Sunset Sarsaparilla's Wild Wild West World

[devinpatterson]

Bill isn't the brightest bulb, is he?

 

I think we have to assume he's sharp, very sharp, to pull off everything were talking about. I always kind of modeled him on a Texan version of General Chase. Don't get me wrong he has plenty of fatal flaws, but he should be a force to be reckoned with on all levels (physical, mental etc) since he's (arguably) the main antagonist.

 

speaking of names, what are the characters we have by name?

There's Bill- is that his "real" name?

 

Well you know William and all by birth, but probably got Bronco Bill in his late teens, early adulthood and all. Last name's not awfully important, I had a few laying around.

 

I can see him changing it, e.g. he was born an ethnic mexican/latin in Texas,

 

That's crazy talk :wink: he's a proud swaggering mountain of a Texan, coming from a family lineage all the way back from Teddy Roosevelt (or some equally impressive figure and possibly flush from oil money).

 

Did we settle on the Chosen's/tribal girl's name yet?

 

I thought your name was pretty good. I know it had a little bit of middle eastern origin, but there has to be some racial variation in the enclave. And if it's sewed on the chosen one's blanket, the tribals may initially mis pronounce it and call her a variant of it. But when the end comes and she is convinced to merge with the mainframe (one of several possible endings) as a way to save the daughter and the other tribal brains, some of her dialog or end slide can reference that it was only at the end that she truely understood the actual meaning of her name and how it reflected her fate.

 

How many children do we want?

 

Also how many "war buddies". With a current and active war, friends with Bill in active service could have become just as tight as family.

 

 

 

perhaps a younger brother died in Anchorage or something, and that's one of the reasons Bill is/was shaken up about his "plan" for his children, and/or a bone of contention inside his family?

 

Sounds like a good back story

 

Actually, perhaps that could have led to an argument/divorce with his wife; she'd end up dead during the apocalypse, his daughter somewhat by chance being on her way to a visit (joint custody and all that) maybe he embarked on a suicidal rescue op.

 

I think it would severely weaken our story line if there was a divorce. The story is stronger if he looses the love of his life forever, and I don't think soul mates get divorces. We do need to have him, loose his wife a fair amount of time before the bombs drop, like years. Remember loosing her (his wife) is a big part of Bill not being able to let go of his little girl (who reminds him so much of her mother) and is the unfortunate origin of everything that comes later.

 

So she had to die early enough for Bill to have time to attempt the impossible. Buying, bribing, threatening, using every military and civilian contact he had, spending every penny, mortgaging every asset etc, all to acquire the technology for immortality (in a horrifying way)......and that can't happen over night. My initial idea is that the mother died of a terminal illness, and the same illness will kill her daughter (maternally linked gene). It basically gives Bill a heads up to start working on some way to save her. But the last part isn't integral to the timeline, just sort of reinforces the story a little if the daughter is fated to suffer the same death as her mother.

 

But hte daughter also has to be young enough, developmentally that she hasn't acquired an adult sense of empathy or morals. Otherwise we have no way of explaining her actions without evil/sociopathic intent. I'll browse the psych books, but I'd guess we'll still have a wide window (probably like between 2 to 5 years old).

 

He/his whole family had a big apocalypse log journey to the park vault (see honey? I told you it would be useful), all three (four, if we include his son) getting lethal rad dosage, killing the mother

 

I had envisioned them all there for the Park opening ot the huge cowboy shooters event going on. But it's not absolutely essential. If you think a mad dash to get to the park makes a better story we can certainly explore that.

 

But there are two problems. Bill knows what's going on. He doesn't know the day or hour the bombs drop, but like the rest of the top military and gov officials he knows it *could* happen at any time. He sees how the war is rapidly escalating and can easily read the writing on the wall. So I just don't see him *not* having his family in or very near to a vault. And since sunset was actually designed, at it's heart, to be the ultimate vault for Bill and his family, I don't think it's too likely they were caught out and about unaware.

 

The 2nd problem is the valley is essentially sealed when the bombs hit, so everyone (with a rare exception or two) has to be inside before that happens. The tribals, bots, heck the whole valley probably couldn't evolve the way it did without (almost total) isolation.

 

But maybe there's another way you can get the same effect you described. What if it's just the boys that were out (in active military service). Bill may have been trying to get them back to sunset for months. But hell, if they were going to leave their brothers in arms when they were needed most. Not even for their father, so he pulls some strings and get's the platoon stationed back stateside, maybe part of the troops suppressing the hunger riots here at home. The timing would be tight, they'd have to be very close.....

 

I don't know, mess around with the idea if you like, maybe you can see something more feasible that I'm overlooking.

