Some of my issues with Fallout NV

[marharth]

I can't figure why people have a problem with the whole GECK story line. This is science fiction you know? They have technologies that don't exist in our world. Androids that pass for humans, laser and plasma weapons, stim packs, easy radiation treatment, cars with nuclear power plants, functional power armor, hovering intelligent robots. All that and more and yet the GECK is your sticking point. Sorry I can't buy that. I didn't find it at all strange that they could possibly have a device that would bring life back to an area or that it could be reengineered to produce clean water. In fact I thought it was a pretty imaginative story considering everything else that has happened and is happening in that game world. Their technologies are obviously well beyond what we currently have. Even though we have people working on some of the things mentioned we are no where near making them a reality as we see them in the game. Something like the GECK is what science fiction is all about. Take those fantastical things out and all you have is reality and where's the fun in that?

I am not saying I didn't believe it, I am saying that it didn't match up.

 

I don't have any reason to believe that you NEED a GECK to purify water.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Everyone seems to assume that you were captured in or near Goodsprings... I don't think it went down that way. I think you were captured and taken to Goodsprings. I didn't really question winding up in Goodsprings- after all, it is (as has been mentioned) pretty out of the way. Yeah, it would have been smarter for Benny to dump your body somewhere it'd get eaten or something, but he's not that sort of guy. The Khans call him out on the folly of showing his face to you, too, but he makes it clear that he wants to look you in the eye, and to me that suggests that he'd have gone out of his way to give you a decent burial as well.

 

The logic behind your placement in Goodsprings goes like this, as I see it:

 

- Knowing that the route north from Primm is blocked, anyone who came looking for you (to find the chip, of course- like they'd care about your sorry behind) would not be likely to look to the north as you would have headed to New Vegas via Nipton and Novac.

 

- Goodsprings is to the north of Primm, and is a fair ways off the main road.

 

- Benny & Co. put a bag over your head to keep you from seeing where they were taking you to- which means that you were likely not captured in Goodsprings, and not even necessarily anywhere nearby. Nobody between where you were captured and the graveyard would be too likely to mess with an important-looking man in a suit accompanied by several Khans and a prisoner. In a world where death is the usual penalty for everything, someone who can afford to take prisoners and is not someone to be messed with.

 

- Benny fancies himself an honorable scumsucking douchebag, so he would have insisted (against good advice from the Khans he hired) on giving you a proper burial in addition to looking you in the eye and doing the deed himself. He's not a moral man, but he is an ethical man- he has a code, and dumping you in the middle of nowhere wouldn't satisfy that code.

 

- Goodsprings has a graveyard, far enough outside of town so that Benny & Co. might expect to carry out their dirty doings uninterrupted.

 

Nobody in Goodsprings knew what happened until Victor brought you into town, so if House hadn't been the paranoid crank that he is then Benny would have easily gotten away with it. Benny's plan was a good one; he just didn't know you were being followed by Victor. How the hell a 6-foot tall blue robot with a glowing TV screen for a face could possibly hide nearby while you were being murdered.... now that's a mind-bender.

[minngarm]

Theres a novel out that details benny and the khans trip from north of goodsprings to get you. I havent read it but look up chances knife details on the wiki and youll get the basics. This means that you were trying to go north from primm to deliver the goods. This is possible either by the road, by the primm pass which comes out south of novac, or via the same route benny uses that comes out just shy of red rock. Go explore these areas IG and youll see other then the road they are all very managable even at lvl 1.

[marharth]

Everyone seems to assume that you were captured in or near Goodsprings... I don't think it went down that way. I think you were captured and taken to Goodsprings. I didn't really question winding up in Goodsprings- after all, it is (as has been mentioned) pretty out of the way. Yeah, it would have been smarter for Benny to dump your body somewhere it'd get eaten or something, but he's not that sort of guy. The Khans call him out on the folly of showing his face to you, too, but he makes it clear that he wants to look you in the eye, and to me that suggests that he'd have gone out of his way to give you a decent burial as well.

 

The logic behind your placement in Goodsprings goes like this, as I see it:

 

- Knowing that the route north from Primm is blocked, anyone who came looking for you (to find the chip, of course- like they'd care about your sorry behind) would not be likely to look to the north as you would have headed to New Vegas via Nipton and Novac.

