Bender as a companion (or kleptomaniac protectron)

[Rossum]

I was thinking that it would be nice to have a follower who regularly collected various junk and items around the wasteland so that you don't have to search every nook and cranny by yourself.

 

Rough idea is that it would be a protectron that you can go into 'scavanging mode' which causes it to grab anything valuable it can see in the area similar to how Dogmeat can grab things like ammo, food, chems, or weapons for you.

 

 

Storywise, I can imagine this:

 

Brotherhood Outcast Outcast Scribe Phillips has taken up residence in a building somewhere (possibly one of the power stations) and is working on his own technology scavenging project.

 

See, the outcasts quit the Brotherhood of Steel because Elder Lyons was too busy fighting Super Mutants to collect technology like they were supposed to. Scribe Phillips however quit the Outcasts because they refused to work with the wastelanders to just have them collect technology for them.

 

In essence, Scribe Phillips set out on his own to start his own technology collection project and he's looking for help. He's been retrieving and modifying robots to help him in this endeavor but hasn't got the time to properly test out a retrofitted bending unit Protectron who's been programmed to go out into the wastes and collect stuff. So, if the Lone Wanderer can give Scribe Phillips some old technology then he will let him use his new scavenger robot.

 

 

Bender is built tougher than normal protectrons and his lasers are stronger. His scavenger function can be used to collect chems, ammo, spare parts (scrap metal and all items for homemade weapons... which includes bottlecaps), food (he might extract strange meat from human corpses due to a programming 'glitch'), weapons, and armor. Maybe Rock-it-Launcher ammo as well. He might also be able to detect and disarm land mines and then collect them... but that might be too much.

 

When scavenging mode is activated he will run off and keep collecting items of that category until he either can't detect any more, he can't fit any more into his storage compartment, or one minute passes since he was given the order (its one minute since he's a prototype and Scribe Phillips doesn't want him to run off into the distance never to be found again... or to be caught robbing banks halfway across the country).

 

Regardless, Bender can't detect if something is owned or not and might cause trouble if he's activated near a store.

 

Also, if fired he returns to Scribe Phillips where you can easily access his storage compartment and sell off items to Scribe Phillips. He will always have a supply of stimpaks or ammo to trade to supplement his lack of bottlecaps. There might be an option to send Bender to Philips and have him sell off everything in his storage unit and return with bottlecaps, stimpaks, or ammo equal to the price of the items (not the base price... maybe half price or something since Bender is saving a trip).

 

 

And of course, this is a big Futurama reference so it could make sense to use clips of Benders voice when he says things.

[Quetzlsacatanango]

Personally I love this idea and will look into it. It helps that Futurama is by far the best show in history.

[Rossum]

Oh, I found a website with lots of sound clips from the episodes. It should help get some audio dialog.

 

GotFuturama.com