#junktown story

[justdiptych]

The original Fallout had one group of raiders. That was the name the game map gave to them - 'Raiders' - but they were in fact known as the Khans. They were a relatively minor faction, being tied to quests in the first town the player is likely to visit, but we learn a lot about them in their brief appearance.

Many of the Khans are given names and dialogue, and will tell the player about their history - including how they came from the same place as the people of Shady Sands, Vault 15, and feel entitled to share in the town's wealth. Some see their raiding life as a way to claim control of the post-war world - ruling through strength and fear, believing that old ideas of morality died with the rest of the world. Others treat it as just another job - they support their group by trading, maintaining equipment, preparing food, and other everyday tasks.

In short, the Khans are a fully-realised community, as much a part of the story as any other. We learn that their brutal leader, Garl Death-Hand, took command after killing his abusive father. The player can kill him, or negotiate with him, or impress him with acts of cruelty, or even challenge his nihilistic views by convincing him that they're his father, back from the dead. Killing Garl and destroying his compound is treated as the best choice for the region as a whole, and is confirmed to have happened in the next game in the series, but it's certainly not the only option.

Fallout 2 has two groups of raiders. One - again marked 'Raiders' on the map - turn out not to be raiders at all, in that they're not attacking towns to steal their wealth. Instead, they're a mercenary company, hired by a disreputable businessman from one town (New Reno) on behalf of another town (Shady Sands again, now the capital of the New California Republic) to harass a third town (Vault City) to convince them that they need outside help in maintaining their defences. It's part of the game's major subplot about the three societies competing for control of northern California and western Nevada.

The other group are the New Khans, founded by Garl's son Darion after the original Khans' defeat. These Khans aren't nearly so fearsome as their predecessors - they mostly operate in secret, hiding behind a group of squatters who have moved into the ruins of Vault 15 and pretending to help them restore it for use. Darion is wracked with resentment over what happened to his father's crew and guilt for having survived, and his gang ultimately present little real threat to the outside world.

What I'm getting at here is that, in the world of Fallout as it existed in those early games, 'raiders' were not a major factor. There was one group who conducted raids as part of their regular economic activity, but only against particular communities - Shady Sands saw them as raiders, but to the Hub, they were just traders. Raiders only existed in a particular context - they had particular interests, beliefs and opportunities that would not always be possible or applicable.

Most of the games' conflict came not from the existence of raiders but from bilateral political and economic competition between groups with overlapping but not identical interests, which was reflected in their respective ideologies. We see this in Killian and Gizmo fighting to control the future of Junktown, and in the Master's attempt to reshape the world with the Unity while the different groups of New California try to retain their independence.

We particularly see it in Fallout 2, with its three-way battle for economic domination between the constitutional democracy of the New California Republic, the mafia-ruled narco-state of New Reno, and the elitist technocratic slave state of Vault City. Which of these groups continue to rule and expand, and which crumble, is what ultimately shapes the region's future - with control of Redding and its gold supply as the linchpin.

While the Enclave are the story's primary antagonists, they're chiefly characterised by their refusal to engage with this new socio-economic order - they believe that all outside authorities are illegitimate, and all outsiders non-human, and their only plan is to release a bioweapon into the atmosphere and kill literally everyone on Earth but themselves. The Enclave's defeat is necessary for New California's survival, but, otherwise, they change very little about how people live their lives. They're like Darion's New Khans on a larger scale - relics of a fallen order, robbed of their purpose, hiding in an old bunker and driven by nothing but resentment of having been left behind.

I might, in future, talk about the contrasting depiction of raiders in Fallouts 3, 4 and 76, and about New Vegas's use of raider and bandit groups like the Khans, the Legion, the Fiends and the White Legs. For now, I think I've made my point - that raiders are not a fact of life but a product of a particular place and time, and much less relevant to the universe of Fallout than other forms of competition and violence.

[kelly-clickspring]

Can we learn more about Iggy? Does he end up befriending smols and tols? What's his favorite way to hold a smol? Does he like to snuggle, etc?

I would love to tell you more about Iggy! I'm hoping to eventually post his and Ozzy's story, it's currently sitting in my google drive at 50 pages long while I search for the inspo to finish and edit. Maybe this will help inspire me!

Iggy is a bit of a recovering shut-in, he has some pretty severe PTSD after a shipwreck that's been unaddressed, and seizing control of his life until just recently in his story. He's seeing a human-sized robot doctor about it and making strides, but he still has hard days. Sometimes he just stays in bed and Ozzy will come keep him company, drawing him pictures or playing word games and whatnot. (here's a cute sketch of that I haven't gotten around to finishing yet)

He is starting to get out though. He's friends with the Featherson brothers Gianni and Celio, some more giants from the JunkTown universe. Ozzy is the first small folk he's actually managed to meet officially, but he does meet and befriend more!

His favorite way to hold small folk is to basically become furniture. He is terrified of hurting anyone and has utmost respect for smaller folk, so he'll always put out a hand or allow them mobility to be where they want to be, trying not to grab hold or restrict them in any way unless it's an emergency or he doesn't know a better way. He likes it when Ozzy rides around in his chest pocket or on his shoulder because it makes him feel trusted.

Iggy loves being hugged and interacted with, and would gladly snuggle up or be a warm spot for small folk. Junk giants like him have a higher body temperature than humans and small folk, and he's used that to help ease Ozzy's chronic pain. He knows Ozzy doesn't usually appreciate touch though because of their fibro, and considers it a big honor when Ozzy occasionally falls asleep in his hand or tucked in his collar when they're having bad pain days.

In the earlier days of his recovery you'll find Iggy at home much of the time, so he does ham radio, with Ozzy after they become comfortable with one another. He goes by "Southern Charm" before he's ready to give new folk his name. Prior to the shipwreck he was very social. He makes up for his lack of smarts with his kindness, charm, and genuine interest in the endeavors of others that make him a hoot to be around. He loves music and collects it to broadcast to the local JunkTown area, and thinks it's a joy to sing and dance with folk.

Here's his (still very much WIP) spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6NziEitKBoFDeAPVMMTgLw?si=158b8ac140ff403d

[jenchwuq]

anyway a few more facts about elena before i officially move on from fallout 1:

max stone and albert cole also exist in my canon, and the three of them were best friends growing up. absolute menaces, always causing trouble, that sort of thing. the overseer absolutely rigged the whole drawing straws thing, and was glad to be rid of at least one of them when elena left.

both of them did end up leaving the vault at the end. they remained on good terms, but it wasn’t the same. elena had seen and experienced so much at that point, her old and new friend groups didn’t necessarily mesh that well, and she was really withdrawn in those early days.

she technically met pat for the first time in junktown during the canon story. he was working for killian as part of the junktown guard. they didn’t directly interact, but she definitely left an impression.

in the early days in arroyo when she was really struggling, she was pulling her weight but still. miserable to be around. she was trying to push people away, and it mostly worked, except for pat.

they’d go on scavenging/supply runs and hunting trips and whatnot together. partially because they had more experience navigating the wastelands, but also because pat was. actually willing to work with her. beyond that though, he genuinely liked her. 

she was taking a page from grandma’s book around that time and basically just. ignoring everyone and constantly talking to herself in russian. so with the help of some of the vault dwellers, pat managed to pick up a little bit. she was shocked and a little embarrassed when he actually responded.

their relationship shifted after that; it was still a couple years before they actually got together, but. she did start to trust him a lil more. became a little more open, a little more self aware. eventually started trying to engage with the community more, mend some of the relationships she’d damaged. eventually realized she wasn’t as alone as she felt.

they eventually got married after ten years together, and had their first child ten years after that. they learned more languages together. they started a baseball team. she never really recovered from everything that happened, but still. they had a good life.

