Anyone for a trip to mars?

[greenknightfury]

I think the mutant girlfriend/companion idea works very well as further motivation to save the mutants (though as those of us who decided to do a playthrough using the FEV countervirus in FO3 remember most of humanity is effected by anything that would kill mutants and ghouls, all those poor water beggars...and yourself if you drank to much Aqua Pura). In the earlier games 1 & 2 mutation was far wider than just the supermutant and ghoul catagories, heck even FO3 hinted that some cannibals were a strain of mutant (The Family) and spoke of mutation as something you could expect but was never put into the mechanics (other than a couple of perks with it in the description).

 

 

I'm thinking we give her a custom race with an odd skin color (crimson, blue, green, grey; just something very unusual), maybe a tail (i know it can be done Quetzlsacatanango gave one to one of the carryover npcs from his Market Comes Alive FO3 mod to Skunkwater Gulch) and custom hairdo which could be strange in some way other than just color: maybe she has a small plant growing on her head, or spiky hornlike growths, or her hair is tendrils instead of hair.

 

We really need a good way to have her make an impression right away, perhaps the easiest way to do that is have her save the Courier's life. Not from an ambush (because most of those "I saved you from an ambush" moments are not really a threat) but from some deadly trap/accident. I have just had an idea for it form:

 

You are exploring a facility, reasons why you would be are easy to come by, heck someone is paying you too retrieve info from there would work well; and find yourself suddenly sealed inside a chamber which is filling with toxic gas. Your vision blurring you know you are soon to die (perhaps a recording coming through the PA system about the sterilization gas making short work of spies like you and they will find out all about you during the autopsy) when someone shoots out the window of the room (or blows the door) and grabs you dragging you out as your vision fades to black, the last thing you see is her face and her saying "Hold on! You are gonna make it! Don't you die on me dammit!"

 

When you come to, she reveals that the person who hired you has hired many others for similar work in other places..but they never come back. Only the bodyguard of the man (woman) that hired you, who follows shortly after they leave, ever returns with whatever it was they were hired to retrieve. She realized you were to be the next victim and followed hoping to save you and find evidence that could be used against the person that hired you. The two of you finding the bodyguard and either taking him down or convincing him to give evidence against his employer, who has been sending people into these deathtrap facilities to gather info/equipment and sending him to find and loot the bodies.

[devinpatterson]

though as those of us who decided to do a playthrough using the FEV countervirus in FO3 remember most of humanity is effected by anything that would kill mutants and ghouls, all those poor water beggars...and yourself if you drank to much Aqua Pura

 

I wasn't aware of that.....in that case she becomes somewhat unneeded. We just set a couple of dialog options for the end encounter like say, 30+% science or 5+ intelligence that references the fact that untold number of humans will die with the mutants.

 

But it'd still be fun to make her, even if she is no longer integral. Maybe on Mars then, instead of earth.....a fallout version of Carters martian princess?

 

spoke of mutation as something you could expect but was never put into the mechanics (other than a couple of perks with it in the description).

 

Exactly, I never got why they didn't. I won't go over it again, since I already had my mini-rant in the gamma world subject, but it's just mystifying to me.

 

I'm thinking we give her a custom race with an odd skin color (crimson, blue, green, grey; just something very unusual), maybe a tail (i know it can be done Quetzlsacatanango gave one to one of the carryover npcs from his Market Comes Alive FO3 mod to Skunkwater Gulch) and custom hairdo which could be strange in some way other than just color: maybe she has a small plant growing on her head, or spiky hornlike growths, or her hair is tendrils instead of hair.

 

You know, if we were to put her on mars it would open up even more options in regard to her physiology, because the research could imply guided mutations or genetic engineering as a means to and end. So say as an example the gov needs an aquatic assault force like the Navy Seals. What could be more effective in that role than commandos that were actually aquatic (well amphibious), breathing water, working at crushing depths etc as naturally as we do every day. Then we have something that could be mistake for a mermaid, not the typical mythical one with a tail, but one that is equally comfortable in a aquatic assault as she would be in a ground operation.

 

And I'm sure there are many more special purpose roles (military and otherwise) that altered biology could fill and which would result in some very exotic physiologies. For example (not for the companion, but for another NPC) there could be experiments with humans that have greatly increased brain capacity (size) or greatly reduced respiration needs (a biological rebreather) for possible future terraforming colonists on mars. Possibly psychers?