 

- Goodsprings is to the north of Primm, and is a fair ways off the main road.

 

- Benny & Co. put a bag over your head to keep you from seeing where they were taking you to- which means that you were likely not captured in Goodsprings, and not even necessarily anywhere nearby. Nobody between where you were captured and the graveyard would be too likely to mess with an important-looking man in a suit accompanied by several Khans and a prisoner. In a world where death is the usual penalty for everything, someone who can afford to take prisoners and is not someone to be messed with.

 

- Benny fancies himself an honorable scumsucking douchebag, so he would have insisted (against good advice from the Khans he hired) on giving you a proper burial in addition to looking you in the eye and doing the deed himself. He's not a moral man, but he is an ethical man- he has a code, and dumping you in the middle of nowhere wouldn't satisfy that code.

 

- Goodsprings has a graveyard, far enough outside of town so that Benny & Co. might expect to carry out their dirty doings uninterrupted.

 

Nobody in Goodsprings knew what happened until Victor brought you into town, so if House hadn't been the paranoid crank that he is then Benny would have easily gotten away with it. Benny's plan was a good one; he just didn't know you were being followed by Victor. How the hell a 6-foot tall blue robot with a glowing TV screen for a face could possibly hide nearby while you were being murdered.... now that's a mind-bender.

Not to mention there is a death claw nest fairly close to the graveyard.

[minngarm]

What about the fact that Victor has been in goodsprings for some 15 years? It all hints at prophecy.

[Nohbodey]

My problem was you didn't see enough of the good side of the legion and enough of the bad side of the ncr. The legion is portrayed as murderers preying on the innocent and the ncr is largely portrayed as the defenders of the innocent.

 

I think you haven't looked deeply enough into the game. I think the game makes it perfectly clear that the NCR has numerous problems. One of the more obvious ones is the fact that they won't engage in any offensive maneuvers because of General Oliver's incompetence. It's also mentioned, I believe by Benny, that the NCR are essentially crooks who've taken over everything and simply created an appearance of democracy. Benny isn't the most trustworthy source, but when you think about it, their tendency to annex whatever they feel like and to hell with the consequences is a whole lot like the Legion's policy in a lot of ways.

 

in reallity, the legion is a society that would provide better safety and justice(just talk to the trader in the fort and caesar), but they are willing to resort to any means to gain control. The ncr, on the other hand, treats conquered enemies kinder, but they just eventually exploit everyone around them.

 

On the point of justice, I completely disagree. While the NCR doesn't have a perfect justice system, enforcing things like a death penalty for homosexuality or the use of chems is not a just system. Furthermore, the Legion uses punishments far beyond the pail of "cruel and unusual" by letting their victims slowly starve to death in the heat for days. It's also corrupt in that the source of Caesar's power is completely arbitrary, and based on an extremely silly cult belief system that holds him as the son of a God. NCR bases itself on an actual system of laws with practical justifications for them. In this regard, they're better than the Legion by far.

 

Also, you just need to lock at the value of the ncr's money vs. to the legion's money. NCR money is $4 to 1 cap, while Legion money is worth 1 Denarius to 4 caps. Obviously the Legion has a much better economy.

 

The raw value of currency isn't the only measure of a good economy. It doesn't follow at all that the Legion must have a better economy just because one of their coins is worth more than an NCR dollar. The fact is, the NCR is actually a whole lot richer when it comes to resources and money. You can see this when the Van Graff family chooses to side with NCR rather than the Legion, mostly because they've got more money to offer.

 

So i guess i have a problem with how the Legion is presented as murderers with how they killed the powder gangers in Nipton, while the NCR is portrayed as defenders of the innocent with them fighting the powder gangers in Primm.

 

I don't think that's necessarily the case. The Legion did kill all of those people in quite brutal ways, and the NCR did defend people from the Powder Gangers. The question, after you've seen this, is motivation. Does the NCR really care about people, or is it just a tactical decision? There are a lot of questions and gray areas such that it's a disservice to just say that the NCR are portrayed as good and the Legion as bad.

 

I hate to break it to you House-supporters, but there is no way, even in their upgraded state, that securitrons can stand against either the NCR or the Legion.

