#vbs npc moment

[chiricat]

souma and arata⁉️

[shiraishi--kanade]

Dishonorable mention: Chapter 1 of Burn My Soul VBS disbandment scare, which is, once again, proof that people didn't read the story (and people that did read the story joined in the fun to meme I suppose)

ORS VBS disbandment scare was stupid because people just can't read and didn't pay attention to the story.

LUtF VBS disbandment scare was very, very real, and if weren't there for it you never truly felt fear

[chaosintheavenue]

Fallout Van Buren: The Basics

I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, and entirely too much Van Buren information floating around in my head, so I decided to make a post summarising the main details of the game Van Buren could have been for those who want to know more about it, but would rather not trawl through pages and pages of design documents.

First up, for those that may not know, Van Buren was the codename of what would have become Interplay’s Fallout 3, had it not been cancelled during development. All that has ever been released is a tech demo with glitches galore and no direct relation to the intended plotline, some concept art, and a bunch of incomplete design documents.

Please note that, as a lot of planned content was scrapped even before the game itself was, some artistic interpretation is necessary to make the storyline flow, so some parts of my summary are my own personal takes on stuff.

(Warning: this is pretty long. Also, be aware that the New Plague gets involved in Van Buren a lot more than it did in any published games, so proceed with caution if you’re trying to avoid that sort of thing)

Plot overview:

The player character would start the game, in full Bethesda style, as a prisoner in an NCR prison. Choosing the crimes that had led to their imprisonment, and whether they were innocent or guilty of them in reality, was likely going to be part of the character creation and skill selection process.

At the start of the game, the Prisoner would wake up one day in a new cell in the automated, robot-managed Tibbets Prison. This prison was under attack by a group of rogue NCR soldiers led by a very skilled, but also very evil, scientist called Victor Presper. Many of the robot guards were damaged and weakened by this attack, and in the confusion some prisoners, obviously including the player, would have escaped.

Once away from the prison, the Prisoner was free to explore the map looking for more information on this Victor Presper, and would most likely end up wandering from place to place and completing a bunch of side quests for people they met along the way, as most Fallout protagonists do. More info is given on some of the locations they might have travelled to below!

At some point, the Prisoner would become aware that a large robot was pursuing them. This robot was ARGOS, controlled by the AI running Tibbets (ODYSSEUS), and its mission was to retrieve and recapture the escaped prisoners. If ARGOS did capture the player at any point, it would return them to their cell. Their original, still-damaged cell, which they could immediately escape from again. Yeah, nice work, ARGOS and ODYSSEUS…

Over time, the player would start to notice that the NPCs in locations they were visiting were becoming ill, and many would die. Somehow (it’s never specified how), it would be revealed that Tibbets was not just any prison, but a quarantine prison, and that all inmates- the player character included- were carriers of the New Plague, and had been spreading it to every location they visited on their travels.

(Quick lore break here: if you’re unfamiliar with the New Plague, its Wiki page is here, and you can find previous posts of mine about it here and here. Warning for detailed descriptions of illness, blood, death mentions, and parallels with current circumstances in all of these links!)

From here, the Prisoner had to round up the other escaped prisoners and return them to the facility to prevent further outbreaks- either by convincing them to return by various means, killing them and dragging their bodies back, or alerting ARGOS to their locations. Along the way, clues would appear that Presper was behind the whole fiasco, and was still working at odds with the player’s aims (as one design doc succinctly puts it, ‘that bastard is up to something’).

The overall main aims of the Prisoner (well, a Good Karma one, at least) would be:

To stop Presper

To cure the New Plague

To establish trade routes between settlements, likely involving getting the old trains network and running again. Of course, if done too early in the game, this would speed up the spread of the Plague…

Eventually, the Prisoner would find and confront Presper in space, on board a pre-war ballistic orbital missile base (aptly named B.O.M.B.-001), which still contained live nuclear warheads and had been activated by ODYSSEUS once the New Plague started to spread again. Presper’s plan right from the start was to activate this orbital base, then use its missiles to ‘clean the slate’ of the wasteland, so to speak, then start over with his own vision of humanity. The ending would have involved the Prisoner either launching the warheads at settlements they’d visited during the game, or blowing up the satellite with themselves on board to spare the wasteland.