 

His daughter could be more critical/"important" so she gets the first ER splice into the MF,

 

This is arguably the first time (other than the calculator) that a human brain was melded to a mainframe zax. I think it works much better, if this took years to develop than assuming it was done during an emergency. We have to explain why there is this very advanced and specific kind of tech in the park, why there are General Atomic scientist present (we don't want to loose our robobrain docs, they'll be a fun part of the mod) etc.

 

Going off of the idea of the chosen one having tesla coils put in her body, to allow her to wander around the park (after she's merged, and part of the "after" sunset mod). What do you guys think about the concept of Bill, his daughter and anyone else's that was turned into a bot, having their body in deep cryo storage. I know Bill would have his daughters body there. You could argue that the mainframe may not have stored Bills body when he was shot because of the confusion and rush to save his brain, but I think it's really unlikely she'd forget.

 

The reason I ask is it could also allow us to restore (via tesla coils or a brain re-transplant, thanks to OWB tech), both Bill and his daughter for the "after" mod (assuming you didn't snuff them both). It weakens our storyline some because we have to assume the brain docs couldn't figure this re-transplant out in 200 years, or alternately we have to kill off the brain docs (which would be a shame). It also gives it a Disney style happy ending that is pretty trite as well. So I'm curious what you guys think.

 

Also wanted to write up a note on the androids (basicly all bad news, lorewise), but I'm dead tired and need to grab a few hours sleep before I head out tonight. So I guess I'll cover the android thing tomorrow.

Edited August 18, 2012 by devinpatterson

[greenknightfury]

Well the cryostoring of the bodies does mean something could be done...however the fact that the daughter's body would still have whatever degenerative condition led to melding her to a comp kind of weighs against being able to let her walk around with it after some OWB mad sciencing. With Bill it is a bit more feasible, but unlikely he'd want to end up with a body that would fail so quickly after all that time able to be active and looking after his daughter. As to why the docs hadn't managed it yet...OWB science is cutting edge stuff and it took countless years before they succeeded in making a controlled lobotomite or reimplanting a brain, and both those acts were because of a special adaptive program inside the Mobius build sink autodoc which adapted the procedure due to the Couriers unique brain damage..with that data they would be able to replicate it..and it just so happens you have that data by the end of OWB.

 

 

As for the family story..I think the core we had gone for: Bill builds the place as a giant toybox to keep his poor childs brain from going insane in the computer it had to be put in and the sealing of the place on the opening day/grand event (with son who was set to take over the business, and undoubtedly a bit bitter and conflicted over this whole mess) is best. If there were more family members out there they probably didn't make it (or did but only as ghouls or ended up living rough and starting a family somewhere nearby the parks old entrance, with decendants still hoping to someday reach the "family lands" torn from them by the great war).

[devinpatterson]

......kind of weighs against being able to let her walk around with it after some OWB mad sciencing........but unlikely he'd want to end up with a body that would fail so quickly

 

Too, true, plus it has a saccharin sweet ending that kind of goes against everything the main story line is trying to build (as a tragedy).

 

But I thought it would be good as a "after" mod since it ties so directly into the characters motivations and would provide a lot of quest material. But maybe that "happy ending" isn't a huge deal in the "after" mod setting, since it's a more laid back, relaxed, sandbox type of mod. As oposed to the story driven narrative from the main SSWWW mod. So maybe curing the brat's body of disease could be a pre-requisite to both her and Bill getting their body?

 

And I think if Bill and his daughter had a normal life span to live their lives, that would be more than enough for them both after this cybernetic immortality.

 

On a related note, sometimes bad things happen to good people. I always pictured Bill hating being a protectron. He'd never get to feel the wind on his face, a lovers caress or even the little things like a good steak or cup of joe. You don't get that adrenalin rush when your tempting fate, whether it's man or beast. But I wonder if it should be an option for a player possibly as a reward (bad/neutral karma, siding with mainframe) or failure (ie players is caught and in deep sh*t on the doctors table).

 

I think it's technically feasible. Monster costumes acts as an armor, and armor can be selected as a quest item and unequipable. I could change body slots the armor uses so only hats (or other appropriate items) could be worn (not positive how egm would work). And of course there would be perks like spineless, heartless etc. But you wouldn't have rad resistance, since you'v still got a lump of grey matter that doesn't like ionizing radiation (don't know why brainbots are immune).

 

I know we havn't really developed the bad/neutral karma storyline, and I wouldn't want it to take center stage, but it still seems interesting enough to give a small portion of our productivity. And on the good karma side, better stuck in a protectron than dead. Thanks to a CODE programming error (intentional or unintentional on the brain docs part), you might be able to continue your mission and save the park, even if your doing it as a tin can (with hope you can be restored at some time in the future).

