight our way to the lodge together! Then it'll be nothing but a carefree weekend of hunting, companionship, and bawdy jokes about social taboos. [click]
GAIGE: WHERE'S MY CAREFREE WEEKEND, HAMMERLOCK!? - Team Mom: Maya quickly becomes this for Gaige. Even Krieg notices it in his chapter, and notes it has also helped her grow and develop.
- Tyke-Bomb: Maya was intended to be this, only for it to backfire horribly against those raising her. However it prepared her for the harsh life of Pandora.AXTON: "Sheltered?" Aren't you technically a monk?
MAYA: And it turns out I was raised to be the living weapon of the religion that adopted me. Which puts a few things from my childhood in perspective, now that I think about it. - Vitriolic Best Buds: Axton and Gaige are this, insulting and bugging each other whenever Gaige is doing her broadcasts, but in a fight they still have each other's backs, and Gaige cries whenever he dies. Krieg observes how he only acts that way with her.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Gaige's Anarchy stats give her the most damage of all the Vault Hunters, except at not only greater inaccuracy, but it also buffs up her ego to extremes. The first issue was causing friendly fire, which on top of the second was enough for her teammates to stage an intervention.