Locations:

Boulder Dome- a pre-war science facility in Boulder, Colorado. Has a lot of New Plague information, making it a very useful location for more scientific Prisoners to work on a cure. Also contains a handful of environmental suit-wearing scientists who spend their days completing maintenance tasks to keep the Dome in working order, waiting in decontamination tunnels, and usually being generally mistrustful of one another. Yes, this is definitely Fallout, not Among Us!

Burham Springs- a former mining town in Utah that has been permanently burning for years. Home to the Gehennas, who will make an appearance below

Denver or Dog Town- a city of dogs. Let me repeat myself, a city of dogs

Hoover Dam- was going to be a large settlement, nothing at all like the version in New Vegas

New Canaan- a town of Mormons on the Great Salt Lake, as mentioned in New Vegas. Wouldn’t have had much significance in the overarching Plague plot as far as I can tell, but it takes a more central role in my own tweaked OC storyline because I saw an opportunity to tie VB and NV together through its characters. This location was cut during development and replaced with a smaller settlement called Jericho, but the mentions of New Canaan and complete silence on Jericho in NV mean that the New Canaan information is generally considered to be ‘more canon’

The Nursery- a pre-war facility that’s essentially a contained nature reserve to the extreme. There are lush green trees, clean water, and pre-war animals here. Also, the famous Harold would have made an appearance

Reservation- formerly Los Alamos (a real-life nuclear testing facility). Now a ghoul settlement, and also intensely radioactive. Almost a combination of the Glow and Necropolis or Underworld

This was just a brief summary of my personal favourites, but there are many more locations too!

Some of my favourite pieces of concept art:

(All taken from the Fallout Wiki)

Boulder Dome!

Gehennas!

Hoover Dam!

Reservation entrance!

-

I feel like this post wasn’t the most coherent, so if I made no sense or you want to hear about the planned storyline, locations, and companions in more detail, I strongly recommend Retcon Raider’s series on YouTube!

You’re also very welcome to ask or chat to me about any aspect fsghgf! That said, there are some areas of the lore I know a lot about (namely, the main storyline, the Boulder Dome, New Canaan, and anything remotely tied in with the New Plague stuff), and others that I��m not as familiar with just yet, so I’m not exactly an ever-flowing fountain of VB knowledge lol.

[altcvnningham]

1, 3, 5, 15, 18 and 20 😳😳😳😳

thank you for the ask!!! (also superior url omg 👁👄👁🤲🏻)

also my answers here are suuuuper long, because i’m a rambling idiot who’s way too involved in my OC’s. so uhhhh sorry in advance,,,,,

1. what radio station(s) do you listen to?

Vana’s a Samurai stan. She wishes she wasn’t. But, y’know, Morro Rock it is. Once upon a time when she was an even angrier teen, though, she’d listen to shit just like Ritual FM.

(My music taste is all over the place, and though blues is technically my fav bc i love old music, i never listen to it in 2077. So I switch between Body Heat, the Dirge, Vexelstrom for like 2 songs, and ofc, Morro Rock. But of all stations, there’s at least one song that i HATE so I can never stick to one for a whole ride sknsksjsjs)

i think i got the names right?? Idk yall i dont have it in front of me ndndndndhjs

3. how did you feel about Johnny that first night in the apartment, and how does it differ from what you feel now after everything?

so i’m gonna cut a read-more here because i decided to just lore dump Vana x Johnny here so uhhhhhh rip also //SPOILERS//

Vana is an extremely, seriously private, guarded person. Before Johnny, Panam, Kerry- Jackie was the only person she’d ever truly let near her, to get to know her. So obviously waking up to someone else living inside her fucking head was one of the worst things that’s ever happened to her. Her past is also something she’s not particularly proud of, so Johnny getting to witness all that is traumatising. Getting Johnny out of her head was priority number one, even if digging the chip out would kill her.

But after getting fucked over by the VBs, and both of them thinking she was gonna die, Johnny takes her to that abandoned hotel in Pacifica- it’s the first time he’s given her even a sliver of kindness, and the first time she’s ever openly expressed her fears to him, even if he could already sense them before. Oaths and promises are something she holds to incredibly high importance, so obviously when Johnny gives her his dog-tags, ‘proof of my promise’, she never, ever lets them go, never takes them off. (she still doesn’t. they keep her grounded. holding them to calm herself has become a reflex, for whatever reason.)

Everything just seemed to slowly change after that. For two people who hate vulnerability, it’s the only thing that helped them actually see each other. As the Relic continues to take over, they both understand each other more, feel each other more- and eventually it becomes hard to discern where Vana ends and Johnny begins. In cliché Johnny x V fashion like yeah duh it goes further,,,, cockwhore!Vana,,,,,, but with that they also start to become extremely possessive and jealous over one another- Johnny immediately on the defensive about whoever comes close to her, Vana selfishly hiding and keeping Johnny’s existence to herself, even if it slows the hunt for a remedy to the chip- to the point of seriously toxic co-dependency. It’s full of volatile ups-and-downs, fights and make-ups, and Vana almost comes to like the fact that she never has to explain nor hide what thoughts and feelings pass through her mind, no matter how dark or vulnerable. She prefers most things to remain unsaid, but values the fact that they both have a clear, transparent understanding of each other regardless.

But there's also... softer moments. When Johnny puts aside his ego for once, he learns to like the quiet that Vana does, brief as it can be sometimes. He'll sort of just... stay around the room, even if just to procrastinate retreating back into her head, because they realise they like each other's silent, wordless company. He'll wake her up from nightmares, hold her neck and kiss her back to sleep, or until the sun comes up, if she can't. It's all tender things they often pretend doesn't even happen, out of pride, I think, but they both know deep down that those are really the best parts.

Comes to a place where she suddenly hits a wall, and realises, I don’t want him to leave.

She’s never the same again after Mikoshi.

(But uhh anyway fuck V I’m horny on main for Keanu so i was here for the whole riiiiiide yeeeeeee)

5. how do your loved ones (LI, found family, etc) feel about you being a merc? or if you’ve given up the life now that everything’s finished, what was their reaction?

Vana grew up in a rich corp family, and after all the shit she’s endured just to appease her father, don’t think anyone could hate corps more than she does (some details of her past here!!) So when Arasaka kicks her out and Jackie finally convinces her to start merc work, it’s amazing how quickly she slips into the role, almost like she was made for it- an anonymous face within the city, free to roam and drift as she wants, relying on herself and herself only.

Vana works quickly and quietly enough (though not at all with clean hands), relying on stealth and netrunning, so she doesn’t cause too much of a noise that’d have her loved ones (rare as they are) all too concerned. Judy isn’t scared Vana’d be caught in gunfire, because when Vana works, her targets rarely know she’s even there. She’s smart, cunning. Panam appreciates that these skills have helped her out, so she can’t complain. River- who is unfortunately more fond of Vana than she is of him, given that she’s not too comfortable at accepting affection- isn’t too happy about the life she leads, but hey, it’s her skills as a merc and as one of NC’s most adept netrunners that he even stood a chance of finding Randy as quick as he did, so he feels indebted to her for that. Kerry thinks it’s fuckin awesome that she gets to do as she wants and provides for herself, bestieeees

Given she isn’t all that close with many people- keeping her distance and all- the only people who seriously worry about her are folks like Vik, Misty, and Mama Welles, especially the latter two, who knew how much Jackie meant to her, and how easily she cracks under the weight of grief. The only thing, really, that concerns everybody around her, is how insatiable her bloodlust becomes, and how much she'd throw away just to try and quell it.

Johnny’s just in it for the ride. Rather she work for herself than a filthy corp, anyway.

After Mikoshi, losing Johnny, making it to the major leagues, she fuckin... just doesn't care anymore. She hates the big glass house that was practically forced onto her (reminds her too much of her stifling corp childhood), she hates that she has 20 cars that clog up her garage and not just her trusty red Yaiba Kusanagi, hates that folks keep giving her all this shiny golden shit that she doesn't want, like any of it's worth a damn. Since then she's hardly in one place- never at home if she can help it, and either wanders aimlessly around the streets and crashes over at Kerry's to sleep through grief. It isn't the merc life she wants to leave, but major leagues turned out to be a glittering pile of dogshit she wants no part in. She only really stays there because Jackie would've wanted it.

(i’m a lazy bitch like i don’t wanna be a merc. i wanna be one of those cute npc’s with the glowy earrings and bunny backpacks and skimpy plastic skirts, who picks up noodles on the way home to go watch watson whore. in my ideal life i am NOT the main character snnsmsnsks)

15. which NPC is your bff?

Kerry. Kerry is Vana’s ride or die. No fucking questions asked. Kerry’s the only person (besides Johnny, i guess) as close to her as Jackie was. He’s really the only person that ever gets her to smile, like really, stupidly, goofily smile, and despite being almost complete opposites, they just understand each other so well. Whenever they need something, they're the first person they'll call. Happens so often that just as Vana sifts through her contacts to find his, Kerry's already calling for her first. They're practically joint at the hip.

They both live loud, fast lives, but also know how to make time for silence and introspection, something they both need to stay grounded. Vana doesn't buy into his zen-wellness-yoga crap, but sure, she tries copying a couple moves while he's doing it on a lazy afternoon, before scoffing how this is fuckin' dumb and retreats back to the couch. Also, as much as she hates being reminded of the wealth that came with her corpo upbringing, she loves using up all his expensive products, and tends to klep a bottle of his shampoo when she runs out. Cute how she thinks he doesn't notice.

After what happened in Mikoshi, she practically lives at Kerry's place, just dozing away miserably as he lounges by the pool, or curl up on the couch to mindlessly watch his old Samurai tapes (he doesn't like it much, but if it helps her through whatever shit she's going through, he's not gonna take that away from her). On better days, when she actually pulls herself out of bed, he teaches her to play guitar, slipping in a couple tricks Johnny taught him. Funnily enough, the whole thing helps him find some closure too.

( me,, I need a girl like Panam in my life to endorse all of my stupid ideas )

18. what’s your dream cyberware (either something that was shown in lore that wasn’t available in game or mental creation of your own)?

I don’t have access to the tabletop lore stuff rn so i’m gonna pull this out my ass jsjsns

Anything that helps Vana become more deadly at stealth and netrunning. The most eddies she’s ever blown are on increasingly powerful cyberdecks, cooling systems, netrunning gear she can comfortably slip on under a jacket and boots- she likes convenience and functionality, but she needs it to be comfortable, too. She’d fucking kill for anything that lets her scale silently up walls and across ceilings, though- like a spider- and anything that lets her get her hands reeeeal bloody, but quietly. Guess that’s just called a knife, though.

(Me?? Fuck uhhh man i just want synth-skin that looks normal but also shimmers all pink n cute. Literally wanna be an edward cullen sparkly lookin mf. Also, i’m sorry but scanning shit w Kiroshi’s are so dope that’s literally all i want?? Idk i’m boring and mantis blades freak me out uhh)

20. is there anyone you’re crushing on that’s unavailable? (yes this is the “what romance option(s) are you foaming at the mouth for” question)

Answered here :)

(And i’ll say it again, PLACIIIIIIIDE,)