 

It has an interesting twist/turning of the tables.

 

As to why the docs hadn't managed it yet...OWB science is cutting edge....because of a special adaptive program inside the Mobius build sink autodoc which adapted the procedure due to the Couriers unique brain damage..with that data they would be able to replicate it..and it just so happens you have that data by the end of OWB.

 

True, probably unsurpassed in human tech in those areas, and good point re: the uniqueness of the couriers brain event.

 

As for the family story..I think the core we had gone for: Bill builds the place as a giant toybox

 

and physically safe, ie. the vault concept

 

sealing of the place on the opening day/grand event

 

Yeah I lean toward that too, it's tied in with a lot of the story line already and would probably be tricky to start unraveling it now.

 

If there were more family members out there they probably didn't make it (or did but only as ghouls or ended up living rough and starting a family somewhere nearby the parks old entrance, with decendants still hoping to someday reach the "family lands" torn from them by the great war).

 

Yeah, Sierra the Sunset fan girl could be a descendant several generations down. Maybe she knows the family history, maybe she doesn't and has a patchwork and incomplete knowledge of the situation.

 

Maybe 2nd gen relatives like uncles, nephews, etc made it to the park days or weeks after the war. They could have the big apocalyptic long journey that trooper was building in the last post (except that their fate ends outside the park). They could provide valuable back story on how the world and Bills extended relatives see him. It could be as big as a whole mini quest, or as small as a diary and some corpses.

[devinpatterson]

Regarding the androids I can't find any lore reinforcing what we want to do (have westworld type androids in historical sections of the park), and lots of lore against it :sick:

 

The fallout 3 androids are nothing like what we want, they're base on the nexus androids from bladerunner. They live, eat, breath, bleed etc. They feel emotions like fear and hate. They're so human because they are based on a human template (according to the blade runner wiki).

 

But I think I have a compromise. By placing human meshes in the protectron directory the meshes are deformed to the skeleton resulting in a squatter shape with the typical protectron animations. It's far from perfect, but it lets us use existing assets with only slight modifications (re-assigning some vertex groups near the neck), as opposed to making new human animations to resemble protectron ones (which, for me, would be very time consuming). It's still a work in progress but I'm fairly confident that it will work out.

 

There isn't any facial movement (just the single head bone), so the androids will definitely have that "dead eyes" look, but in a way that is sort of befitting of fallout. Something akin to a cross between a protectron and Festus. When I get a whole one put together I'll upload some vids, but it's low priority since they are all the way past the villa (3rd or 4th mod).

[TrooperScooperMKII]

Mor humanoid bots (vs. androids) sound good.

 

Anyway yeah re the family, I see your point.

FOllowing up on the military thing, perhaps his sons in the army refused to leave their posts? "Americans never leave their friends behind" and all that jazz... he turned his sons into better men and patriots than himself and they died for it (in the Great War) which would be quite a tragic blow to an already f'ed up family.

 

And the Sunset gal being a descendant of outlier family members who couldn't make into the park is an excellent idea devin.

Things are really falling into place.

[devinpatterson]

Mor humanoid bots (vs. androids) sound good.

 

Good deal, wasn't sure how people would respond to loosing the (very human) androids and having "protectron" androids. But if the technical aspects work out, they really do have a much more fallout feel to them.

 

he turned his sons into better men and patriots than himself and they died for it (in the Great War) which would be quite a tragic blow to an already f'ed up family.

 

Where you thinking no other surviving kin? That could feed right into his daughter being the last of a proud family line, and his inability to let go.

 

Or were you thinking some of his sons are in the park and some killed in the apocalypse?

 

And the Sunset gal being a descendant of outlier family members

 

I think it will provide some good angles for us.

 

There can be a few clues, like Sierra mentioning she had a Sunset blanket she loved as a kid (now it's about the size of a handkerchief and looks like swiss cheese) and the fact that she loved sunset from as early as she can remember. This could strike the player as odd, to have this kind of swag. So the player puts together the history/clues figures out Sierra is a descendant and there will be items that can aid the player. Specifically I'm thinking she shows him a Sunset Sherrif's Star that belonged to her great, great, great grandfather (one of Bills sons). The badges are id's, and Bills son would have a very high clearance. So having that is going to make things a whole lot easier (until the security clearance is revoked by the mainframe), because the bots, terminals etc will see Bills son as long as it's worn.

