Nick/Nora death doesn't make sense...

[oolongdao]

Okay, so you put on your vault clothes get frozen with your family and see your spouse get shot before getting refrozen, you wake up alone, the last member of your family and vault to wander the wasteland. BUT WHY?

 

okay from fallout.wikia we learn that vault suits are made out of leather and aluminum. in all likelihood due to the fact that vault suits are ment for industrial labor and seeing how well they hold up comparable to military clothes they appear to be capable of soaking up damage from general heavy labor. with that being said this is a piece of leather being shot enjoy.

now that looks like it'd hurt but that's not something someone couldn't survive. the fact she was just unfrozen means her metabolism is probably just starting back up. look how confused she acted. why else wouldn't she have assumed the people there for shaun were vault tec? and even if you go with the idea that she, being a lawyer and thus more educated must have figured she's discovered vault tec ment to use her for experiments why would she resist a man with a sawed off? point 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry1AABqfW6Q

this is her being shot. there are only two possibilities for the area of impact the upper chest and the head. the head is the most likely seeing how she slammed back, and luckily is the most likely for her to survive, the other is the chest region around her right clavicle, which due to the construction of the vault suit means she's probably dead from a wound to the neck. either way she could have survived.

 

A shotgun at close range is a deadly weapon even sawed off however sawing down the barrel has several effects on the shotgun.https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=392922

1. the weight is reduced creating more recoil.

2. the spread is increased.

3. the velocity of the projectile is reduced significantly.

4. excess heat is created

 

when adding these together the outcomes only add to the fact that she's still alive and that you are a horrible person for not taking your comatose wife to the nearest doctor immediately.

A shot to the head

Assuming the shell is filled buckshot, the most dangerous of possibilities theres a chance that the shot hit the front of her skull. theres also a large chance that the most of the shot missed considering the lack of a major head wound and that the little that did was slower, doing less damage than the shot in the first video in spite of having a larger projectile. birdshot is a bit iffyier because the amount of shot when combined with increased spread gives a greater chance of hitting a artery, slugs may be the safest as the slugs of post apocalypse boston are likely to be solid and made of lead exclusively, unlike modern hollow slugs, slowing down the shot even more so.

 

A shot to the clavicle
The best shot from this perspective is the birdshot. while it gives a larger possibility of a artery being hit a large portion will miss hitting the leather suit, some will simply miss and a few will hit her skull possibly damaging soft tissue. a slug is the worst because of the lack of protective bones in the neck. the next best is the buckshot, which will in all likelihood go through the leather, possibly passing through the ribcage, hitting the neck with a large chance of hitting the lower face.

 

either way so long as she didn't die instantly she's still alive. even if you say she made the death sound, she's a ex lawyer she's never been shot before and she could've simply blacked out. thats not even getting into the fact that for some odd reason she was refrozen. we know everyone was re frozen because they're body are preserved. theres the fact that the institute must have realized they needed you two healthy pre senescent human beings. they had 4 to choose from Nate, Nora, Shaun, and Cindy Cofran. now, they killed cindy, this was in all likelihood due to her DNA being so different that she couldn't be used as a surrogate without completely restarting their work. So it doesn't make sense for them to kill her off. think about it, why would you refreeze someone whose body would just start rotting?

Nora's death wouldn't seem so silly except the fact that to me it's just so obvious she's still alive. i mean the whole game is like a slow walkthrough of quantum theory. which is also silly, i had that in a game, it was called bioshock and it just made my head hurt. i mean this is fallout, how bad is it that she just dies, even from a headshot, Mailmen survive headshots in fallout! when ever has anyone died from a shot to the head in fallout like that? hell liam neeson needed to be locked in a room with the focused radiation of the potomac river stored up for 19 years just to die and that didn't even kill the other guy in the room. there is no reason other than writing becoming more complex to not have Nora alive. this becomes even more jarring when you swap her for nate a ex serviceman.

[JuJooGuppy]

Where are you getting sawed off shotgun? Its Keloggs custom .44 magnum, and that with a close range to the head is going through one way or another. Add in a hollowpoint and you have a real messy situation.

This is a lot of analysis over this... but I am afraid you have the wrong weapon..

 

Its also worth noting that while the birdshot may not go through completely.. there was a LOT of projectile that got in, every tiny little piece can do damage and needs to be removed most likely... the surgeons of the wasteland likely wouldn't be very good at this.

That is of course had it even been a shotgun :)

Edited February 6, 2016 by JuJooGuppy

[Deleted3507349User]

To the OP, not trying to rain on your parade but the standard jumpsuit only provides +5 energy resistance and +10 radiation resistance. There is no physical damage resistance whatsoever. They can't even be upgraded with ballistic weave. The main material is polyester, with a bit of leather on the forearms, and aluminum is used for things like buckles and whatnot.

 

The only jumpsuit that would fit your theory is an armored vault jumpsuit, which clearly neither protagonist is wearing (and I haven't seen any of these in FO4 anyway).

 

Not to mention he/she was shot with a modified pistol firing projectiles with considerably more power than birdshot.

[Athanasa]

Reason 1:

 

CHOO CHOO ALL ABOARD THE PLOT RAILROAD!