[theciaris]

25 Years of Fallout: A Journey Through the Wasteland

It’s hard to believe that Fallout is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year! 🌍💥 As we look back on the post-apocalyptic landscape that defined a generation of gamers, it’s the perfect time to revisit some of the key moments that made the original Fallout such an unforgettable experience.

The Birth of the Wasteland (1997)

Released in 1997, the original Fallout took us into a dark, gritty world where humanity was struggling to survive after nuclear devastation. Set in a retro-futuristic universe, the game introduced players to Vault 13, a shelter meant to protect survivors from the radiation-ravaged outside world.

⚡ And who could forget that iconic Vault Boy, who quickly became a symbol of the franchise’s quirky humor and survivalism?

The Story That Hooked Us

At the heart of the game was a simple yet gripping quest: find the Water Chip to save your vault from running out of drinkable water. This desperate mission took players across a vast, desolate landscape filled with mutants, raiders, and remnants of pre-war civilization. The choices you made shaped your journey, and the world reacted to your every decision. Fallout showed us that morality in the wasteland wasn’t black and white—it was all about survival. 🌾

Memorable Characters

From the fast-talking traders of Junktown to the Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout gave us some of the most memorable characters and factions in RPG history. And who could forget the enigmatic Master? That final confrontation, where you could outwit the villain instead of defeating him in combat, was a revolutionary moment in game design. 😱🧠

The Power of Choice

The original Fallout set the standard for RPGs, giving players unprecedented control over how they played. Whether you were a smooth-talking diplomat or a trigger-happy wanderer, Fallout let you tackle the wasteland in your own way. And the SPECIAL system made sure no two playthroughs were ever the same. The freedom to shape your character’s destiny became one of the franchise’s greatest legacies. 🔧⚔️

25 Years Later

As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Fallout, it’s amazing to see how far the series has come—from the humble beginnings of Fallout 1 to the expansive open worlds of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. But for many of us, that first journey through the wasteland will always hold a special place in our hearts. 💛

What’s your favorite Fallout memory? Share your thoughts and let’s raise a Nuka-Cola to 25 years of vaults, mutants, and the spirit of survival. 🥤🍾

🎁 In celebration, we’re offering 15% off our Fallout-inspired leather keychains! Use the code 25FALLOUT at checkout. Head over to our shop to get yours! Offer valid until Sunday. 💥

#FalloutAnniversary #FalloutMemories #Vault13 #PostApocalyptic #Fallout25Years #GamingHistory #VaultBoy #RetroGames #FalloutNostalgia

[miss-mania]

I know it paved the way for the rest of the series or fuckin whatever but the first Fallout game is not very good. It's wild that people thought the second one was a bit of a mess at the time given how much more balanced and polished it feels overall. Replaying the first two it's kind of apparent that a lot of the gameplay problems in the entire series were there from the start.

This ended up being kind of long so I'll elaborate below. It's all a bit messy as it's like 4 AM but whatever.

Replaying it, 90% of the perks are more or less useless and have limited roleplaying potential (unless you're fine with your roleplaying just being like...a box you tick on your character that provides flavortext). An example is the rad resistance perk; there is exactly one location in the game where radiation is a problem and a single enemy that deals radiation damage.

The game doesn't have a difficulty curve so much as it has a difficulty cliff; once you get the combat armor/power armor and a decent weapon most combat encounters are rote. This is a problem in...basically all of the fallout games. If there's one thing the first two have in common with the latter two, it's having wildly uneven difficulty and a kind of hilarious disregard-bordering-on-contempt for game balance.

A lot of the random world encounters are great and one of the things really missing from the later games with the change in format. With reasonable luck though you can stumble upon a special encounter really early that will trivialize the rest of the game. In this playthrough I got the encounter that gave me more caps than I could come even close to using until I was at the point where caps were a non-issue anyway.

The npcs have very little personality with a few exceptions; the choice of who gets a talking head portrait and voice acting is sometimes baffling. Sometimes it's someone interesting like Set or Harold, but even the best of them are involved with often just one quest before ceasing to have any relevance to any other part of the story or new information to provide you. This is mostly excusable given the time period it came out...but Baldur's Gate came out the same year and handled this aspect of the open-ended rpg experience much more deftly.

There's a lot of cut content in the way where all the bread crumbs leading up to it are left in the game, several times now I've looked up a character or plot thread on a wiki to find it's cut content. I know cut content is just kind of a fact of life in game development but it's extremely frustrating when enough is left in to imply that you can do something only for it to be a waste of time. For instance, you can find the doctor that's chopping people up for their sweet meat in Junktown, but you can't report his activity to anyone. When you get to the dude who's selling the aforementioned human bits to the unsuspecting denizens of the Hub, there's even a dialogue option saying "I'm turning you into the sheriff" but there is no dialogue with the sheriff. You can goad him into attacking you but doing so immediately turns the entire Hub against you.

The weirdest thing about replaying the first one is how much connective tissue there is between the entire series, for better and...mostly, primarily for worse. Lack of polish, insane and random peaks and valleys in difficulty, inconsistent levels of depth across the entire experience mechanically and atmospherically, the obviously unfinished quests, the unfocused and underdeveloped satire; it's all there.

Yet somehow in every one of these fucking games the atmosphere from the setting, the soundtrack, and the clunky-yet-kinda-endearing skeuomorphic UI always manages to drag me through the murky, radioactive quagmire of questionable game design and narrative decision-making to the end credits, during which I invariably think to myself "yeah that was a game. I should re-install New Vegas."

[highfructosefemur]

I think one of the big mistakes here is making Fallout 2024 a serialized plot with a tight internal schedule when the franchise is, effectively, designed from the ground up to be episodic. Not just individual entries taking place hundreds of miles from eachother (even Fallout 2 took place in an almost entirely different half of the state Fallout 1 took place in), but individual locations within each game being just barely connected to each other. You can explain in the abstract how Junktown/Modoc/Novac relates to and engages with The Hub/Redding/Primm but, fundamentally, the stories the former town tells do not intersect with the latter. Fallout is a franchise that roots itself in highly-involved side quests loosely connected by a low-priority overarching main quest, and Fallout 2024 instead tries to go for a strange sloppy mix of the two, forcing along a serious main plotline with no time for fucking around while also forcing the protagonists into situations where they must fuck around. The show hastily crams at least six "quests" worth of setup and payoff into eight episodes, and the resulting traffic jam of plotlines makes everything feel rushed and doesn't provide any given place enough worldbuilding to make it feel like they belong in the same region as any other place. My ideal Fallout show would look something like if you crammed the entire Vault 4 storyline into one episode. "The main cast suffers a problem that puts them in a strange new place with a Dark Secret, a Terrifying Twist, and Some Sort Of Dilemma, Physical Or Ethical for them to resolve" is the sort of plot structure that kept sci-fi series running for decades, and giving the storyline more time to breathe would give the writers enough time to explain what the fuck is going on with the timeline as an added bonus.

I think the Fallout Tv show is gonna be quite vulnerable to what I've come to refer to as the Force Awakens vulnerability, wherein failing to stick the landing on the latter installments is enough to retroactively make the entire thing bad by revealing the whole endeavor was creatively hollow from the word go

[lonniemachin]

the way noel meets/travels with all of the companions is this:

tycho’s the first he meets. he stops in junktown in search of supplies before hitting vault 15 (or some other reason bc im keeping that from my game i like the narrative ive constructed but i want his detour to make sense. he stops in junktown for… some reason). long story short he witnesses and in some cases takes part in at least 2 deaths and is pretty shaken over this. he goes to the bar to get something to drink to calm his nerves and meets tycho there who offers him one. the two talk until they witness ANOTHER death. noel is like “maybe we should report this to security” and tycho, hearing about noel’s part in gizmo’s death, offers to tag along because he wants to take part in stopping this group from terrorizing the town. some more stuff happens, noel may or may not strangle the town sherriff in his sleep, they depart for shady sands in the direction of vault 15 (with dogmeat)

noel and tycho are approached by aradesh to rescue tandi from raiders and noel remembers being unable to hire ian because he had no caps. well he does now! so he hires ian and the three of them rescue tandi and ian decides to stick around because he misses the action.

katja isnt encountered until the boneyard, like right before they find the Master. noel loses his arm fighting deathclaws and passes out. tycho and ian drag him to the Followers’ library where they treat him. he’s out for a bit and when he wakes up, ian and tycho have befriended katja. all four travel together from there on

i know somebody will die. i havent decided who yet. dogmeat does definitely </3 at mariposa, like in “canon”

[the-little-shoebox]

Delivery Part 1 (Junktown Story)

Look! I got back into the writing mood! A rare thing! This is inspired and suggested by @kelly-clickspring​ in that good old Junktown setting. This is actually going to be a two-parter story for a lot of reasons. Mostly that I like to write things in more bite-sized chunks and want to control the focus a bit. So with all that said, I really hope you guys like it! Also sorry for any typos or mistakes. I did this all in one go and was too excited to edit. Rest of the story is under the break! ——— There were…. a lot more people than Wellwire remembered at the trading post. Even earlier in the morning, the place seemed bustling with life of all sorts. Humans and junk giants made their shadows dance along the dirt and their words of barter and trade sang in the wind. She could even see a couple of automatons in the mingle, some carrying what their traveling companion had to offer in exchange of that bag of grade A flour. Shoebot easily blended into this ground as she slithered along the ground, her pilot monitoring everything from the internal cockpit. They were here on business just like everyone else, a drop-off to the local tavern. 

The draconic robot swiveled and watched the crowds go by, sensors firing on all cylinders as designed. There was just so many people around, so many things.  Her sails rose and fell, ‘eyes’ bouncing in her head as she navigated the streets. “Ok, tavern. We have to get to the tavern.” Wellwire vocalized. It was the biggest building in the area, so locating it wasn’t a problem for the duo. Shoebot gave a whirl as she spotted the front door, gliding along and stopping right outside. The entrance was a large one, dwarfing the robot as she looked up the door. “Actually, probably better if we use the backdoor. More cover that way.” Shoebot whirled back some artificial chirping at the suggested order, pulling away and slinking around the corners of the massive building. Shadows coated the back of the bar in shade. The noises outside had quickly dulled in intensity over here, far enough from the excitement to revert into the background. Again Shoebot targeted the door, rearing herself upon it and pawing at the wood to be let inside. “Here with your orders,” Wellwire spoke through her radio, voice making the speaker on her vessel’s neck come alive with a transmission. “Anyone home?” At first, silence. Silence for honestly more than a minute. Strange. They should be open by now, right? Shoebot kept knocking at the door, even scratching a little trying to clamber up some noise. She pulled back after nothing, huffing some hot air out of her vented snout in frustration. Wellwire also gave a sigh of her own inside. Looks like they’d have to wait for a while. The dragon stood at the door, starting up it before her ears suddenly lifted at a growing noise. Footsteps? “Looks like I’ve been beaten to my own establishment.” A hearty laugh erupted from behind, more than enough to make Wellwire jump and Shoebot twirl around to face the owner of the pub. An absolute mountain of a Junk Giant stood in their way now. With a strong build and a yet a friendly face covered with a blonde beard, this fellow was quickly recognized as Roger and indeed the bartender/owner of this tavern. He smiled down at the little robot as she continued to stare at him, locked on before starting to ‘talk’ again. “Dammit Roger that scared me.” Wellwire brushed herself off out of sight. Shoebot added her own mix of complaining into the stir, which only made the big guy chuckle a bit more at the display. 

“Sorry for the spook then sugar.” He teased as he walked past, Shoebot following at his heels as he went for the door. “Though it’s always a sights eeing people coming around before the door are even open.” As soon as the door open Shoebot rushed inside, skittering to the closest barrel as she started to climb up it towards higher ground. Green copper claws and that long slender segments hull made quick scaling work, keeping up with Roger as he made his way to the main counter of his area. As busy as it was outside, it was dead quiet inside. The stools and tables were still and untouched from the closing hours. It was uncanny for such a place, but comforting for business purposes. Shoebot slid her way across the counter, making more noises towards the giant to keep up. “Okay,” Wellwire piped up. “What did you order again and where do you want it placed? In the back? Around here on the counter?” Roger now sat cross-armed at his station, watching the dragon aspect of this hidden pair stare him down. “You know you can lighten up around here.” The big guy’s hand reached for the dragon’s back, patting at the metal and causing Shoebot to twirl around and try to twist playfully around his arm. “You know you can get out of that little automaton of yours while around here.” “Annnd you know that I’m not doing that until I have to unpack this stuff.” Yes, Roger was aware of Wellwire’ s little trick with getting around being seen, but that was a tale for another time. Shoebot growled a teeny bit too, protective about letting her creator go. Roger just rolled his eyes, using a finger to rub the end of the bot’s nose and making her cross her eyes. “I know I know. You can put leave the shot glasses here and the rest I’m sure Clover can come out here herself to get her share. Speaking of while…” Clover, the resident borrower of the scene, shook her head as her name was addressed. She has been watching the entire scene from the rafters as soon as she heard scratching on the backdoor. Why did Roger have to be so forward sometimes?! She really didn’t want to go down there, it wasn’t really that necessary. Before she could disappear back into her hiding ways, she felt those large green eyes lock onto her form. “Dammit Roger.” She scolded, even though she knew her voice didn’t carry to him. But it was enough to lock a certain robot’s attention. Shoebot sounded off towards them, an attempt to say hello that wasn’t returned. Clover cowered at those lavender eyes staring right through her, ducking behind a beam. Right, that thing could pick up her little sounds. Great. “Hey,” She could hear the borrower inside call up to her. “How about I drop Roger’s things off, then I’ll come out and meet you in the backroom?” There was no response from Clover, the redhead just sighing to herself as she started to move back. Back into the safety of the walls where few could follow. Wellwire sighed to herself, pressing a button or two to get signal Shoebot to get ready. The serpent slithered off of Roger’s arm and settling on the counter, still keeping an eye on the giant as she lowered her head to the ground. “Don’t try anything,” Wellwire warned the bartender as she made her way out. A latch was lifted as soon the top of Shoebot’s head opened with a pop, exposing the little borrower behind the controls crawling out. Roger felt a bit of a smile etching into his features as he watched the little one slide out onto the counter, noticing how she kept her eyes trained at her foot for a moment. “Oh come now. Ya know I don’t bite.” He teased, chuckling some as Wellwire only rolled her eyes. She still had to talk into her radio while she was out in the open, her voice still projecting from Shoe’s neck speaker. “Save the teasing for your clients ok?” The gal rubbed Shoe’s side as she traveled down, the robot staying still as the hatch to her main hull was finally slid open. “Shot glasses right?” Roger nodded as he just watched, knowing that if he couldn’t really do much as Shoebot stared him down like he was on fire. “Yep, can never have too many of these when rush hour rolls around. Got a fresh batch of bourbon yesterday and I know how people of ready to wet their gullets with a fresh batch of anything around here.” Wellwire listened to him talk as she stepped inside the hull, rolling out the glasses that were wrapped around with fabric to keep it somewhat safe. To everyone’s relief, nothing had scratched or broken from the trip here as the sheet was removed, clean shiny glass glinting in the light. Roger’s smile grew a bit more at the sight of them, slowly reaching out to ever so delicately collect one with his fingertips. It was so small in comparison. It was practically minuscule between the digits, just the slightest bit more pressure and it could shatter into dust. “Would you look at that.” He commented to himself, just admiring the scale for a moment. “Huh? Did something happen to it?” Roger glanced down at the borrower’s question, a quick little scheme popping into his head. He brought his hand back down to the counter, leaning the teeny cup towards them. “I can’t tell. Think you can give me a second opinion?” Wait, was something actually wrong with it? Wellwire lifted a brow as the shot was brought close. She leaned in close to investigate the shot that was about her size if not a little smaller. It looked fine to her. No cracks of scuffs, perfectly fine. Before she could open her mouth to report this, however, Roger made his move, scooping the too close borrower up into the glass. Instantly the little gal yelped as the movement, finding herself upside down inside the shot lifted upwards. As the colors outside mixed and she worked on getting herself right, the next clear thing she’d see would be a giant green eye filling her vision on the other side. Roger could be felt laughing again, rocking the glass Wellwire was now stuck in a bit as he held it. “Not funny!” She finally shouted, Shoebot now had prompted herself up, hissing with sails and wings flaring towards the teasing man. “Don’t worry don’t worry I’m just having a little fun is all.” He reassured the anger robotic reptile, carefully setting the little glass back down on the counter. “Sorry, couldn’t resist the opportunity.” He was still chuckling at Wellwire’s reaction, it was just priceless. The borrower poured herself out onto the floor, Shoe instantly slithering closer and looming over to make sure she was all there in one piece. She was shaken, but not stirred. She’d be okay. “It’s alright it’s alright.” She reassured, grabbing her hat from the bottom of the glass. “Just… don’t do it again.” “No promises kiddo.” He joked, giving that jolly smirk again before looking to the other glasses. “Alright, I’ll put these up while you finish up the rest of your order. She’s probably waiting for you two back there already.” Oh, right. Wellwire still had to meet Clover to take care of her half of the order. She nodded at that, closing the side hatch before slipping back into Shoe’s cockpit. “Will do, a pleasure doing business with you as always.” Roger reached back towards the robot, earning a tiny growl at first as his fingers closed her head hatch back up with a click. To ease the still salt serpent those fingers then went to scratch underneath her chin, the kind gesture helping her calm down a bit after his little prank. “Don’t be strangers now ya hear? See you both soon enough.” Shoebot nodded with a chirp while Wellwire reacted in a similar but hidden way, soon the duo dropping back to the floor to tackle the second half of this mission. Borrower to borrower.

[deadly-dapperling]

Introductions

A/N: This is my contest submission for @welcome-to-junktown​ 

Technically, I began writing this before the contest announcement but that’s what really pushed me to finish it! I don’t typically do a lot of writing so this was a challenge but still a fun exercise!

I want to thank @kelly-clickspring​ @the-little-shoebox​ and @ruthlessamor​ for running the whole junktown scene. Also, @a-sweet-pea​ for their good good g/t stories which largely inspired me to try my hand at writing in the first place. Thanks! 

Without further ado, here’s a first meeting: 

~~~

Stepping lightly, Gemma dashed across the kitchen floor. Her eyes darted around the room, taking in the high counter, cupboards, and shelves that towered above her. The re-purposed scrap furniture gleamed in the early morning light pouring in through high windows.

She focused in again on her next safe point, the halfway marker to the counter, a nook between shelves of dishes. Sprinting to it and darting in, she paused for a moment, collecting herself. She must have been a fool, out borrowing this late in the morning. The sun had already started to rise! It was just that... she had been so focused the previous night. Construction of her aircraft, she had yet to name it, was going well and time had passed her by. It was only after a significant amount of progress that Gemma realized she was hungry... and out of food. She looked out across the floor once, twice, three times, and sprinted to the next area of cover, set back underneath a set of cupboard doors, right before the climb. The woman who ran, and presumably owned, this place would likely be up soon to start the day. From what Gemma had seen and heard, she was not someone to mess around with. She was strict with the bar patrons and worse with her staff, always snapping at them. She was a force few reckoned with and didn't seem the type to forgive and forget. Gemma would make this quick. She just needed enough to tide her over until some patrons arrived later this evening. They'd be drinking and dropping plenty of food on the floors, a much easier meal for Gemma to get her hands on. She glanced at the open kitchen door again before stepping out, hook in hand. She swung it a couple times to gain momentum and with a light *huff* tossed it up to the side of the counter where it stuck. She gave it an experimental tug, making sure it was secured, before starting her ascent. For now she could grab a few breadcrumbs, nuts, maybe some cheese. She would check if the lid on the preserves jar was loose enough to dip into, but that was it. She left the hook and thread hanging where they were, this would be quick, and hurried along the back side of the counter. Jars of spices lined shelves overhead, pots and pans hung above. Gemma had to hand it to the owner woman, she kept things tidy. Finally reaching the bread box, Gemma set to work tying a thread around the front handle. She then climbed up the face of the box, which had conveniently placed grooves, allowing her easy access to the top. From there, Gemma held the other end of the rope and jumped, causing the face of the box to slide open and allowing her full access to the spoils inside. She tied off the thread, keeping the box open. She removed the pack from her shoulders and began filling it with crumbs, munching on a few as she went. Her thoughts drifted back to her work. She had finished the theoretical phase a few months ago and was now looking to test out her theories on a live model. It had taken some time to find a suitable place to work, but this warehouse had plenty of open, unused space and all kinds of metal scraps. Just last week she began construction on the first prototype and it was coming along nicely. A loud *CLICK* broke the silence and the electric lights flickered to life overhead. Suddenly torn from her thoughts, Gemma froze. Slowly, she turned her head. A tall, fierce woman stood in the doorway, looking directly at her. The owner. With little hesitation, Gemma dropped any more potential spoils, slung her pack over her shoulder, and ran. Bolting past the edge of the counter, Gemma barely had time to catch the hanging thread before slamming into the ground, hands burning from the friction. She was up and running again in an instant, dashing along the rows of cabinets. Sure enough, she both heard and felt the woman moving toward her, sending tremors through the ground. A quick over-the-shoulder glance revealed that she was gaining. Gemma ran full tilt for the far wall, her escape route. There was a loose panel and if she hit it with enough force she should be able to - *SMACK*. Gemma ran face first into the bristles of the broom that seemed to materialize in front of her. She hasn't even seen the woman pick it up. She stumbled back but kept her footing. Oh please no. Gemma spun, only to find that between the broom and the unbroken wall of cabinets beside her, she had been cornered. The shadow of a hand loomed over her and Gemma had no time to react before she was snatched up. She tried to claw and bite but found she was being gripped by cold metallic digits. Edges and gears poked at her painfully as the hand hoisted her up into the air. Her stomach dropped and she wondered if she might see her breadcrumb breakfast again this morning. She hit the the counter top with a grunt. Disoriented, she looked around. Before she could even get up, any potential escape routes she might have taken were blocked off by a glass wall slamming down around her, a jar. Of course. With adrenaline still rushing through her system and nowhere to go, Gemma backed up to the glass wall, trembling. This couldn't be how she was gonna go out. She still had so much to do! But at the same time, wasn't she still just a little thief? A pest for humans to rid themselves of without a second thought? She thought of her childhood home, and squeezed her eyes shut. A few moments passed. Why wasn't she dead yet? The sound of a throat clearing broke the silence and a stern voice sounded from above, "Now what do you think you're doing in my kitchen? We ain't even open yet and, I don't know if you know this, but it's customary for folks to pay for their meals." Gemma risked a glance up. The woman towered over her, arms crossed. She glared at Gemma with piercing eyes and raised an eyebrow. "Well, can't ya talk?" Gemma blinked. It took her a moment to find her voice, but after a beat,"Y-yeah!" squeakier than she'd intended, "Of course I can talk!" What was this lady playing at? "Good, then we can have a little chat. Do you have anything to say for yerself?" What? What did she want Gemma to say? Some inspiring last words? "Listen, I'm just trying to get by, it's nothing personal, honest! I-I'll leave! Never bother you again! Just, please don't hurt me." Good one. But Gemma had heard one too many stories about how beans treated those who trespassed, much less who stole. She looked up at the impassive face looming above her, and tried to project a confidence she didn't feel. "Just, let me go." The woman scoffed, "An' supposin' you did leave here, where would you go?" Now that was an odd question. In Gemma's experience, beans wouldn't normally bother themselves with the trivial details of borrowers' lives. Gemma didn't have an answer. "You got another place to be?" prompted the towering woman. "Well... I can... I'll... find a new place! I'll go across town! I've done it before. I'll go and be out of your life forever!" And have to start all over again. The following silence with palpable. The woman's steely gaze was fixed on Gemma, her expression unreadable. "No... no I don't think that'll work. You do still have unpaid transgressions, after all." Gemma felt her heart drop into her stomach. At this point, it was becoming uncomfortably hot in the jar and Gemma almost wished the owner would just end it now and save her the suspense. "But, I understand 'just tryin to get by.' How's about we make a deal?" Now it was Gemma's turn to raise an eyebrow. This bean was being very straightforward with her. Could it be a trick? A joke? She didn't know. Yet, what other option did Gemma have? She swallowed and replied, "Okay. What kind of deal?" "You do somethin’ for me and I let you go." "That... sounds good. What do you want me to do?" The woman nodded her head. "Alright." She thought for a moment, her appraising gaze never leaving Gemma's small form, still trapped in her glass jar prison. "Ah! I got it! My kitchen boy James, that fool'd lose his own head if it wasn't attached to his neck, he dropped one of the back door keys behind the counter last week. I've been meanin’ to get a replacement made but it's a hassle, it is. Any chance you can squeeze on back there and get it? Ya do that for me and I'll consider your past transgressions paid for." ~~~ Gemma could have run. She should have run. But instead, she did what the woman asked. It was easy, really. The key had fallen through the space where the counter met up with the wall. It wasn't ideal, but crawling army-style she was able to locate and retrieve the pesky object. After it was passed up, the woman offered a hand to the borrower. Gemma, not knowing what else to do, scrambled on. She fought to stay standing on the smooth metal surface as she was absentmindedly lifted back up to the countertop, where she waited nervously. The woman took a moment to appraise the key. Then, she fixed her sharp gaze back on Gemma, who jumped. "An now, I suppose you're still gonna be wantin’ food goin’ forward. I don't have any more keys for ya ta get but... how's about you come by an talk with me once a week? I don't go out much and frankly it's tirin’ to deal with the bar crowd all the time. I could use some real smart conversation. What do ya say? You do that for me and I'll give ya free reign of the kitchen, off hours of course." "Wait, you're letting me stay?" Gemma was taken aback. Was that all this lady really wanted? A chat once a week? This was too good to be true. "Listen, like I said, I understand 'just tryin’ to get by'. I got a history, too. Where else are you gonna go?" She had a good point. Making a deal with a bean wouldn't be the craziest thing Gemma planned on doing with her life. Plus, it would be nice to have a permanent place to stay going forward. It would be nigh impossible to move her project once she really got going. And despite how stern the woman in front of her seemed, she had kept her word about the key. If she had wanted to trap the borrower, well, she had already done it. Yet, aside from running face first into a broom, Gemma was largely unharmed. Gemma looked up to meet the imposing woman's gaze. The borrower held out her hand. "Okay then, uh, ma'am, that sounds like a good deal to me." "Please, call me Vira," The woman shifted down and extended a finger out for Gemma to take, "and what about yerself?" "Gemma," the borrower smiled as they shook.

[delafiseaseses]

So, did you know Ian says this when asked about Tandi:

What do you mean, Ian? What home? You have some sort of partner and they’re in some kind of home? Where is this home? Literally none of the locations we visit could be this ‘home’. 

Also... just gonna assume this means Ian must be fairly young, like I don’t think he’s Tandi’s at the time age of 16, but maybe 18-20? 

That’d make sense, honestly. Maybe he left ‘home’ when he was still a teenager to try and make himself some money. Leading him to the Crimson Caravan Guard job that put him in Shady Sands. He’s stayed in Shady Sands for a while, he apparently sometimes goes back to The Hub and Junktown to trade for Shady Sands, he even calls it his ‘home now’ (Ian, what about this other home? Maybe he just said that because it’s his temporary home as he makes money or something)

Maybe if he survives Fallout 1 he heads to this ‘home’ (unless you say the Fallout 2 Manuel story where he’s kiled in Necropolis as the ‘true story’ of Fallout 1... that’d be a shame, but not an unsurprising outcome for a Wastelander).

[stoat-party]

It must be Amateur Hour, because I wrote a Fallout story and I’m making it everyone else’s problem. (Never done this before, so I might breach protocol somehow.)

1400 words; Big For Auld Lang Syne spoilers.

Synopsis: 12-year-old Arcade flees the Brotherhood of Steel.

Darkwater, NCR. 2258.

If Arcade strained his ears, he could detect shouting in the distance. At least his hearing was better than his vision. He tried to slow his breathing to silence, but his pounding heart demanded more oxygen than he was giving it. He closed his eyes.

Cold concrete pressed against his stomach. His hair barely brushed the tented dropsheet, the best shelter available in this garage. He was kicking himself for running into the first building he came across (and therefore the first place they’d look), but the instinct to get out of sight had been too strong. Arcade was smart, but he was only twelve, and until now most of his intelligence had been purely theoretical. Running for his life from the Brotherhood of Steel was a big stretch of his skillset.

The Remnants had thought they’d lost these guys at Junktown. Arcade had been off with Cannibal, trying to scavenge a decent pair of shoes or two. (They didn’t even have to match at this point; Arcade had long since grown out of the ones he had.) Cannibal had caught a glimpse of the hulking figures through his scope, and he ordered Arcade to get to safety while he ran back into the burnt-out forest to warn the others.

So much for those shoes.

He ran the odds in his head of whether he or his family was in more danger. Inconclusive, but it did send his heart racing again, so that was nice.

The garage door thundered open, lifted by its frayed pull-rope. Arcade was going to die. Even better, he’d be captured and forced to give up information about the others. Not ideal.

The intruder’s heavy metal boots thunked across the room. If it were NCR, maybe there’d be some hope that he’d just stick his head in and move on, but that wasn’t how the Brotherhood operated. Their cruelty was more thorough than that. They were trained from birth to be like human robots, taking commands and executing them without any intervening thoughts. This chapter was led by a particularly unpleasant individual, allegedly banished east for being too Steely for the Brotherhood proper. The move couldn’t have come at a less convenient time for the Remnants, but it wasn’t as if there was a good time to cross paths with a group of people dedicated to destroying you.

He would have to fight his way out. Against a trained soldier in power armor. Piece of cake.

Moving achingly slowly, Arcade unholstered his plasma defender. His pulse throbbed in his ears. He slid the gun along the cold floor, not hissing against concrete, but hopefully low enough not to disturb the drop sheet. Then he took aim at the only part of the sheet accessible from the outside without disturbing the array of boxes, paint cans, and ladders that held it aloft. When that edge lifted, he would let loose with a rapid but nearly silent volley of—

The soldier lifted the sheet while Arcade was distracted by his own battle plan.

His finger twitched on the trigger, then stopped. He didn’t mean to, it was just… he hadn’t expected the soldier to be so human. He wore no helmet, exposing his sandy brown hair and unshaven face. His thin lips were parted in surprise. He was probably a little younger than Arcade’s mother, fuzzy at the edges, but close enough not to be obscured by myopia.

The man dropped the sheet and stepped backwards, but Arcade batted it out of his eyes and worked himself to a crouch, never moving the weapon from his enemy’s face. “Don’t.”

“Relax. My hands are up.” They were, indeed, up, but Arcade didn’t find that fact very relaxing. All the quicker to grab the heavy energy rifle from his back.

“I don’t want to have to kill you, but—“

“You don’t,” the man said slowly, gently. “It’s okay.”

“Don’t move.” Arcade’s heart was pounding. He could have shot, if only the man had been wearing his helmet.

“I’m Luke,” he murmured, and Arcade winced. He didn’t think he could kill a person with a name. “Are you the one we saw running through the woods?”

Arcade tried to sound commanding. “I might be. How should I know?”

“Good point.” Luke chuckled under his breath. Arcade didn’t like being less calm than the guy without a gun. “What’s your name?”

“Nobody.”

Luke grinned, a fond tilt to his head. Arcade thought he might have understood the reference, but couldn’t imagine a knight (or was he a paladin?) having a relationship with classical literature. “Are you going to make me stand here with my hands up forever? This conversation isn’t going anywhere.”

On the contrary: if Luke’s friends showed up, it would absolutely go somewhere. “I don’t want to get ash-heaped today, so yes. Yes I am.”

“How long have you been a soldier?”

Arcade furrowed his brows. “About as long as you’ve been chairwoman of the Junktown homeowner’s association.”

Well. The joke didn’t land, but he got his point across. “You just carry that thing for protection, then,” Luke surmised.

“There are a lot of people who want to kill me, you know.” Many of whom were lurking just outside the wide-open metal slat door. “Why, when do Brotherhood members become soldiers?”

Luke’s hands had been slowly relaxing as he got sick of holding them up, and now he folded them in front of him. Arcade didn’t call him on it. “You become a squire at about eight to twelve years old. Then you graduate that and become an initiate, then apprentice, then you can choose whether to be a soldier or a scribe. Is the Enclave anything like that?”

Arcade almost flinched at the word Enclave. It was always spoken in hushed tones, and never among strangers. “I don’t know.” He couldn’t tell if Luke was making conversation, stalling, or fishing for information, but he didn’t have an answer for him regardless. “I don’t have a rank.”

Luke frowned, blinking several times as he digested this information. “We really messed this world up for you kids, huh?” he asked after a few moments.

“Did you?”

“Yeah. You’ll understand that more as you get older.” Arcade was just glad to hear that getting older might be in the cards for him. Luke huffed sharply. “We do what we think needs to be done in the moment, but it all ends up on our children’s heads.”

“I see. Figuratively.”

“Our parents did the same to us and we forgave them. That’s something.”

“Just following orders,” Arcade recited. The soldier’s prayer. He thought of his father, and whatever untimely incident had taken him away from them. Had his last moments been anything like these? Had his conscience been clear?

Luke watched him where he crouched, shins burning, on the concrete. The man’s head was tilted, face tight. Either of them could have killed each other a dozen times over by now. Could have removed the danger and ensured their chances of leaving this building. But hadn’t. “I guess we can only hope—“

He cut himself off as an accompaniment of voices and heavy bootfalls rounded the side of the building. Arcade dropped flat, unable to even squirm back under the tarp before the armored soldiers reached the doorway. It occurred to him briefly that these could be the Remnants, come to their youngest member’s aid, and with Luke standing in their way—

“Paladin Santangelo.”

“There you are, Ramos. Wondered when you’d catch up,” Luke said easily. “Find anything?”

“Scattered like rats,” another voice complained. Arcade closed his eyes with relief.

“This area secure?” Ramos asked.

“I’ve checked it,” said Luke. “Nobody hiding here.”

Arcade’s hand covered his mouth, stoppering a sigh of laughter. Saved by wordplay. He’d tell the others, if he got back to them — and part of him knew, now, that he would — but they wouldn’t understand. The enmity was too raw for them, without the amnesia of early childhood blurring the pain.

That pain wouldn’t deepen today. That was what mattered. It would be a stressful few weeks, trying to shake the Brotherhood off for good, but the Remnants would come through. They always had.

“We ought to get to the checkpoint before dark. We can scan the area on the way.”

“Understood. Moving out.”

The door clattered shut, then all was silent.

[kelly-clickspring]

Started posting some literature again after... forever. If you like it, please let me know, I’m really not sure about posting my work anymore, literature especially.

This is Iggy and Ozzy’s story, from here on I’ll probably be posting new chapters on Fridays. 

[morlock-holmes]

I've also been thinking a lot about how Fallout 1 and 4 use ticking clocks, and particularly how much better Fallout 1 does it.

Like, for those who don't know in Fallout 1 your character comes from Vault 13, which has had no contact with the outside world since the war. Unfortunately, the chip that runs the water purification system breaks, and they can't fix it, so you have to go out into the unexplored wastes to find it.

There's a literal timer; you have a certain number of in-game days before the water in the Vault runs out and you get a game over.

It's a pretty generous timer though, you're unlikely to get a game over from running out of time unless you're actively trying.

The reason I've been thinking about it is because the writing in Fallout 1 puts you much more in your character's shoes. As a player, you know that getting the water chip might mean getting past guards of monsters, and doing quests that are unrelated to finding the water chip might help you in other ways.

So, as a player, you're kind of thinking, "Yeah, doing tasks for the Brotherhood of Steel will take up some time, but if I get power armor out of it that will make it a lot easier to deal with challenges that are more directly related to the water chip."

Which is also what your character would probably be thinking!

Also, as I recall, the trail goes dead cold for a while so you have more of an incentive to just go to random cities and talk to everyone there so there's a little bit of an aspect of, "I mean, as long as I'm here anyway I can take five minutes to solve your problems, sure."

The things you're expected to do as a player line up fairly well with what a character in that situation would choose to do.

In Fallout 4, I don't think there's an actual time limit (not that I want one) but rescuing a child who was kidnapped by insane murderers feels like an "every second counts" kind of crisis, whereas getting a new water chip is the kind of crisis where a week or two more or less doesn't make a huge difference in the overall scheme of things.

In Fallout 4, once you get to Diamond City, from then on you have a series of fairly concrete leads to follow to track down your kid, which makes the side quests feel even weirder to do.

Actually, for that matter, weren't most of the Fallout 1 quests fairly confined? I can definitely think of exceptions (tromping all the way to the Glow to prove yourself to the Brotherhood of Steel) but I feel like a lot of quests in, e.g. Junktown take place in Junktown.

Fallout 4 kind of has you tromp all over the Commonwealth, which isn't a bad thing in abstract, it just kind of clashes with the story a little more. Like, if you're going to spend a couple of days in Junktown asking every random schmoe about water chips, you might as well do a couple other things in Junktown while you're there.

It feels less justified to be like, "Hmm, I found this lead that might be my only hope to find my kidnapped son, and to follow up on it I need to search the building next door. But I did also hear that something vaguely interesting might be happening somewhere in Maine, so Maine it is!"

[gt-adventures]

Madeline's Awakening (WIP, SFW GT snippet)

A junktown ficlet! Backstory for my gal Madeline. (JunkTown is a world belonging to @kelly-clickspring !)

Madeline is a Feral JunkGiant. Or was. She was captured by a extremist cult of humans. They extracted her brain and placed in a mechanical body to be used as a weapon. She was discarded as failure. Her body was then salvaged by borrowers who were at first unaware of the living brain that pilots the mechanical body. They fix her up and become her crew.

Story Warnings: Vague but blatant implications of abuse, exploitation, and violence. (No graphic depictions of anything)

Word Count: 600

---

(Number 13, take position delta)

She rose from her kneeling position and scanned the horizon, sensors sweeping the landscape.

[No Threats Detected]

The human on her shoulder muttered something.

(Repeat: account low light)

[Adjusting Parameters - scanning]

Again she looked, but things looked different. Movement. Far away.

[Threat - JunkGiant- Detected]

She didn't remember much of her life before the testing. Not for lack of trying. She tried often, She tried right now.

[Access Denied: Administrative Privileges Required]

One of the things she could remember was how dull the world was before. And yet how vibrant. Her senses were buzzing. But her surroundings were so plain. People were shouting at her to do things. She did them.

(Ready. Aim and Fire.)

The target was so far away but her eyes adjusted to see it.

[Target Acquired]

Raising her hand there was a BANG and a flash of light.

Praise. She didn’t want this praise. But it felt so good.

What she wanted, though she could not figure out why, was to hurt those giving her orders. They were small and she was so much larger. She was giant. They were human. She could crush them. So easily. She wanted to crush them.

[Action Not Authorized: Administrative Privileges Required]

No! How was she not the administrator? Whatever that meant.

Want to crush them!

[Not Authorized]

Want to crush them!

[Not Authorized]

Want to crush them!

[Not Authorized]

NO! CRUSH THEM NOW.

[N-N-Not Authori-i-iz-ed]

Screaming. It Hurt. She didn’t care.

It stopped. She stopped.

/Another failure./

/You said you fixed the organic override error!/

/Hey! I said I needed more time. But it’s too late now. So sad. She seemed to have a lot of potential. Move her to the scrap yard./

Outside the compound for the first time in a long time.

(Activate Decommission protocol)

[System shutting down]

NO!

[Not Authorized]

NO!

[Not Authorized]

NO!

[Not-

I WILL NOT DIE

[System Processing. Shutdown Aborted]

[Power Low. Sleep Mode Activated]

Sleep sounded really nice. She was so tired.

….

[System Starting Up. Rise and Shine.]

How long had she been asleep?

[Time Since System Active: 43 Days, 13 hours, 27 minutes, and 10 seconds]

There were voices. There were Things. Crawling on her. Crawling IN HER?

[Borrowers]

What are borrowers?

[Accessing Database- Processing. Entry Found. Borrowers: Miniature Humanoid species (add much more. Make it like a paragraph of academic language)]

There was one on the ring finger of her left hand. She lifted it. That was difficult.

Screaming. She ignored it.

Her eyes opened. The world was dark. And then it wasn’t. There it was. Clinging to her finger.

Her thoughts and the strange not her thoughts echoed in her head at the same time

This must be a borrower. [Creature identified: borrower]

---

Everyone said she was nuts! Everyone said she was crazy! Salvage the discarded body of a giant automaton? To pilot around as a house? And yet, she convinced them to help her. It was missing almost an entire leg and much of the torso was gone. Yet it was large enough to have provided shelter while they worked, which meant it was ideal to provide shelter once finished.

And it was time for the first test! To try and power it up.

She stood on the one hand which rested on its bent knee, and gave the signal.

The noise was incredible! Many of the other borrowers covered their ears but not her. The gears, pistons and engines coming to life! A symphony to her ears.

Wait. What was happening? There was a screeching sound of metal against metal.

The hand was lifting! They lost their balance but managed to get a grip on a finger. Everyone around them screamed and scattered!

The hand stopped at the face. The ocular shutters opened with a rapid FFFP. Behind the cracked glass she could see the objective lenses focusing. Focusing on her. Steam hissed from several joints settling.

Did… did it just whisper “borrower”?

[there’s obviously more but this is as far as I got]

[the-chosen-none]

I thought it would be interesting to share with those of you who are really into Killian Darkwater that, according to the Fallout Bible, the original plan for the main Junktown quest was that if you saved Killian you would get a bad ending where he turns Junktown into an authoritarian Wild West town while Gizmo would turn it into a prosperous place, but it was scrapped because execs thought that players should be rewarded for saving someone’s life:

Didja know... in the original write-up of Junktown, the "ending sequence" was reversed from its current incarnation. That is, in the endgame slideshow, if the player had favored Killian, the original write-up was something like "With Gizmo out of the way, Killian enforces his brand of frontier justice on Junktown. The city remains orderly but small, as travelers steer away from his rigid sensibilities," and the picture background behind Killian was a gallows with shadows of dead men hanging from it. If the player favored Gizmo, it was "Under Gizmo's leadership, Junktown becomes a trading center and resort, where people come from miles around to gamble, spend money and enjoy themselves in relative safety. Gizmo keeps the town prosperous but healthy, as he has no desire to injure his own affluence. The inhabitants of the town become wealthy and famous," with the background picture showing Junktown as a Reno-like casino with electricity and clean streets free of any drug dealers or riff-raff who might endanger Gizmo's operations. Marketing decided at the last minute that we had to "reward good and punish bad," though, so the sequence was changed to its current incarnation.

Can be found here.

It seems like this decision to change things around came early enough in development that there doesn’t seem to be any sign of it left in the code like voice files or something, but maybe there’s something floating around in the void, idk.

Personally, I kinda wish they kept this in the final game. Don’t get me wrong, I like Killian in the final product but ya gotta admit, the Junktown quest is surprisingly black and white for a game with a more grey morality thing overall, I mean you’ve got the super mutants who at least have an understandable motive for doing bad things while Gizmo is cartoonishly evil. 

If this were in New Vegas I’m sure you would have to decide between making Junktown into a shanty police state or a capitalist nightmare, or have a third option where you get rid of both of them and put someone else in charge, but you’re not sure if they’re up for the job (and be like a microcosm of the main story of New Vegas which is deciding who gets control of Hoover Dam, how very clever of me, oooOOOooo...)

[self-loving-vampire]

Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game (1997)

The Fallout series is currently kind of a big deal, but to date I think the very first game has the strongest atmosphere out of all of them. From the start, this game did many things right and expanded the way choice and consequence figured into the RPG genre.

I recommend playing it with the Fallout Fixt mod.

Summary

Fallout is, unlike the more modern games in the series, an isometric RPG with turn-based combat and a much heavier inspiration from tabletop roleplaying games.

Rather than using a fantasy setting as is the standard for this type of game, Fallout takes place in a post-apocalyptic world with a retrofuturistic aesthetic and a more mature atmosphere. This automatically made it stand out from the crowd, and then the game’s approach to quest design and character-building solidified its place as a classic.

Freedom

In terms of player freedom, there are few games that manage to even reach the same level as this one.

When designing Fallout, the developers tried to include at least three potential solutions to many of the problems the player may encounter, using the game’s robust character creation system to allow all kinds of characters to have options for how to proceed.

For example, an early quest involves rescuing a girl from a raider gang. Your options include fighting your way in and out of the place, using stealth to sneak to where she is and pick (or blow up) the lock, use your speech skill to intimidate the raider into releasing the her, purchasing her freedom, defeating the raider leader in a one-on-one unarmed fight, or even impersonating the leader’s father for her release.

To be clear, not all quests have quite this many options, but there’s still usually a few, including some that may not be obvious when playing certain kinds of characters.

This famously extends to the end of the game, where it is possible to overcome the final challenge without engaging in combat.

On top of quests having multiple solutions, the world itself is completely open, gated only partially by the fact that certain areas are populated by more powerful monsters (and even then, it is possible to avoid them).

While there’s never enough options and I can think of a couple of places where I wish I could have had different ones (such as during the very last conversation in the game), the game is generally doing a lot of things right on this front, especially for its time.

Many of the game’s factions and settlements also have various different endings depending on the player’s actions.

Character Creation/Customization

This is another aspect of the game that won over many RPG fans. The character creation uses the SPECIAL system, invented for this series following licensing issues with GURPS. 

It is a versatile system with three main components: Your SPECIAL stats (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck), your skills (three of which can be tagged at the start of the game, gaining a bonus and increasing faster), and your traits.

Traits in particular were optional features that would grant your character both a bonus and a penalty. For example, the Fast Shot trait makes some of your attacks faster (consuming less action points) but at the cost of being unable to make targeted shots.

And it does not stop there. Fallout had “Perks” that could be gained every 3 levels, which could grant a variety of rewards, some of them very significant. For example, the Better Criticals perk makes your critical hits more devastating, sometimes even enabling them to become instant-kill attacks regardless of the target’s remaining HP. From what I understand, this perk system may have been the genesis of D&D’s feat system too.

However, the real strength of this character system lies in how the game implements it. Both your stats and your skills will affect what dialogue options you have available and what actions you can successfully take in the game world.

This might sound like it should be the default for any RPG, but you might be surprised to know how many games, even otherwise very good ones, don’t seem to even try to implement something like this. 

Many other games, even today, don’t let you specialize your character in any way outside of combat. All characters have access to all options and your stats don’t affect anything but combat.

It’s not all positive, however. There are some balance issues to be found.

In particular, Intelligence and Agility are overpowered, as is the Gifted trait. There are also many skills, traits, and perks that are of marginal usefulness at best. Skills like Throwing, Traps, or Gambling (for example) just don’t come up very often or provide meaningful advantages over other skills even accounting for the fact that a pretty low gambling skill is enough to gain essentially infinite money.

Story/Setting

This is really the part that draws people to the series in the first place. There’s just not that many post-apocalyptic RPGs out there (Wasteland and UnderRail come to mind).

The story is relatively simple. Nuclear war has largely destroyed civilization, your ancestors survived by hiding in an underground shelter called a Vault, but the water processing chip broke and now you have 150 days to find a replacement before your entire community dies of dehydration.

The search of this replacement has you leave the vault for the first time in your life and explore the wastes, and the many diverse communities that have begun to grow and rebuild in it.

Many mutated creatures inhabit post-nuclear California, and you soon discover an even greater threat in the horizon. However, this is not an RPG about dungeons and monsters. Most of your time will be spent in various settlements, dealing with other humans.

Immersion

Pretty good overall, though still not on the level as some of my other favorites like Ultima 7 or Gothic 2. The game has day/night cycles and a few simple NPC schedules that help add some life to it, but for the most part what carries this aspect is the game’s solid worldbuilding and the relative reactivity of its setting.

One areas that detracts from the game’s immersion somewhat is the limited animations. For example, NPCs don’t actually “sleep” in their beds, they only stand next to them at night.

Some NPCs don’t seem to have schedules at all either, remaining roughly in the same state and location throughout the day.

However on the net I’d say this is still a rather immersive game, especially if you can apply a bit of your imagination to make up for the lack of animations and background details (some more text descriptions of certain locations could have helped here probably).

One place I particularly liked the first time I played was Junktown, as a couple of quests and events there felt very spontaneous to my then-young mind.

Gameplay

As previously explained, there are a variety of non-combat options throughout the game. In particular I really like how the dialogue works, especially when you compare it to the approach taken in Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and even New Vegas.

In the first two Fallout games, you do not get a [Speech] tag pointing to the optimal dialogue options. You have to think for yourself about what the most persuasive thing to say is, and what your skill does is make the option show up at all. If your skill is not high enough then the option will be not only unavailable but hidden.

I prefer this to the game outright telling you that one of your skills is tied to a dialogue option, as in practice it ends up being the same as marking that option as the correct one most of the time.

And then there’s the combat. A lot of people don’t seem to like it, but I actually think it works fine as long as you set the speed to max as the animations are a bit slow by default.

Besides the speed issue (which is easily fixed), the main complaint about the combat is that it is overly simple. This is not entirely wrong, as even though there is a wide variety of weapons to play with there is not actually that much variety in combat actions: Move, attack, targeted attack, open inventory (for healing), and sometimes burst mode make up over 95% of what you will be doing from start to finish.

There are still some tactics involved in positioning yourself and taking cover from enemy fire, as well as making good use of targeted shots to cripple the enemy. However, the fact that you have no manual control over your party members limits this front. Party members in general are both unintelligent and quickly left behind in the base game, as they don’t improve or equip better armor. The mechanics for equipping them are also rather janky.

However, combat does have its positives too. The idea of targeted shots is great, as are the accompanying critical descriptions. The animations and sound effects also make combat extremely satisfying, every hit that lands seems to carry a real weight to it.

There is also some nice variety to the death animations. Where more recent games in the series largely just have people’s body parts explode or instantly transform them into piles of ashes/goo, Fallout 1 and 2 feel like they have much more in this department.

Aesthetics

While the non-combat animations are not too good, there is a lot to like about the general art style of the game, from the architecture to the incredible talking heads various NPCs have.

The atmosphere of the game is also amazing, not only due to the way it looks but also because of the dark and ominous soundtrack (give me this over 50s music any day) that helps make the world feel appropriately desolate and perilous.

Even just the game’s intro shocked a generation and clearly marked Fallout as something dark and different.

However, this game’s atmosphere goes beyond sight and sound. The gameplay helps to heighten it. Combat is very lethal even if not always difficult, and the lack of clear initial directions beyond “Try Vault 15″ also helps the players feel appropriately lost until they find a lead.

The talking heads in particular have aged extremely well. I would say they even look better than a lot of modern RPG graphics.

Accessibility

The same lack of direction I just praised might be off-putting for some, and while the game is mechanically very simple there is no tutorial. This alone can make some modern players fail to understand some of the core mechanics.

The quest log is also rather non-descriptive, so it can be easy to lose track of some details unless one takes some additional notes outside the game.

However, the game’s manual is not only complete and written for people new to RPGs, it’s also quite fun to read. A lot of people these days just don’t seem to think of the manual as something they should look at, but it helps to keep in mind that older games typically require it.

Don’t let the size of it discourage you either. You don’t need to read the whole thing at once and a lot of it is fluff or things you might already know from other games (like how to load or save your game). Just look at the index and see what might be good to know from the start.

Conclusion

It should be no surprise when I say that this is a game entirely worth playing, whether you are an existing fan of the series or not. Like many of the other games that I have reviewed and will review in the future, this one has great historical significance on its own on top of having many positives even when compared to the more modern games in the series, especially in terms of aesthetics.

Furthermore, the game is pretty short. It can easily be completed in about 20 hours or less for a first playthrough, and yet it offers so much more than that due to the many options and replayability it provides.

There is really no other game quite like this. Not even the few other post-apocalyptic RPGs that exist, not even other games in the same series (including Fallout 2). I would call this one of my favorites.