The Courier and the Divide

[HackWithTHeJacket]

The thing that always bugged me was the idea that a community started up in The Divide period. Bull. s#*!. Nothing could have lived there, and absolutely nothing would choose to live there. The ravaging dust storms far pre-date any possible time that The Courier could have started the community, and the place was absolutely crawling with Deathclaws (The missiles woke up the Tunellers, but the Deathclaws were always just there - we know this because the NCR had to bring flashbangs to keep them at bay). We're expected to beleive that one of the most inhospitable places found outside the Capitol Wasteland is an ideal community that people would flock to?

[Relios]

The thing that always bugged me was the idea that a community started up in The Divide period. Bull. s***. Nothing could have lived there, and absolutely nothing would choose to live there. The ravaging dust storms far pre-date any possible time that The Courier could have started the community, and the place was absolutely crawling with Deathclaws (The missiles woke up the Tunellers, but the Deathclaws were always just there - we know this because the NCR had to bring flashbangs to keep them at bay). We're expected to beleive that one of the most inhospitable places found outside the Capitol Wasteland is an ideal community that people would flock to?

The divide was hospitable and, thanks to the courier's (your) frequenting of the area, it was seen as a viable trade route and was promptly annexed by the NCR. It's a throat-cutting, merciless hell-on-earth because the nukes that went off, underground and one-by-one, from the ICBM that the Courier was carrying "anti-terraformed" the area. The Deathclaws most likely moved in later, as they often migrate.

[HackWithTHeJacket]

That still leaves the flesh ripping dust storms that predate the area by a good 200 years.

 

Plus, we know that the Deathclaws predate the nukes, since Gleeson was trapped with Rawr while the nukes were actively going off.

 

There is no way that area could be called hospitable even before the nukes.

[blaze1514]

Saying that you cannot make a community where there are dust storms is retarded. There are many ways to combat elemental exposure. NCR facewrap armor and goggle helmets, ranger armor, legion recruit helmets, and some raider helmets. are all full face, then just where long sleeves, gloves, and boots.

 

Its not a hard concept. The part I find hard to believe is that a community was able to show so much promise and prosperity without the ability to grow crops.

[HackWithTHeJacket]

Considering that these duststorms strip flesh like peel open packaging, the facewrap armor isn't going to do much. Which still ignores the question of why people would choose to live IN the area with flesh stripping storms

[SayinNuthin]

Considering that these duststorms strip flesh like peel open packaging, the facewrap armor isn't going to do much. Which still ignores the question of why people would choose to live IN the area with flesh stripping storms

 

Have you considered that many peoples (in our world) have ended up adapting to survive in climates and regions that others find lethally inhospitable as a defence against the others? Desert Bushmen, Jungle tribes and the inhabitants of frigid parts of the world probably didn't end up there because they went on holiday and decided to stay :laugh: but because their enemies couldn't or wouldn't follow them there.

[blaze1514]

Still there is the question of, how a community was able to show so much promise and prosperity without the ability to grow crops. I do not think there is a freshwater source either.

[SayinNuthin]

Still there is the question of, how a community was able to show so much promise and prosperity without the ability to grow crops. I do not think there is a freshwater source either.

 

BUT! our only evidence of this (pretty unlikely) 'promise and prosperity' comes from the accounts of a completely demented, renegade legion spy and former tribal, correct?

 

Okaaaay..... In intelligence terms this amounts to a CnC EPIC FAIL!!! :laugh:

 

Competence and Credibility;

He's going to destroy the known world but he can't even finish off one brain traumatized courier.

He's a spy, therefore dishonesty is his profession and has spent half his adult life on high stress, undercover assignments.

He's twice divorced from his emotional home base (the tribe and the legion) so even if he wasn't poised to attempt mass murder we might reasonably suppose he's emotionally unstable.

And on top of all that, all of his current associates are Marked-Men - all mad as meat-axe handles - so no peer group pressure to go all Colonel Kurtz there then, eh?

 

:down:

Edited July 17, 2014 by SayinNuthin

[greenknightfury]

I'm not sure if this has been addressed before (my apologies if it has), but it's something that's always confused me. The Lonsome Road DLC attempts to add some back story to our ambiguous protagonist. Ulysses suggests that the Courier has a huge connection to the Divide, but in game dialogue options make it seem like the Courier doesn't even remember the place or know what Ulysses is talking about. Of course Ulysses being traumatized over the destruction of the Divide and his obsession with the Courier drove him a little bit off the deep end, so it could just be the ramblings of a deeply disturbed man clinging to the past and not knowing who to blame.

 

The wiki says "However, eventually, a small survivalist community established itself in the area, created by the Courier. Kept alive, it prospered, and more settlers moved into the new city. It prospered enough in fact, to draw the attention of the New California Republic, who began to annex it swiftly for a newly established supply line across the treacherous Divide into the Mojave Wasteland."

 

"These actions drew the attention of the Caesar's Legion, which, in its bid to take the Mojave, attempted to cut the new supply line (the Long 15 and New Canaan were the two first), sending Frumentarii and assassins to explore the area after a sizeable force of legionaries struck against the Republic's forces located there. But this war did not destroy the settlement. That was the work of the Courier, who, returning to the Divide again, carried a package from Navarro by order of the NCR, containing the activated ICBM detonator to the Divide, a short time before the NCR and the Legion jumped to each other's throat. When this device was close enough, it remote linked with the ICBM computers, sending a signal to the dormant nuclear missiles lying in the silos beneath the ground. They then began detonating one after another, splitting the earth, cracking and twisting the landscape, causing massive earthquakes. Entire companies of NCR soldiers in the Divide were trapped together with their Legion foes. The disaster created the Divide as it exists now: a wind-beaten maze of twisting canyons, skin-flaying dust storms and horrific abominations."

 

So we know that the Courier had been through there enough to get people to start settling in the area (or possibly founded the settlement themselves?), and if the wiki article is correct that means the Courier had to be near the Divide when the missiles were launched and destroyed the Divide. They must have been in the area and escaped or were just close enough to observe the destruction without being in harms way. My question is, why wouldn't the Courier remember the Divide or its unfortunate fate? The amnesia argument is invalid because Obsidian has confirmed that the Courier did not suffer memory loss after being shot by Benny.

 

Given the past they give, plus in game dialog options, Obsidian for some reason wrote the Courier as an amnesiac then decided to say the Courier had no memory loss. Just like with the FO3 "Fawkes is not female" even though the terminal entries in vault 86 reveal that Fawkes was a female vault resident selected for FEV research after rejecting the head researcher and the only successful experiment (they wanted smart supermutants).

 

Of course given the dialog the entire region either suffers amnesia concerning the Courier or Doc Mitchell does a horrible job rebuilding your face, Nash should recognize you since he knows you well enough to confirm to Ulysses that you are you and "still kicking".

 

Of course LR, if you play careful attention to the timeline given, adds about 20 years of age and untold levels of badassery to the Courier; which makes him being jumped and nearly killed by Benny and a handful of Great Khans ridiculous.

[charwo]

First of all, Fawkes is a former Vault-Tec Security Officer named Sheldon Delacriox:

 

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fawkes

 

This is not a retcon, but a dummied out part of the original game.

 

Secondly, while the Divide itself could be pretty rough, from the sound of it, there was a significant waystation community. In fact it's very possible the Divide was pretty much unnuked in 2077 (not completely, but almost). This is because by necessity of the highway configurations, the Divide is modern Parhump, Nevada, and thus one of only two links between California and southern California. The Long 15 is the second, and the third is blocked by Big MT. The real life Highway system has exactly three means of approach to Las Vegas from the south and west. While the Divide itself was probably less than nice, it would cut off hundreds of miles for anyone wishing to trade through central California or the Cities of northern Nevada (which are almost all on the Western side, plus Vault City). The Divide may very well have been a truckstop version of the Hub from Fallout 1. With plenty of intact infrastructure to grow.

 

Without doubt, it WAS fought over quite viciously, and it was the lynchpin of NCR supply routes through US 160 (which you guys probably remember as Cazadore Alley just south of Spring Mountain State Park). The NCR traffic alone would have made the community rich.