Anyone for a trip to mars?

[TrooperScooperMKII]

 

Interesting; is the mothership aware/concerned about the colony/ruins?

That could be a possible twist to the ending: eliminating/weakening the mainframe's belligerence (or prester's? power) would potentially pave the way for an alien invasion; Presper might use that pitch to sway the player (possibly opening up an alliance) and claim that he's keeping the aliens from "destroying humanity's future all over again."

 

As a followup to the above, what if the US government's increasingly belligerent/suicidal pre-war attitude was "justified" as a preparation for the alien incursion?

It reminds me of speculation that the Star Wars Emperor Palpatine was aware of and trying to prevent the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and that the new Republic's subsequently decentralized/demilitarized galaxy was a lot weaker than the early empire...

would be a nice shade of murky gray layered over the standard "evil government" schtick.

 

I think we batted around the idea of including the aliens themselves a few dozen pages back :P The zeta aliens are just too cheesy and don't fit into the atmosphere of creepy ruins at all. I kinda like the idea of defending against an alien invasion in theory, but in practice, I think Presper being a purist who's obsession is NCR ideology taken to extremes makes him a more interesting character. Restoring the world to a pre-war state by the deployment of warheads seems like a much more symbolic and falloutesque idea than defending against a threat hitherto unknown in the Fallout universe. Plus, where would he have discovered the alien threat from? Why does he think a group of post-apocolyptic tribesmen wielding primitive weapons could hope to match up to a highly advanced race with death rays and spaceships? Why would the aliens even care about us enough to invade us, since they only abducted about 100 people tops in the last few thousand years? It just seems like too much effort to cram an explanation into the story for a relatively minor plot point. Again, I think it's the whole cheesy sci-fi versus gritty realism thing.

I mean that Mars is the "invasion target" because it's a basket of human and (more importantly) alien tech. If- as the lore suggests- the US government is getting its edge from alien tech salvaged from martian ruins.. do you think that the aliens are going to ignore that?

IE US starts salvaging alien tech, builds defenses on Mars to keep aliens out.

Aliens retaliate by pushing the button, wiping out Earth.

Presper discovers the codes/contingencies for an alien invasion of Mars, realizes that the alien tech represents mankind's best chance at rebirth, wants vengeance on the aliens, etc.

he doesn't give a sh*t about earth; it's mars he wants to protect/keep/control, as the last "pure" strands of humanity, and/or "evolved" using alien tech.

The mothership aliens themselves don't appear; they're just the specter in the wings that Presper wants to keep off "his" rock, a la the Palpatine >Yuuzhan Vong parallel.

[kibblesticks]

I mean that Mars is the "invasion target" because it's a basket of human and (more importantly) alien tech. If- as the lore suggests- the US government is getting its edge from alien tech salvaged from martian ruins.. do you think that the aliens are going to ignore that?

Well it depends if they even know about it. The ruins there have been long abandonded so it's likely they can't even remember them and what we earthlings are scavanging is actually their old, redundant tech. Plus it's theorized that the aliens in Zeta are at war, which is the reason for the creation of the abominations. If that's true, then they've got bigger things to worry about than some back-water planet that effectively reduced itself to rubble.

 

IE US starts salvaging alien tech, builds defenses on Mars to keep aliens out.

Aliens retaliate by pushing the button, wiping out Earth.

With their tech they could have just death-rayed us into oblivion which is why I doubt they caused the nuclear amageddon. It also detracts so much from the story! Instead of the themes of man's greed and inability to co-operate being his final undoing... aliens did it. Fallout lore is rich with the events leading up to the war, I really don't feel comfortable overwriting that with an fairly inconsequencial plot point. I really do see where your coming from, and making a truly sci-fi mod would be nice, but this mod is set within the confines of the Fallout universe, with the Fallout atmosphere. The challenge is making Mars believable, and I think the only way of doing that is to focus on human interests, rather than intergalatic wars.

 

Presper discovers the codes/contingencies for an alien invasion of Mars, realizes that the alien tech represents mankind's best chance at rebirth, wants vengeance on the aliens, etc.

he doesn't give a sh*t about earth; it's mars he wants to protect/keep/control, as the last "pure" strands of humanity, and/or "evolved" using alien tech.

Again,

where would he have discovered the alien threat from? Why does he think a group of post-apocolyptic tribesmen wielding primitive weapons could hope to match up to a highly advanced race with death rays and spaceships? Why would the aliens even care about us enough to invade us, since they only abducted about 100 people tops in the last few thousand years?

 

The mothership aliens themselves don't appear; they're just the specter in the wings that Presper wants to keep off "his" rock, a la the Palpatine >Yuuzhan Vong parallel.

Difference being, palpatine had technology roughly on par with the Yuuzhan Vong, and with the strength of the empire he would have had a good shot at defeating them. With the "presper vs the aliens" storyline you'd have to pull out some deux-ex-machinima ending to jusitfy the whole thing. Either a "super weapon" like a plague or matter destroying gun, or something to make the aliens think we're no longer a threat (which we're not anyway). How else would presper hope to keep these aliens, which haven't showed up for some reason, from obliterating us with death rays?

 

Sorry to be negative, but the alien idea is just too huge to not be it's own mod and I think it leaves a vast array of plot holes as it is.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

OK, I was viewing it as a "backstory" thing, mentioned or touched upon by a half-mad Presper.

You've convinced me that it's untenable, though... you're right, barring something stupid like an alien UN, the MZ crew could probably have sterilized the planet far more easily than Armageddon..

[devinpatterson]

Regarding Presper; I know up until this point the quest has begun via a radio signal sent from Mars. I was thinking though, if Presper left with a contingent of NCR soldiers 20 years ago, someone would notice they were missing surely? Perhaps we could alter the idea of [a communication relay being fixed] to [someone asks you to track down their son/squadmate/father who left 20 years ago and has never returned]?

 

Sounds like a viable alternative to me.

 

When adding Presper, in my head I bumped up the van buren timeline to the current FONV present (somewhere around 2281, instead of van burens 2250's). But I failed to communicate that detail....my bad. The way I see it, we follow the van buren timeline, which I thought had the player just missing Presper's launch. Checking back over it though, the design docs are a little ambiguous. They say the rusty hooks have been there a year, yet also say by the time the player (in this case the prisoner) arrives Dr. Presper and the ncr have already taken one of hte rockets. It wouldn't make sense for him (Presper) to take a rocket a year before the rusty hooks, since his convoluted plan involves triggering the ULYSSES mainframe's sterilization protocol then immediately getting up to the bomb platform to alter the nukes impact zones. So the only way that makes sense is if they fought/bribed/snuck/whatever past the rusty hooks (or even hired them) and launched one of the Hermes rockets, because they have a very small time frame to work within and the rusty hooks obviously haven't been killed so.....?????

 

Long story short, something is missing from the design documents or we have a minor contradiction. So I say we go with Presper's trip to mars being very recent. I want to create a sense of urgency, that the clock is ticking on a FEV inspired apocalypse.

 

And in addition I don't want Presper to have had months or years worth of a head start. We'd have to rewrite the story line explaining why he didn't achive his objective (got waylaid or something). If he's been gone months or years, the pressure is reduced. Instead I want the player to feel like every hour is critical and you are literally right on Prespers tail, as the hourglass marches to armageddon.

 

I think this ties in with your suggestion Kibblesticks. Whether the NCR sends you out to discover why Presper is a few days over due (rescue mission), or if some hint of Prespers nefaroius plot has leaked out (ncr survivors of his team) and you have a bounty mission, the NCR wants some questions answered.

 

We could even have the player start where Presper discovered the mars info (USSA facility, west tek facility?) and piece together what he has in mind via discovering the same mars data and talking to any NCR survivors of his party. And I'm just throwing this out as a blue sky thing/brain storm thing, I know we already have a lot on our plate, so it's probably not the wisest thing to do.

 

I've never seen anything about that, but I have seen speculation (actually in-game) that the Americans were forceably pushing for a nuclear apocolypse so that they could bugger off to colonize another planet without competition. Unfortunately for them, events got a bit out of control and the project basically went to hell, along with the rest of their grand designs. Not sure where that would fit in with the mod though, or were you just making an observation? :turned:

 

No that's why I was saying it was non-canon, just speculation (the aliens triggering the nukes). Just some players throwing around some ideas in the talk tab of the aliens wiki. Not intended specifically in re: to the mod, just thought it was very interesting idea, akin to "independence day".

 

Re: the Americans pushing for nuclear war/colonization, it's in the wiki as well (under vaults->true purpose. While I saw that disputed back and forth in the talk tab of the wiki, it was a backstory created by one of the devlopers (Chris'?) so in my book that's pretty much canon. On the same heading it lists the plan as after the apocalypse the enclave would gather vault survivors and recolonize earth or another planet.

 

here's a list of Pre-war Companies

 

Interesting....right off hand I'd say CMR which makes monorails.

 

If we say it's top secret we can keep it completely seperate from the FO world, so that's what I'd go with.

 

Sounds good to me as well. Security concerns would outweigh patriotic bragging rights in my opinion.

 

Had a breakthrough on the Dome walls.

 

Good deal, especially in re: to the dummy buildings/enviornment, it's nice to have a clean division. Good deal on the SCOL as well, no need to re-create the wheel for each dome. :thumbsup:

 

The moon, perhaps? :teehee:

 

For the Black Mesa research? Sounds reasonable, at least if you create a singularity that engulfs the moon it should still orbit at the same distance and physics as the moon. Better than doing it on earth where a singularity means your homeworld is a write off.

 

What about relics?

Or even better: malfunctioning (read: human-killing) relics?

 

In regard to t-pads or did you have something else in mind?

 

Interesting; is the mothership aware/concerned about the colony/ruins?

 

Not initially. It was hit from orbit a long time ago from one of the city killing death rays on the saucer (before the 1600's possibly 1000's of years before). To sterilize experiments gone wrong and destroy the facility. But close to 2070 a meteorite exposed the ruins, it was a freak 1 in a million chance. But in the same way the aliens didn't invade to recover their crashed ships and alien tech on earth they didn't stop mankind from beginning the mars project. Perhaps they didn't care since Armageddon was just around the corner, perhaps the base itself had been forgotten in the antiquities of time......who's to say.

 

That could be a possible twist to the ending: eliminating/weakening the mainframe's belligerence (or prester's? power) would potentially pave the way for an alien invasion; Prester might use that pitch to sway the player (possibly opening up an alliance) and claim that he's keeping the aliens from "destroying humanity's future all over again."

 

But you also have to remember that currently all zeta ships are either destroyed or occupied by the lone wanderer, so I take your point to mean were they aware/concerned before the war. Currently there are no aliens for any invasion. It's possible another mothership could come from the aliens home world (since they have FTL it could happen in any time frame), but no reason to believe that's the case.

 

Besides Presper's thing is very much a hatered of all non humans, it's what really motivates him. So I think we're better off with the FEV angle.

 

In addition I'd like the bases mainframe to be more than a simple enemy. I want to play up the angle of it trying to contain the FEV monstrosities (quarantine), perhaps doing the right thing for the wrong reason. This gives opportunities for advanced dialog, branching quests (friend, foe, reluctant alley) and a deeper character than just trying to kill the player as a matter of course.

 

As a followup to the above, what if the US government's increasingly belligerent/suicidal pre-war attitude was "justified" as a preparation for the alien incursion?

 

I could be wrong but I don't believe that's the case. I think they were more or less just watching and experimenting on peeps. But they didn't seem to make any incursions of any type.

 

In my mind the only alien beings on the planet would potentially be a few frozen genetic soldier specimens in the heart of the ruins.

 

Yep, that's the way I see them as well. Long lived or not if the "sterilization" didn't get them the abominations would have, so the only way they could exist today would be via cryo.

 

At some point in the last 200 years, the inhabitants of the ruins became tribe-like.

 

My concern is that plot would overlap with some of the other domes/facilities that essentially follow this story line (regression to tribe like state, worship of old tech). It might be nice to keep the ruins as a very different setting (completely abandoned/deserted) to underline/emphasize a unique setting. And in addition, make a large part of it sealed so the player is the first to breach some of the areas in 100's, 1000's or even 10,000's of years.

 

I mean that Mars is the "invasion target" because it's a basket of human and (more importantly) alien tech. If- as the lore suggests- the US government is getting its edge from alien tech salvaged from martian ruins.. do you think that the aliens are going to ignore that?

 

It's hard to say in a fictional universe the rationale of the aliens, so I think we have to go with what is laid out via fallout itself. They have several instances of humans recovering crafts/tech and the aliens didn't attempt to retrieve any of it.

 

IE US starts salvaging alien tech, builds defenses on Mars to keep aliens out.

Aliens retaliate by pushing the button, wiping out Earth.

 

I don't think you can really follow that story line. The aliens have a deathray that can destroy cities at the touch of a button, as well as a cloaking device for the mothership, so I don't believe the humans could have built defenses to stop the aliens. The balance of power (technologically speaking) favors the aliens to a ridiculous degree.

 

he doesn't give a sh*t about earth; it's mars he wants to protect/keep/control, as the last "pure" strands of humanity, and/or "evolved" using alien tech.

 

I don't know if that really fits together well, by the nature of the FEV situation, space ghouls etc, martian personal are probably less pure than most humans on earth.

 

We have a solid story line that fits well. I'd recommend refining and detailing it so we can move on to developing game assets and shift this mod into high gear.

[kibblesticks]

Long story short, something is missing from the design documents or we have a minor contradiction. So I say we go with Presper's trip to mars being very recent. I want to create a sense of urgency, that the clock is ticking on a FEV inspired apocalypse.

Bringing the timeline forward is a great idea. It would be nice to have Presper buy the loyalty of one or two major factions with the promise of returning them to Earth.

 

At some point in the last 200 years, the inhabitants of the ruins became tribe-like.

 

My concern is that plot would overlap with some of the other domes/facilities that essentially follow this story line

 

Good point, didn't really think that one through :tongue:

[devinpatterson]

Bringing the timeline forward is a great idea. It would be nice to have Presper buy the loyalty of one or two major factions with the promise of returning them to Earth.

 

Exactly what I'm thinking. Presper is (at least technically) the most intelligent human on earth, and obviously doesn't consider himself bound by traditional morality. He would have absolutely no problem using the enclave/military remnants on Mars to his own advantage in order to achieve his own ends. He can offer them technological info he's acquired about the mars project, alluring lies of post apocalyptic Edens awaiting on earth etc. His insight into human psychology would make the martian survivors relatively easy targets to this kind of manipulation, since he's essentially just telling them what they want to hear.

 

Plus it gives us another option when dealing with the enclave/military. Instead of combat being the only choice, a clever player may be able to expose Presper and nullify his control over the faction through dialog. Not initially, but gradually as the story progresses these opportunities can present themselves and as various cumulative speech checks are passed (and new dialog opens up) this becomes an option.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

So where does old two-brain fit into this?

As in, is the captain/scientist part of the main quest at all?

 

Basically, who's where?

Right now, there's:

 

subterranean lava tube levels (including monorail/etc.)

agri-domes (unspecified amount)

the FEV dome (IIRC you said that that was the one that was breached by Chinese missiles?)

The "command dome"

[kibblesticks]

My rough interpretation of it is this;

 

- F.E.V Dome, epi-centre of the jungle. Abandoned after hull breach either by chinese missiles or readically mutated flora and fauna (I prefer the latter).