 

I mean I don't want to do a sucker punch on lore, but it seems like we might be able to get away with a little bit. And of course we would have to account for why they are still around (maybe in a stasis pod or something, and abandoned during the mars project collapse).

 

We really need a good way to have her make an impression right away, perhaps the easiest way to do that is have her save the Courier's life.

 

It's a good idea, and I see why you suggested it. We wouldn't have the luxory of time like we do with Veronica, Cass etc, where they follow you the whole game and build up a relationship. But I have to admit that the I have a pet peeve with certain types of scripted events. I know they are necessary, heck even essential for teh plot, but I always hated being forced down a plot path through no choice of my own (especially if it involves a debt, like your life).

 

If we put her on Mars though we have a lot more time. Heck even the original Sherry template for the clones could be another possible companion (maybe in deep freeze, locked away by the researchers or her clones when catastrophe hit the Mars project.).

[greenknightfury]

Well as to her not being needed...nobody thought about the fact that the virus meant to eliminate mutants would effect the humans until it started killing folks in FO3 (well if Eden did he never said anything about it to the player), and anything that adds more people that would obviously be effected and the player is given reason to care about gives the story that much more impact.

 

The idea of making her a FO version of Dejah Thoris is a very appealing idea. *chuckles*

 

Using Mars as a place to test very dangerous (or controversial) genetic manipulation on people with minimal risk is a very good idea, and alien cryo pods could be used to keep them around. Perhaps a lab with several different beings in the pods; some totally ruined with just a skeleton in them, some with really frightening looking critters in them (that you may or may not be able to open, but opening them gets you attacked, at least by some) and her. hmmm it occurs to me your idea of an amphibious trooper would inspire them to add on some other useful aquatic creature abilities, like the camo abilities of a octopus therefore adding to the stealthy abilities that are often drawn on in SEAL style missions. (giving her a 50% stealth field when sneaking, reflecting her ability to match herself to her surroundings) I really like the idea of other experiments as well not just a hybridization lab and the brain increase and rebreather effect are excellent ideas (perhaps the psychers could be an unforeseen side effect of the brain enhancement, and is easily supported by lore the psychic abilities thing as robobrains use a mental attack and the Oracle exists *chuckles* not to mention the Masters' [both of them] ability to mentally control the supermutants and from some comments from them telepathically communicate with them).

 

We could easily put Sherry in another part of the same facility, a cloning lab where they store the originals (don't want to clone a clone too many times, you get some serious genetic drift).

 

To explain why a facility that was abandoned during the attack is undisturbed by anyone looking for necessities, we can easily place it near the heart of the jungle (putting all the genetic labs near one another).

 

If we want to use both as companions we will have to find a way around the companion limit though, especially with wanting the rover as a companion as well.

[devinpatterson]

Well as to her not being needed...nobody thought about the fact that the virus meant to eliminate mutants would effect the humans

 

The moment you mentioned it, I was like yeah, I guess It'd have to, with all the radiation and FEV. I don't know if that means a significant minority or even the majority of the human race....I guess that would depend on how much of a genetic drift from teh norm triggers the virus. But I think that would totally fit in with Prespers ideals. He'd see it the same as cutting off a gangrenous limb to save the body.....don't think he'd loose any sleep over it.

 

I'm betting any character with above average intelligence and even moderate science skill should see that potential consequence....but like you mention, just adds another reason so we personally involve more players.

 

until it started killing folks in FO3 (well if Eden did he never said anything about it to the player), and anything that adds more people that would obviously be effected and the player is given reason to care about gives the story that much more impact.

 

The idea of making her a FO version of Dejah Thoris is a very appealing idea. *chuckles*

 

like the camo abilities of a octopus therefore adding to the stealthy abilities that are often drawn on in SEAL style missions. (giving her a 50% stealth field when sneaking, reflecting her ability to match herself to her surroundings)

 

There is actually a Chameleon effect hiding in the geck. It's unused in the vanilla game (IIRC), but I'll check it out and see how it looks.

 

I really like the idea of other experiments as well not just a hybridization lab.....perhaps the psychers could be an unforeseen side effect of the brain enhancement,

 

I really like the psycher idea, I can tell you taht when we start our non-lore gamma world mod, I'm gonna go hog wild on mental mutations (plus I was flipping though the gamma world book and they have some pretty cool abilities in there). I'll probably try to squeeze in everything in that theme, that's possible with teh game engine.

 

I'm kind of disappointed that with the precedent set from the master, there isn't any psychers in FO3 or FONV. Seems like a lost opportunity......so many sci-fi(ish) plots that could make use of it.

 

not to mention the Masters' [both of them] ability to mentally control the supermutants and from some comments from them telepathically communicate with them).

 

Going off of that theme, and adding a little bit just for flavor............maybe the mentat/evolved human (not sure what the best label here would be for our cranially enhanced specimen) is so wasted physically (say like his/her noggin is huge with a tiny childlike mandible, and correspondingly a tiny body) that it can't even talk. It can only comunicate by mentally dominating another being and speaking through it. But the minor twist is that the courier's mind is far to strong for that and you need a low intelligence npc to be a conduit of communication. It'd be a subtle mini-quest, some players will just gloss right over the big headed embryo like specimen as a curiosity. But for the sharper more inquisitive players we could have it pay off in valuable information of some sort.

 

We could easily put Sherry in another part of the same facility, a cloning lab where they store the originals (don't want to clone a clone too many times, you get some serious genetic drift).

 

Yeah definitely. I also thought of several possible angles that might make good seeds for a plotline as well as some filler material. There a little raw, and uncordinated;

 

I'd like there to be a lockdown immediately after the player gains access, so our clones storyline has time to unfold. Maybe a small squad a sentry bots arrive and require ID validation.

 

Ideally I'd like for the first half of this quest/facility to have the Sherry's act the part of the damsels in distress so we can implement our story/quest lines. The thing with the Gary's is you have this great idea (clones) but no way to interact with them other than putting a bullet in their heads (because of their psychotic nature). To me that was a major lost opportunity for a great adventure....vault 108 could have been so much more interesting.

 

The player can start a free for all (purposely or unintentionally) mass melee among the clones (including the player) through dialog. Simply by pointing out that there is only 1 (or small number of) suit(s) in the players inventory.

 

The player can also pull a get of of jail card, if he/she is in dire straights (and has a decent speech skill), by lying and saying s/he's the only one left alive that can fly the rocket back earthside. It could buy him/her more time or open up the dialog above to get the clones to fight amongst themselves....evening the odds considerably.

 

Before the sh*t hits the fan and everything unravels into combat we could have a more subtle approach that involves a little detective work. During the course of this quest line we could have some clones dying Bourne style (common household items like a towel and a book become deadly) which can be additional detective work for the player as well as a red flag that there are some unusual skills in play here (spec-ops). It could also be really played up in fallouts traditional black humor style, in the worst way.

 

We could have the original hiding amongst the clones and trying to deceive the player into believing the original isn't in teh facility as she knocks each clone off one by one. And a sociopath probably wouldn't care about her clones well being. I'm guessing if she couldn't use/control them, then I doubt she want's them breathing, (since they share her memories).

 

Alternately we could have each clone claiming to be the original.

 

Do the clones want to kill the original Sherry or would she have some sort of elevated status among them?

 

How do the clones in general (when they're not killing each other) relate amongst themselves? Do they share a common bond like twins or does the orginal's anti-soc personality disorder predominate? Do they see other clones as an affront to their fragile mental state & spending time amongst the duplicates cause rapid deterioration of their self control and sanity. Maybe starting with odd tics or unusual speech patterens/subjects and eventually ending with a full psychotic break? Can the player do a little amateur psych work if s/he has a decent medicine skill to reduce the impending break or hasten it?

 

I'd like a tie-in with the fallout 3 androids. Essentially we're really talking about two miracles of technology. One is of course the cloning itself, but just as amazing is the transfer of a mental template.....otherwise we'd just have little baby's that share the exact DNA as the original. FO3's androids are based on blade runners (PKD's) and the later blade runner books expands quite a bit on them in regard to templates. In fact the original Roy Batty (that the nexus 6 Roy Batty androids were based off of), shows up later in the books and he's just as deadly if not more so than his android duplicates. So if we can through some terminal entries and what have you, that tie into the institute and the template technology that will help on some of the other mods we're making that use androids.

 

**********************************************************************************

Alternately we can go a totally different direction and assume this is only a cloning lab without any ability to transfer thought patterns/skills. The baby clones growing up completely self contained in this one facility in strict vault style. Assume some bit got flipped 20 or 30 years ago and the babies were released from their little stasis pods (relatively) recently or there have been multiple generations for over two centuries. Originally bots raised them, the orginal Sherry or the researchers (but the researchers died before the Sherry's were mature, so no new DNA was contributed).

 

They are assigned assigned specialties based on what the vault requires. So you have engineer Sherry, security chief Sherry and overseer Sherry etc. You have kid Sherry's, teenage Sherry's, mature Sherry's, elderly Sherry's etc. When two Sherry's fall in love, they go to the cloning room and a baby Sherry is produced.

 

Say the cloning process is 99.9999978% accurate so you have only the most minuscule genetic variation. To outsiders they all look and exact like identical twins. Finishing each others sentences, thoughts etc. But at a deeper level they have microscopic personality differences a outsider would never see at first glance. So wearing a red bow instead of a blue one could make one of the Sherry's the rockstar/rebel of teh vault. They find the player almost as strange/foreign as a alien from another planet (repellent, fascinating, disturbing etc).

 

They could have all kinds of OCD and neurotic behavior (perhaps far worse) that we'd consider way out of bounds but is (societally speaking) completely accepted or even encouraged.

 

There could also be a logan's run type setup here, where if a elderly or even mature Sherry is no longer useful (no longer capable of acceptable physical labor at an active job) she must be "renewed" (by order of the mainframe) and a slot opens up (maybe by lotto) for a new Sherry to be produced for a lucky Sherry couple.

 

We'd probably have to expand the facility to a full sized vault and have typical vault type quest lines (ie water chip is failing, etc) in addition to sparking individuality amongst the Sherry's, learning about their society and their possible insanities. Maybe the cloning machine could be failing and the Sherry's (or at least overseer Sherry and the Mainframe) see the potential end of the Sherry's. Maybe the original Sherry is still protected and hidden away in some sort of stasis pod in the cloning lab....could be a littel quest. Maybe some Sherry's go "bad" whether it's just once in a fit of passion or is a chronic condition and there are murders that need to be solved. The main overarching quest could be saving the Sherry race, while dealing with their xenophobia, acrophobia, really fear of *any* change....although I'm not sure how that would be accomplished.

 

 

To explain why a facility that was abandoned during the attack is undisturbed by anyone looking for necessities, we can easily place it near the heart of the jungle (putting all the genetic labs near one another).

 

And we could designate it a very high level security facility (seems like that kind of research would be). So some top of the line hacking and lockpicking skills required....helps keep out the martian riff raff. It would also explain the lockdown after security is breached.

 

If we want to use both as companions we will have to find a way around the companion limit though, especially with wanting the rover as a companion as well.

 

No worries, if I remember right, that script is actually pretty stupid. All it checks for is the vanilla companions.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

Just to dive in on the Sherry's, I like the thought of "differences" between them causing internecine civil war among the clones, lots of black humor opportunities about "discrimination" based on (to the player) almost imperceptible (a very high intelligence/perception character MIGHT notice a few things, like a muscular tic or something but for the most part...)

also the original shouldn't be too evil/without scruples, though between the cloning etc. she'd be pretty messed up.

Though alternatively if we get a "bad" Sherry clone (or just any old companion in general) in the vein of HK-47 I'd be absolutely elated, I really enjoyed his snarky comments...

[devinpatterson]

Just to dive in on the Sherry's, I like the thought of "differences" between them causing internecine civil war among the clones, lots of black humor opportunities about "discrimination" based on (to the player) almost imperceptible (a very high intelligence/perception character MIGHT notice a few things, like a muscular tic or something but for the most part...)

 

Definitely, we could have cliques based on anything from their pathologies (tic as you suggested above to neurosis to ocd's) to occupations, all the way to the most trivial thing.

 

It could also be a complete Dr Seuss star belly sneetches, thing where only the higher ups have red hair, the security teams dye their black, low (wo)men on the totem poll only get mousy brown etc. A strong an obvious sign of social status, wherein everything else is extremely subtle. The leader Sherry class might have a difference of 3 IQ points, or the security team Sherry's might be able to lift a meager 10lbs more, but they'v stratified completely on this minuscule differences caused by the tiniest error in the cloning process.

 

So was your vote for the 2nd main plot line variation (ie not templates of Sherry, but a whole vault of Sherry's existing over decades)? We could even nestle plot variation 1 (cloning lab with templates of Sherry, small group of dangerous spec ops clones) locked/hidden away inside the main vault of Shrry's (variation 2). They could be uncovered and brought into play when the player decides to get to the bottom of everything and convinces or forces his way into the cloning lab.