[TheOriginalEvilD]

From point blank range, a .44 is going to penetrate just about anything short of ballistic vests, and even that could deal a serious injury/broken ribs/etc from the distance he shot her at. That's all aside from the fact that it looks like a head shot to me, the way her head kicks back. They don't go so far as to have her head explode in that scene, but either way she isn't wearing anything that's going to even slow down a .44 round.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Evil D

[CaptainPatch]

Concerning a .44 magnum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xjr2hnOHiM&feature=iv&src_vid=V7Nci-GVuHE&annotation_id=annotation_450191

[whodat1]

All the ballistic and armor data aside. I think the spouse would have bled out at a minimum and certainly would not be alive 60 years later! The pod did not re-close so there is no frozen until later. The spouse would have exceeded his/her 'sell by' date.

[CaptainPatch]

The pod did not re-close so there is no frozen until later. The spouse would have exceeded his/her 'sell by' date.

Actually, when the SS revives the spouse's pod is sealed and needs to be opened. (Along with all of the other pods, none of which can be opened at all. What a happy coincidence that ONLY the spouse's pod can be opened.)

[Later we learn that ONLY the SS's pod was re-engaged to put the SS back into cryo-sleep. ALL of the other pods should have allowed the bodies within to mummify. However, ALL of the other bodies look as fresh as the day the occupants first entered.]

 

Edited February 7, 2016 by CaptainPatch

[likeitsillegal]

Kellogg's pistol uses .44 rounds, which while slow can still pierce light body armor. Vault suits are mostly leather so it wouldn't have any issue going through; though I was under the assumption that Nate/Nora got shot in the head because Shaun was being held pretty close to center mass and I don't think Kellogg would have risked killing him, too. That and Kellogg aims his pistol at Nate/Nora's head. Don't question the scenario with real world logic, especially when Bethesda/Fallout in general don't, either.

 

 

The pod did not re-close so there is no frozen until later. The spouse would have exceeded his/her 'sell by' date.

Actually, when the SS revives the spouse's pod is sealed and needs to be opened. (Along with all of the other pods, none of which can be opened at all. What a happy coincidence that ONLY the spouse's pod can be opened.)

[Later we learn that ONLY the SS's pod was re-engaged to put the SS back into cryo-sleep. ALL of the other pods should have allowed the bodies within to mummify. However, ALL of the other bodies look as fresh as the day the occupants first entered.]

 

 

 

Only the pod with Shaun in it was opened. Also, only life support was disabled. Everyone died but what was keeping them frozen was left intact. The pods were all put into "wake-up" mode, but only the one with Shaun was opened. Once they had what they needed, they reengaged the normal protocol but cut/sabotaged life support for everyone but you because in case something happened to Shaun down the road, they would need a genetically compatible replacement. So they were frozen, thawed, then refrozen.

[Moraelin]

1. Even with a kevlar vest, nothing short of a class IIIa vest will even stop a .44 magnum bullet. Even a class IIa, which is probably the most common a cop would get, a .44 magnum slug will rip right through and enter your body.

 

And even with a class IIIa vest, while technically it will stop the bullet, it will deform enough to cause blunt force trauma to the body behind it. It's pretty much like being hit with a hammer. Now you're FAR less likely to be killed by blunt force trauma, so I'm not dissing body armour, but it COULD happen, especially if it cracks a rib or the sternum and you don't get medical attention. Which the spouse didn't get.

 

2. Anyway, yeah, avoiding spoilers as much as possible, you get to view the scene again later with a free camera. You can actually just close in and look at the gun. It's clearly a .44 with a bull barrel. Also, at that point it will be clear that Kellogg has that gun since he was a teenager, it has sentimental value to him, and it's been his signature weapon for a long time at that point.

 

3. Even with a shotgun, things aren't that easy. Not all shot is birdshot, you know?

 

Even a standard 00 ammo 12 gauge shell will defeat just about anything short of a class II armour at point blank range. Which, granted, is the lightest vest you can buy, and largely considered obsolete, but it's still way more than a polyester jumpsuit. And even then might still cause significant blunt trauma damage at point blank range, since all the pellets hit over a very small area. Probably not fatal blunt trauma, but it would still be like being whacked with a smith's hammer.

 

Slugs, depending on the exact model, might actually need ballistic plates over a kevlar vest, same as stopping a .308 round, pretty much. Basically a hard vest, level 3 or above. Means at least 1/4 inch hardened steel, or half an inch of ceramics, or one inch of polymer plates. On top of kevlar. In game terms, you pretty much need combat armour to stop a slug.

 

Ammo like 4/0 magnum buck shot, is probably in between.

 

And then there are sabot rounds. Oh man. And yeah, they actually exist. Ever heard of sabot tank rounds? Yeah, they use the force from a large bore weapon to propel a single thin tungsten (or depleted uranium) dart, so the energy per surface is nuts. (Energy per surface is a measure of penetration.) You might need a level IV armour piece to stop one of those puppies. That means something like half an inch of hardened steel, or 3/4" of ballistic ceramic blocks, so that's already in power armour territory.

 

Granted, AFAIK sabot shotgun rounds are illegal in the USA, but I figure the BADTFL ain't around to enforce that after the bombs fell :tongue: