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Nope.

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Definitively not.

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I don't think so.

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That's for sure.

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I'll stop now.

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[Fjords to Plowshares]

Long story short: Trojans. Trojans everywhere.

Holy shit man, congrats

Computer seems fine now, but I'll have to wait and see.

Oh.  Awkward.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Tape ETC-01

Spoiler: 'Concerning Arroyo' (click to show/hide)

I suppose that there were worse places to grow up than Arroyo. You never had an empty stomach, the work was light, and you had none of those stupid tribal rituals to mark you for life. Except for the... well, that's something only a few people get to see. Arroyo was still a backwater tribal village though, so the extent of my schooling was based around whatever crazy stuff Tertius decided to spew out one day. Once every two months a caravan came to Arroyo, and I probably learned more from them than my teachers. That's not saying much. The caravans were small town hicks, barely above the tribals they looked down on. At least they taught me to shoot, bargain and steal.

Anyways when I was 21 the Elder called me to her tent. Long story short Arroyo was growing sick crops, Brahmin and children. Blah, blah, blah. I've heard it so much I'm sick of it. Anyways despite being the 'Chosen One' I had to go through the Temple of Trials before anybody would even think about letting me out of the village to find the GECK and save the entire village. You'd think that the Elder would just see me complete it and let me go on my merry way, what with her being physic and all. Bah. Want a drink? I can't keep wagging my tongue like this without something to wet it.

Spoiler: 'After a Slight Sojourn for Refreshment' (click to show/hide)

Ah, that's better. Now where was I?

Right. The Temple. Tertius must have built it, as it looks like something that would have come out of his convoluted mind. No idea why nobody lived in it.

Must have been the giant ants.

Now I could barely wield a spear without whacking myself half the time, so I basically ran through the Temple hoping that I was faster than anything that looked like it wanted to eat me. Not in the good way, either. Of course the temple had all manner of traps and locks, so I was standing still more often than running, but you know what I'm getting at.

Plastic explosives! They had a chunk of it in the temple. No clue why they had it, but the explosion was the most satisfying thing I saw in the Temple.

At the end was a tribesman. He was there to fight me for a challenge or something. Talking him down as easy. At the end of the time was a 'holy' relic from Vault 13. A jumpsuit supposedly worn by Rob himself. If he was a cross-dresser, maybe. The thing was cut for a lady. The only reason nobody had realized it was because the dress-code in Arroyo was loincloths and bras. Idiots. I had to make a few adjustments to the thing before I could wear it. It wasn't made for somebody so well endowed as I.

After getting the jumpsuit I was finally allowed to go after the GECK. The Elder gave me some money and a canteen from Vault 13. She pointed me in the direction of Klamath. A trader named Vic lived there, and since he was selling all the 'holy' relics to the tribe the Elder expected that he knew the location of a GECK or something.

Spoiler: 'Klamath - Fills in a couple missing details' (click to show/hide)

Even back then I thought that Klamath was small. It was small enough that the town greeter, drunk and idiot were all the same person. It was small enough that travellers would mistake nearby tribal villages for it. That's how small it was. The major source of income for Klamath was the jerky trade. Actually Gecko trapping was pretty big too, though most people gave up after losing their first digit. And I suppose that the 'Bathhouse' made enough money to keep afloat. Anyways the point I'm making here is that Klamath kinda ran on jerky, and a couple of slimy bastards made the most jerky in town. Not the best. Theirs was half-rotten and smelled like the other half wasn't too far behind. Still, it had some sort of magical ability of selling like hot cakes, so they were always in need of meat, Brahmin or otherwise.

Being from out of town the twins, they were twins by the way, forgot to mention that. Anyways the twins had a little job for me. Brahmin may not have been the most illustrious start to my career, but money is money, and I needed the stuff bad back then. The person guarding the Brahmin the twins had picked out was a couple points south of normal, if you know what I mean.


Rustling the Brahmin from him was about as easy as you'd expect.

With the money in my pocket I went to find Vic. Well, actually I was looking for a bar, but I found Vic's place first.


Vic wasn't in, so I helped myself to his stuff. Heh.

After that I suppose that I found a bar in that dump. It's all rather blurry. I learned a little bit about the sweet science and sporting art known as Pugilism. Heh, I thought it was something a little different at the time. My wallet was a bit light afterwards, so I 'helped' myself to some jerky and booze before wandering off to explore a bit more.

Spoiler: 'Noteworthy - Mark it for Jerald' (click to show/hide)

As I've mentioned before, Gecko pelts were a hot commodity in Klamath. I fancied that I could bag a couple Golden Geckos with the pipe rifle that Vic 'lent' me. I couldn't hit a thing with that piece of crap though. It must have been made of lead or something. Somehow I managed to pick up from the bar that a trapper was missing in the area, so I looked around for him. I had to cut my search short when I spotted a couple Geckos bigger than myself.

North of the town was the Brahmin fields, south was the trapping grounds, and east just led out of town. West was a stone outcrop, so I decided to poke my head around there, to see if anything exciting was happening in that area.


I got attacked by a robot for my troubles. It was half melted and broken, so it obviously didn't make mincemeat out of me. It wasn't one of those robots controlled by a human brain, so I'm not totally sure if it had any mercies or not. If it did, I'd put the robot out of them. I'm surprised I didn't hear about it in the bar. Maybe nobody knew, or maybe they didn't want anybody pick apart the Vertibird.

That was the first time I met the Enclave, though I obviously didn't know about it at the time. By the time I got there the bodies were picked clean. The looters had missed one thing.

An electronic key-card.

Having faced the Enclave in Fallout 3, I can say only one thing: Fuck.

Chopped a bit out of that update, mainly most of the conversations in Klamath and Arroyo (New character new update style). I'm thinking of heading to the Den next, since it's really only the next choice we have. Hopefully Vic will be there (or something) But before that I'll be popping back to Arroyo for a bit, to complete some quests now that I have some armour and an actual gun.

I'm wondering whether I should hire Sulik or not (He wasn't in the update, so check the wiki for him if you have no idea what I'm talking about). I do have the money, and having a character who is a half decent fight is always a good idea. I'm just wondering whether taking him to the Den will be a bad idea or not. After all, Vic did sell his sister into slavery there...

I'm guessing that the keycard I picked up will have one of two uses:
1. A location rapidly coming up will require me to have it.
2. It'll make my life easy way distant in the future.

[Ehndras]

Sulik was a great help, I say recruit him.

[GlyphGryph]

Awesome new update style.

Sulik is awesome, and a little extra muscle is never a bad thing. At the very least you can get him to carry your stuff. Also, I think it might have been possible to talk them down a lot debt-wise.

[Sheb]

Plus I think you can sell him in the future. See him as an investment.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I really have to stop being so nice. I've actually got positive karma right now.

EDIT: Maybe it'd help if everyone actually had more stuff to steal.

[GlyphGryph]

Being nice and being a terrible person are NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.

This isn't a Bethesda game - there are shades of gray. And trust me, you'll have plenty of time to turn it around.

[Itnetlolor]

I dunno. I've been the most evil nice guy I've ever known. Or is that the nicest evil guy?

In any which case, I flip my karma around regularly like a coin at a whim. Got past slavers, freed some kids, robbed Rivet City and Megaton blind, stocked up on stimpacks from raiding every hospital in sight, and spared the Capital Wasteland of Fawkes' relentlessness until the end of the vanilla game. And yet, I'm still perceived as a saint (no level up bonus either to reset karma), despite the fact I've got a kill and criminal record longer than a mutated tapeworm.

Of course, karma is too easy to manipulate in that game as it is.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, that was kind of a problem in FO3. You didn't get negative Karma for taking the evil choices, you got it for taking the stupid evil choices. Though, as a measure of /reputation/ rather than inherent goodness, maybe it made sense?

In 2 at least Karma doesn't mean much - reputation, however, does, but that's local. You can be a hero in one town and a villain in the next, if I remember correctly.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Tape ETC-02

Spoiler: 'Rest of the recent information on Klamath - E.D.' (click to show/hide)

Well, if you insist. Let me think for a second here. Right. Klamath had a... hotel I think it was. A tribal worked there. His name was Sulik. Ah, what a man. He was the paradigm of a tribal. Big, muscular and heavily ornamented. He had a giant bone in his nose which housed the spirits of his tribe or something. I'd never seen him without it, and I can only hope that it came in two pieces. He had been looking for his sister when he came to Klamath. 500 bucks worth of damages later and he was working his debt off to the hotel. Managed to pay 150 of it off when I got there. At the time I needed somebody who could actually deal a couple good hits, so I 'hired' him as a bodyguard. I'm sure that any half-witted person could point out that I merely paid of his debt, but that just meant that he now owed me the 350 dollars. Besides, he could hardly keep looking for his sister stuck in such a backwater as Klamath.

We explored Trapper Town together. It was a little community attached to Klamath. It's leader was way too attached to scat. For the record I still think that the sanitary advantages of smelling it overrides any gains from tasting it. Much more hygienic. Tapper Town had a little rat problem, and a giant rat problem too. Me and Sulik explored around town a bit, and underneath it as well. The parts that the rats infected were abandoned, so we managed to pick up a fair bit of loot. The rats were coming from an abandoned mine system, so naturally we investigated. And it was filled more rats than you could shake a stick at. Some of them were bigger than Sulik even! Eventually we found the leader of the rats, or at least that's what the common wisdom in Klamath held at the time. It was giant, albino, smart as hell and twice as deadly. I was damn near mauled by the thing before Sulik smashed its brains in with a sledgehammer. I'm told that Trapper Town holds a celebration every year in my honour.

Spoiler: 'The Den - Discovery of Vic' (click to show/hide)

We travelled over to the Den next. I suppose that it was smaller than Klamath, though it certainly seemed bigger. The number of people moving in and out of the town was huge. It was smack in the dab of several intersecting trades routes. We spent about a week in the place. Look back I figure that 200 bucks is a bit small for my services, but what else could I have expected? Most people spent their ill-gotten cash on drugs and cheap whores. Eh. Excuse me for a second.

Sorry about that, I'm not used to having visitors during this hour. Hmm... Want to hear a story? Cost me 5 coins, so I might as well get some use out of it. The story takes place a long time ago. Probably after the Hundred Day Siege. A supermutant army marched through the Den, broken and dejected. They didn't loot or kill or nothing, just marched on through as quickly as possible. Trailing behind them were a bunch of humans, covered in tattered purple robes. A couple of them shot themselves in the town after they arrived. Others waited till the next day. The story suddenly ends there, still pissed about that after all these years. But I guess you got what you'd paid for.

Listen to me rambling. Now slavery was big in the Den. Everyone in town was too poor to buy a slave, but people from far and wide would come just to purchase a slave or two. The head slaver in town was called... Um, it started with an M. Mercilum? It'll come to me eventually. The point was that he had captured Vic for selling him broken equipment. The head slaver wanted to listen in onto NCR and Enclave broadcasts because the slimy bastard was cutting a couple deals with them. It took some 'haggling', but I eventually managed to purchase Vic for 500 dollars. Annoying I pretty much wasted the 500 bucks for nothing. Vic had no idea where Vault 13 was, he just bought his stuff from a guy in Vault City. Bloody idiot. Anyways since I technically owned him I made him lug my stuff around. The coward didn't want to fight.

Spoiler: 'Lara's Gang' (click to show/hide)

I couldn't just leave the Den at that instant though. I still had some debts to collect, heads to bash open, that kind of thing. And the Highwayman. Ah, what a vehicle. It was built like a brick, and lasts twice as long. The Den had a Highwayman that had survived, well, everything. Fallout, scavengers, you name it. Only two things kept the beauty from being mine. It costed 2000 big ones, and it was missing several parts that couldn't be found in the Den.

Ah, what else? Oh, right. The Den had a gang problem. Most of them were three blokes in leather jackets trying to look tough, but only two gangs were actually important, Lana's and Tyler's. Since Lana's gang was the only one that was hiring, I naturally sided with them. Let me start from the beginning of the whole thing. I kinda stumbled upon Lana's gang first, but I was quick on the uptake and managed to secure a job from them. You see, in the east part of town was a church. Tyler's gang controlled it and Lana wanted to know what was happening inside. Without so much as a 'bye your word' I bluffed my way in and had a look around. Tyler was using the church to store raw chemicals for Jet production in New Reno. Apparently the chemicals came from Vault City.

Anyways Lana had a pack with the slaver dude, and for some convoluted reason if she managed to overthrow Tyler's gang over control of the chemicals her gang would get the job. Or something like that, it's all highly complicated. Since Tyler's gang was obviously better funded from the chemical trade, Lana just couldn't gather up her cronies and bust a couple skulls open. So she turns to me and asks if I can find a weakness. Tyler's gang just conveniently had a party going on that night, and they were not too subtle about it. I tell Lana about this information, thinking that I could finally get the hell out of the place, since that was the last job I had to finish. Nope. Lana must have liked the look of Sulik, because she conscripted me for the assault. The fist part of the attack goes off without a hitch, killing the couple sentries outside the place. Needless to say I'm less than enthusiastic about clearing out the rest of the church, so I basically ask Lana for my money. She gave it to me the first time. Underestimating the number of enemies left might have helped me as well. Heh. All in all I made around 700 that night. Not bad for a day's work.

Spoiler: 'A sample of photographs that T.A. has allowed to be copied. Spline them into the next few tapes - J.P.' (click to show/hide)

'Early photograph of Sulik - T.A.'


'Sulik mauling some homeless people. Can't remember why. I don't recalling telling him to do that - T.A.'


'That bloody rat leader thing - T.A.'


'I'd forgotten about the Brotherhood outpost in the Den - T.A.'


'That church. Whatever it's name is - T.A.'
'I've done some research. Originally the church was founded by the outcasts trailing in the wake of the supermutant army. When the last of the cultist killed themselves it was taken over by Rob worshippers (Blessed be his holy name) and converted to "The Holy Church of Everlasting Salvation". Somewhere along the lines Tyler managed to acquire the property, and used it to store the chemicals from Vault City - J.P.'


'Unlabelled. I suppose that she didn't need a label to know that it was the Highwayman - J.P.'


'Pre-battle posing, I guess. Vic looks really out of place in the shot - J.P.'

Where to now? Vault City is the next stage of the plot, but New Reno has drugs, violence and sex, probably in that order. Any thoughts/ideas?

Took Awareness as the third level perk. All of the other ones seemed at best silly or at worst useless to me. Knowing the exact hitpoints of an enemy, and the amount of ammo in their weapon will be useful. Plus, if I ever meet Dirty Harry, I won't have to rely on my terrible luck stat. 

EDIT: If you're wondering why I didn't attempt to become a slaver, it's because doing so would have involved getting a lame-ass tattoo. On your forehead. Because apparently slavers have never hear the idea of stealth or pretending that you are not going to enslave your target.

EDIT2: While browsing the shelves of my local library, I noticed that one of the book titles was Mariposa by Greg Bear. Intrigued, I took a look at it. Bioweapons? Check. Semi-secret military base? Check. Terrible experiments being preformed on humans? Check. Human test subjects having increase intelligence? Check (Remember that only irradiated humans get turned into stupid supermutants). Human test subjects losing all self-control and turning into psychopathic killers? Check.

Coincidence? Probably.

[GlyphGryph]

Huh. I'm actually pretty surprised you didn't end up working for Metzger.

Anyways, both targets are a lot of fun, but I think New Reno would probably offer the most opportunities at this point. Just remember to be careful. Avoid gunfights and always use protection.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Huh. I'm actually pretty surprised you didn't end up working for Metzger.

Well, I didn't exactly like the part about getting branded as a slaver for life the rest of the game. It'll probably hurt my chances later on.

[Shadowgandor]

People will fear you, as they should! Oh and lots of money and experience ^^

[Mephansteras]

I'd say go to New Reno. It's a fun place and you can get some great weapons there.

[USEC_OFFICER]

People will fear you, as they should! Oh and lots of money and experience ^^

Hmm... Maybe later then. I've got a caravan to take to New Reno in about a day. Walking by foot is quite annoying. Seems like you can't move a mile without having a random encounter.

I'd say go to New Reno. It's a fun place and you can get some great weapons there.

That was my plan all along. Unless Vault City had some awesome stuff, in which case I could always change.