 

- Agri-Dome: Inhabited by tribals, robots do most of the work, AI is worshipped as a god. They have a certain idea of perfection and cast out any who spoil that (like the ghouls).

 

- Catacombs: Beneath the Agri-Dome/jungle. Home of the ghouls which prey on the Agri-Dome tribals using their knowledge of the facility, partly for food and partly for revenge.

 

- Lava tubes: Monorail system. Mining operations.

 

- HQ: Launchpad, armoury, barracks, command centre, interstellar communications, Mainframe.

 

- City Dome: (Just a personal idea that I think fits quite well) Place designed to hold the newcomers from Earth but ended up being a refuge for the victims of the HQ Space Ghoul attack. Heavily militarized but with a strong rebel/terrorist element.

 

- Ruins excavation centre: Abandoned, full of alien artifacts. The data was only uncovered here though. It was sent to specialist sites to be refined and experimented on.

 

- Ruins: Abandoned, creepy, off limits, surrounded by FEV fauna and flora which are mysteriously attracted to the site.

 

- Various Research Domes owned by various coporations.

 

- F.E.V research facility (I'm thinking built into a cliff face somewhere?): F.E.V overrun, experiments with fetilization and sterilization. Experiments with all sorts of off limits research.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

The FEV Facility & the FEV Dome are contiguous, right? Or are they one and the same, i.e. the dome is nestled against/built into the cliff face, and the FEV facility is further "in"?

I like the city dome idea, too; especially if it has a police state government, as you suggest.

I assume, given the "stuck together inside a creepy Dead Space/Resident Evil hell" vibe so essential to the mental :psyduck: :teehee: state of the Mcarthy-bot and his lab-coat sidekick/scapegoat, that one of the research facilities would be a good place for them...

the question is, what were they researching?

Given that:

1) the captain was a fairly high-ranking officer, in charge of a decent garrison force

2) the scientist is a world-renowned surgeon/anatomist? and heads a similarly capable team,

3) the base encountered ghoul mutations well before (at least a month or two, pre-outbreak; there needs to be enough "down time" for the captain's wife/child to become ghoulified, and for the surgery-gone-wrong treason to break the captain's back)

4) there was eventually an FEV infestation

 

I postulate that the facility was researching genetic modifications/mutations, FEV or otherwise, studying/collecting specimens of cryo'ed and/or fossilized (for lack of a better word) alien creatures, reverse-engineering or simply dissecting their FEV experiments. They would/could have had a radiation dosage from a warhead or a reactor failure, which given a total lockdown/quarantine, slowed/halted the FEV incursions long enough for the radiation to do its thing.

Eventually, negligence/damage from the fallout/disintegrating state of affairs causes some of the samples to mingle with radiation and/or existing FEV, which jump-started into a full-on outbreak.

[devinpatterson]

I'd like to include a bio-weapons and/or terraforming dome. Both of these could overlap other domes purposes (and bio-division could have some overlap with terraforming) so it may be a tricky sell. It would work best if we can really individualize the dome(s).

 

BIO-WEAPONS DIVISION;

The former would follow the typical fallout storyline of bio-weapons ranging from critters used as actual troops to creatures that are simply dropped behind enemy lines to cause havoc (from destroying the ecosystem to killing anything that moves) .

 

For example deathclaws were made "before the Great War by the United States Military in order to replace humans during high risk, close combat, and search-and-destroy missions." so they fall into the troops category. Wanamingos are another example "They were designed as FEV-tailored weapons for waging war on other countries and they escaped into the wastes.", being too stupid to be useful as troops I can only gather they meant to be dropped behind enemy lines and just kill everything.

 

The mars environment is particularly well suited to this because most creatures that escape the dome will die immediately and the ones that survive can't reach earth, so you'v got a built in safety factor. That also ties in well with the mainframe AI's incredibly disciplined and detailed quarantine procedures, which we need for our story line. Anything that enhances a creatures lethality or military potential is a possibility. We can also assume later experiments will include FEV. For the deathclaws I was thinking larger bulkier ones maybe rigged to a supermutant skeleton (so they can use primitive melee weapons), ones with poisoned claws, some that can jump huge distances and have a 2x or 3x movement speed (that should keep the player on their toes). Maybe a chitinous exoskeleton, some that have re-activated the jackson's chameleon ability, etc. Anything that gives greater tactical abilities in combat is possible. Also makes a great excuse for us to tweak the vanilla critters and add some excitement to them.

 

The environment of the dome would be unique as it would be designed to resemble possible settings the creatures are expected to fight in. So that could be anything from the mountains of Hunan Provice to mock ups of urban settings (both Chinese and U.S). And since even gov employees tend to frown upon being torn to shreds, even for the sake of science, we can have bots as targets. By now they are either scrap metal in shreds or un-activated automatons that the critters ignore. This will help to give the bio-weapons dome a unique visual identity.

 

This dome differs from the FEV dome in that all research was directed/purposeful, failures were destroyed (or perhaps in a special area set aside for them) and the creatures were contained in the dome. So we don't have gigantic nightmarish monstrosities, but rather refinements of existing (pre-war) genetically engineered critters. Most are also limited to only living in the dome, and have evolved a lethal ecosystem of very efficient killing machines. Only the strongest have survived the centuries, resulting in further refining the bio-weapons divisions creations to the peak of their ability.

 

There's a little bit of a plot problem, since you'd imagine all of the specimens would have been created sterile, but maybe some of them mutated and what you see today are their descendants.

 

By contrast the FEV dome has been breached and it's contents have mutated & become nightmarish horrors. Both flora and fauna has spread through the crater without rhyme or reason and has resulted the most extreme organisms imaginable. This is mostly due to FEV, but partly due to ionizing radiation (UV, solar flares etc) from a lack of a ozone layer (which the domes protect against) and industrial bio/chemical/radiation hazards left lying about the crater---the personal weren't too worried about osha or the environment.

 

I imagine the dome being very high security and primarily gov scientists, but it did have some private contractors working in conjunction with the division.

 

 

TERRAFORMING DIVISION;

I was thinking this could be a diversion from the rest of the domes. Very combat light, It would be a haunting vision of what mars might have been if there had been more time....alien but beautiful.

 

We could go with a different biomolecule than chlorophyll, assuming mars gets more or less of some parts of the spectrum (don't know if that's true) and the new color can be our theme. Brillant blue? Phosphorescent plants? Giant blossoms? Or giant mushrooms/fungi?

 

Maybe we could put a little more science into this dome, since there will be less combat.

 

Kibblesticks if you want to expand on the terraforming theme (ie the terraforming warheads) this would be a good area to put those story lines into effect.

 

We'll have to make sure and differentiate it heavily from the toxic/FEV jungle, but that shouldn't be hard at all.

 

I'd assume this is where we'd put the vault 21 plant research (spore carriers etc) and OWB plant resources (which are mostly things like solient green, seed packs etc) perhaps make this a vegetation only dome. I'm assuming that at least the initial stages of terraforming deal primarily with vegetation as opposed to animal life. Maybe include insects?

 

Maybe it could be a resource depot for food, herbal recipes (broc flowers for stimpacks etc), insects goodies (royal jelly from giant bees, ant nector etc). Maybe a backstory like vault 21 where the people were overcome by the vegetation.

 

If were going to continue the 50's sci fi movie theme this would be the logical spot for hte body snatchers. Or we could take it one step beyond just plant clones that screech at, and try to kill you. Maybe you run across the original researchers looking alive and well after two centuries. Did they develop a form of life extension via cellular replacement with the terraforming research (the altered chlorophyll molecule)? Or are they facets of a vegetable lifeform that adsorbed the original researchers essences when they died and are living on with their previous memories? Or some other entirely different plot line?

 

If there are too many domes this one could be merged with the morlock dome, but I think it would really shine on it's own. And I think the morlocks would work better in the agricultural dome with it's crops, little park(s) and recreational structures.