 

also the original shouldn't be too evil/without scruples, though between the cloning etc. she'd be pretty messed up.

 

Yeah it's one of those discussions that boarders on the philosophical. Is a complete sociopath evil? I mean they don't do things to necessarily cause harm, they just don't care if anything they do results in harm to others. They are certainly capable of evil acts, no doubt about that. I tend to think of evil people being those that relish suffering, but I think the two overlap.

 

My pitch is to have the original Sherry be similar to the original Roy Batty (if we go with templates). He was definitely a sociopath, because he wouldn't let anyone or anything stop him from getting what he wanted and he'd use any method to achieve his goals......but he wouldn't go out of his way to cause collateral damage/suffering. She'd also have his personality disorder that precluded fear. So obviously a lot of potential harm/evil could be done by someone like that.

 

But as you saw in the end of Bladerunner, Roy's android copy showed empathy and saved Decker. Plus we can adjust her personality as needed for the plotline.

 

Though alternatively if we get a "bad" Sherry clone (or just any old companion in general) in the vein of HK-47 I'd be absolutely elated, I really enjoyed his snarky comments...

 

Oh yeah, some clones definitely "go bad", but some could "evolve" into something more too. I think we could have a clone for each general (good, bad, neutral) Karma if Maryberry doesn't mind the extra voicework.

[devinpatterson]

Looks like our voice actress, Maryberry is in distress (bronchitis), but should be better in a couple weeks. If we work up some lines in the next few weeks we can give them to her early so she has plenty of time to put them together without rushing. And in her honor I think we should change the Shery's to Mary's.

[maryberry01]

I WILL do the voices for this mod, but I don't know about naming them Mary, like Devin says.

 

 

By the way, I'm Mary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:(

[greenknightfury]

I definitely am beginning to lean more towards the idea of just clones, it just feels better in my head. The idea of a Vault full of them stratified by the traits purposely brought out by the mainframe (and the variation within those specialties due to cloning error) is awesome, and also allows for some definite humor and tension opportunities. Especially with a "bad clone" scenario where the figuring out of "who done it" would develop as narrowing down to tiny diferrences, or entire cases of frame jobs done by just using something you weren't autotrained for to preform the crime "She was beaten to death with a wrench..must be one of the maintenance crew!"

 

 

 

Yeah it's one of those discussions that boarders on the philosophical. Is a complete sociopath evil? I mean they don't do things to necessarily cause harm, they just don't care if anything they do results in harm to others. They are certainly capable of evil acts, no doubt about that. I tend to think of evil people being those that relish suffering, but I think the two overlap.

 

My pitch is to have the original Sherry be similar to the original Roy Batty (if we go with templates). He was definitely a sociopath, because he wouldn't let anyone or anything stop him from getting what he wanted and he'd use any method to achieve his goals......but he wouldn't go out of his way to cause collateral damage/suffering. She'd also have his personality disorder that precluded fear. So obviously a lot of potential harm/evil could be done by someone like that.

 

When I read this all I could think was "Sounds like any action hero....James Bond especially."

 

 

Love the idea of Karma based companions.

[greenknightfury]

I definitely am beginning to lean more towards the idea of just clones, it just feels better in my head. The idea of a Vault full of them stratified by the traits purposely brought out by the mainframe (and the variation within those specialties due to cloning error) is awesome, and also allows for some definite humor and tension opportunities. Especially with a "bad clone" scenario where the figuring out of "who done it" would develop as narrowing down to tiny diferrences, or entire cases of frame jobs done by just using something you weren't autotrained for to preform the crime "She was beaten to death with a wrench..must be one of the maintenance crew!"

 

 

 

Yeah it's one of those discussions that boarders on the philosophical. Is a complete sociopath evil? I mean they don't do things to necessarily cause harm, they just don't care if anything they do results in harm to others. They are certainly capable of evil acts, no doubt about that. I tend to think of evil people being those that relish suffering, but I think the two overlap.

 

My pitch is to have the original Sherry be similar to the original Roy Batty (if we go with templates). He was definitely a sociopath, because he wouldn't let anyone or anything stop him from getting what he wanted and he'd use any method to achieve his goals......but he wouldn't go out of his way to cause collateral damage/suffering. She'd also have his personality disorder that precluded fear. So obviously a lot of potential harm/evil could be done by someone like that.

 

When I read this all I could think was "Sounds like any action hero....James Bond especially."

 

 

Love the idea of Karma based companions.