 

On my Legion playthrough I was vilified by NCR, so upon entering the Strip, the MP's attacked me. When i killed THEM, the Securitrons started attacking me. I killed all of them with one shot each from a .44 Magnum. They really aren't that great. Even with the Securitron army activated and upgraded, they have nowhere near the numerical or combative strength to hold The Strip for more than a few days, let alone conquer all of New Vegas, no matter how weakened the factions are. They simply don't have the man, or in this case, robot, power. I guess that's another problem i have, that 2 of the game's main endings support the possibility of a small robot force gaining control of all of new vegas, while logically it is impossible for them to retain control of the Strip against an assualt from any of the major factions, even some of the minor factions like the Fiends or the Brotherhood of Steel.

 

This is the part where imagination comes in. Just because you haven't seen a number of Securitrons that would equal an army doesn't mean that they don't exist. There are a number of reasons why this is obviously the case.

 

1) It's unfair to place any faction in any Fallout game against a main character to prove that they've not good. The player always has the potential to become the most badass, headshot-soaking, enemy-massacring, outright unstoppable thing in the entire wasteland. This is mostly out of necessity, since the game wouldn't be quite as satisfying if all your hard work went to waste with you unable to take out the Fort or McCarran or something like that. You need to compare factions in the context of other factions to get an apt comparison.

 

2) Even the relatively small number of Securitrons you see at the end of the game would be more than enough to utterly obliterate NCR or Legion presence in the Mojave. They, too, are limited by this crappy engine that has limits on how many character models you can get on the screen at one time. Legion presence, in particular, is pretty pathetic. Only a few dozen people in their main Fort? Even less in smaller, vestigial bases across the Colorado? I've no doubt they're as powerful as they're hyped in the game to be, but there are limits to what can be done with the engine.

 

3) If House's calculations can predict when a nuclear war can occur within one year, why can't he effectively gauge military strength? There's no reason to doubt any of the calculations he's presented in the game as far as military strength is concerned. Securitrons are, by far, the most powerful front-line units in any army in the Wasteland with the possible exception of the former Enclave. An army of hundreds of them would easily dispatch almost any force the NCR could throw at you. It's absolutely preposterous to assume that the Securitrons you see at the end of the game, and the ones on the Strip are the only ones that exist.

 

4) Because of engine limitations, this argument boils down to using things presented in the game in order to make the game more playable as evidence. If we allow that, then House wins by default, because there are certain points in which Securitrons are continually added to replace dead ones ad infinitum. Therefore, House has an infinite number of Securitrons. This could also be done with NCR and the Legion (I think). At some point, common sense has to kick in and invalidate this line of argument.

[marharth]

What about the fact that Victor has been in goodsprings for some 15 years? It all hints at prophecy.

I never even thought of that, why the hell has victor been in goodsprings for so long?

[McclaudEagle]

Most likely because that's the area Mr. House believed the Platinum Chip to be located. When I mean area, I mean Primm, Goodsprings, Sloan area. Edited January 30, 2011 by McclaudEagle

[Greymane]

Most likely because that's the area Mr. House believed the Platinum Chip to be located. When I mean area, I mean Primm, Goodsprings, Sloan area.

 

I more had the impression that Mr. House had Securitrons seeded throughout the entire Mojave area to monitor it. Victor mentions in one dialog that he can hop around from one Securitron body to the next, implying that the Victor you meet in Goodsprings, Novac, Boulder City, and so forth aren't the same Securitron body. In fact, you can find his abandoned body in Goodsprings sometimes, after progressing the storyline enough for him to appear in Novac.

[minngarm]

Most likely because that's the area Mr. House believed the Platinum Chip to be located. When I mean area, I mean Primm, Goodsprings, Sloan area.

 

I more had the impression that Mr. House had Securitrons seeded throughout the entire Mojave area to monitor it. Victor mentions in one dialog that he can hop around from one Securitron body to the next, implying that the Victor you meet in Goodsprings, Novac, Boulder City, and so forth aren't the same Securitron body. In fact, you can find his abandoned body in Goodsprings sometimes, after progressing the storyline enough for him to appear in Novac.

 

 

I have not found his body anywhere nor heared that line, rather interesting...

 

After thinking about it, before the deathclaws moved in, goodsprings was the last stop on the way to new vegas, so i imagine victor had been set there incase there were any last minute problems with deliverys.