 

Also I want to do sunset related challenges and perks. Finding out this part of Sierras past will also go toward completing the Sunset history challenge. But we'll also have combat related challenges (shooting sunset protectrons in the face, killing enemies with the new sunset tribals junk weapons, etc.)

 

BTW I may have to go offline for a day or two. I'v got a bug (that I think is related to having sata controllers in ide mode with xp), that is really crippling my computer. Worst case scenario could be a complete re-install.

 

Things are really falling into place.

 

Definitely :thumbsup: I think what will accelerate it even more is when I get off my lazy butt and get the outlines put up.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

I'm thinking that his oldest- and highly disgruntled- son and Lobotomized daughter are in the park as outlined, and his younger sons all died in the military, at least one before the Great War and the rest because they refused to abandon their posts ("transfer to shore leave:) before the bombs fell.

I've hit a wall with the engine, I'm completely lost trying to get a matching wheel pair on the other side (equal distance from the center of the engine... messing around with "bounding boxes" a bit, not sure if they exist/are the same in Blender etc.) so/ :wallbash:

 

Switching gears a bit, I'm going to attempt a new, unrelated model (I'm thinking a UAV or blimp) for the Nicaragua colony mod, or perhaps a totem pole for the park, though I think that might be a bit harder... I'm not as good at "organic" models, if you get my drift.

After a bit of gear switching that I'll give the engine another go. Just as a hypothetical, if I can't work it out could someone else finish the wheels, maybe in the process of animating them?

[darkus37]

What if there was no family? What if A) everyone died and Bill made protectron simulations of them or B) they never existed and he made them up? This continues the Blade Runner theme where Rachel (I think that's her name) doesn't know she's a replicant - that's what makes her hard to detect.

[devinpatterson]

What if there was no family? What if A) everyone died and Bill made protectron simulations of them or B) they never existed and he made them up? This continues the Blade Runner theme where Rachel (I think that's her name) doesn't know she's a replicant - that's what makes her hard to detect.

 

I appreciate your efforts to think outside the box, but I believe those suggestions would just weaken/diverge the main plot line and muddy the waters.

 

On another note, I'd like to keep Bills girl Friday. We already have some plot that depends on her, and I hate to let her go. But that's a tough call, so.....here's my pitch;

 

Re: templates; It's news to me, but in the blade runner wiki and the blade runner novels that followed the movie (much more so the movie, than the original novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) Roy Batty (and every android) has a human template (at least for the nexus 6's).

 

So I thought Bill's first attempt to save his wife (well a part of her) was to use her as a template for an android (the Nexus 1). He donated huge sums (corporate sponsorships etc), and swayed the military to fund contracts for combat androids, to MIT at a time when almost all funding had been cut due to the war effort. In return Bill (clandestinely) received a Nexus 1 prototype-the first technology to use templates/programming based on a real human.

 

But possibly due to his wife's decaying neural condition or simply the early primitive technology of the nexus project, the android was a pale shadow of his wife. Where he saw a a bright and vibrant light in his wife's eyes (even at the end), he only saw a weak reflection of her in the android....a cold shadow of the woman he loved. When his wife passed he had difficulty looking at the android without feeling hate and disgust.

 

The android's emotions were slight and shallow. She felt some of her original templates attachment for Bill, but in a greatly reduced state. She felt no attachment to anyone else or any other living creature. Emotions of any kind were puzzling to her, even though most of his wife's mental faculties (like her genius level intellect) transferred over relatively intact.

 

Later Bill became conflicted. The android looked exactly like his wife in every detail, and the project head of the nexus program believed that potentially all of his wife (mentally) was intact but locked away withing the android's matrix. In addition he began to feel sorry for her. He saw that while incredibly capable in so many areas, she really had no clue what it meant to be alive. She didn't have a preference whether she was filing away boxes of dusty records, or racing through a sky full of flak and AA rounds in a stealth equipped vertibird. It was all the same for her. All that life could be was simply data points, tasks etc.

 

So for reasons even Bill didn't fully understand himself, he decided not to terminate her.....but he never allowed his daughter to see her even though the android had become his right hand man.

 

My thought is that like Rachael, this android has no built in termination date. But that means (I assume) a normal life span, so she would have had to be in cryo/stasis during the 200+ years that have passed.

 

I think this could also make an interesting sub plot, re: the android developing emotions and even love for Bill. Depending on the players actions, I could see a tragic episode where they both die together, two souls reunited, but with bodies twisted by science. Or alternately, the androids love for Bill may be what turns Bill from Villain to reluctant hero/martyr.

Edited August 19, 2012 by devinpatterson

[darkus37]

Is there a way to make the first page of this thread to have a basic outline of the story and quests, like a project bible?