Meta [7]
I’m trying to cultivate the habit of writing daily. So, for the next 30 days, I will document my playing Fallout 4 on Survival Mode. It’s my son’s favorite game, and I stand to improve on both my game play, and my daily habit of writing.
I chose to run this playthrough as a woman. I made her look like my wife. Now we’re talkin!
Name the character Veronica Steeltoes (homage to my late cousin, I can’t believe it’s been more than 20 years.) She’s a mamma who is just thrust into this bullshit, and needs to work her way out. I plan to play her as if my wife were to be in that situation. Rather, how I think she’d react to those situation.
I plan to focus on VATS skills (PEW PEW as much as possible, so fuck melee…) Hopefully I won’t live to regret it down the road, later.
Fallout 4: The Beginning
Dude shows up at the door talking about a “matter of utmost urgency.” Great! Turns out that we are enrolled in the newfangled vaults they have been building, because according to this gentleman, we are closer than we think to nuclear war.
Ironically, it’s right after giving out our information that the shit hits the fan. We ran our asses off to the vault, and just as we got there, a nuke dropped in the background. We just got started our descent into the vault as the blast wave flew overhead like the serial killer wind.
Honestly, the next part was a complete blur of surgically sterilized environment, scientists and security guards herding us into a room full of pods for “decontamination.” Once inside, we could hear “in 5…4…3…2…1” and then everything froze up, and we fade to black.
(I couldn’t help but have that concentration camp feeling–we’ve been duped.)
The next thing I saw was a mysterious man holding a gun, and another scientist struggling with Nate over Shawn. Nate flat out refused to give up Shawn.
The strange man shot Nate once in the head, and the scientist removed Shawn. They nonchalantly closed up the pod, then the mysterious bald man looked inside my pod, and the while I don’t remember the words, their meaning still chill me.
Something about me being the backup. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
My husband, killed before my eyes. And I could do nothing about it.
When I came to, there was only the voice over the intercom (urgently reminding us that it’s time to leave) to keep us company. Everyone else was either gone, or a skeleton on the floor.
After some cursory searching, I found the security terminal. Time to dig deeper, right? Time to figure out what happened to everyone here. Perhaps there would be a clue to where they took Shawn.
The terminal told me that “Life support” and “Cryogenic Array” were both offline, indicated that they were prematurely terminated, both with “isolated manual override codes.” Everyone except Nate, Shawn and I perished from “Asphyxiation from Life Support Failure.” Our pods had the entry, “Pod Door Manual Override Engaged/Remote Override Engaged.”
That explained why there were “isolated manual override.” The question is, who did this? Better still, why? How am I the “backup plan” here?
Backup to what?
Reading further told me that the vault had three sets of staff overseen by someone called “The Overseer”: Scientists, Security, and Service and Maintenance. Scientists had to monitor the cryogenically frozen residents, and intervene ONLY if necessary to maintain at least 20% population. Security were to enforce the policies, and make sure nothing untoward happened. Service and Maintenance were the remainder.
Orders were to separate vault residents from anyone not in the manifest. The residents go to the chambers, and those lucky enough to be left over were to be “disposed of.” Security were authorized to use lethal force to keep people in line, up to and including crimes such as “insubordination.” Shit. Lip off the boss, get a bullet in the head?
The Overseer was responsible for the gate, and day-to-day operations. Perhaps that person would have information as to what happened to Shawn? From the beginning there seemed to be distrust between the Scientists (and Overseer) and the other staff. There seemed a lack of communication between the two sides, leading the staff to distrust the Overseer and scientists. What could they be hiding?
The main vault malfunctioned six months after the bomb fell, which left the question of how to get out when the only functioning terminal was in the Overseer’s office? Food had to have been scarce at that point, if not completely gone.
The last entry said that there was never going to be an all-clear, so the staff confronted the Overseer, and he flat out refused to open the only way out. He barricaded himself with the science staff in his office, issued an ultimatum to the rest of the staff to give up their weapons, food, and medicine, “or else.”
There was no other information about what might have happened to Shawn. Perhaps if I could find the Overseer’s terminal, it would make more sense. It seemed like I was the only person left, and it was high time to get out of there.
Luckily, I found a security baton amongst a corpse; it was immense help against a batch of the biggest cockroaches I had ever seen. (Aptly named “Rad Roaches”). Feeling like I would starve to death, I reluctantly harvested their meat. I have to remain strong if I am ever going to find my son. You just never know when your next meal is going to come.
After a while, I found the Overseer’s office. Inside was a few items, a 10 mm with bullets, and a terminal. A few seconds in, I confirm that it is the Overseer’s terminal. It has entries detailing an experiment in cryogenics (on unaware human subjects.). Again it’s stated that there is no circumstance, save outright total death of all residents, that warrants an interruption in their suspension.
The creepiest thing out of this is finding that the Cryolator we spent our time in was the Overseer’s pet project. Perhaps that was what the Overseer and scientists were hiding from the other staff. I can understand the tight lip about that goings on. There was still nothing I can see about Shawn. I didn’t think I would find any other info about that on there.
One interesting note. The vault was only ever supposed to be operation for 180 days. There wasn’t any other plan to occupy there for longer, and I can see why the Overseer wouldn’t want to open up the vault door to the potential harm from the outside. I think the idea was to leave the residents there in cryo-stasis even after the all-clear came.
Unfortunately it looks like there was a bug in the system that caused the override systems to malfunction and start thawing. That’s probably how I was released.
There was nothing else to see, so I left the vault. It was a glorious show to finally get the gear-like vault door open.
It took a few moments to acclimate to the new scenery. Whatever was there before that bomb hit was gone. Shrivelled up trees and vegetation, a landscape scarred, barely teeming with life. The dead lay everywhere, and judging by the bare skeletons, they have been there for a while.
I discovered what was once my home, Sanctuary.
That’s where I’ll leave for the night.
Next up, I need to figure out survival mode, and what to do next.