New Vegas is at it's core a game about being a kingmaker. But how does it effect the all important character development of the Courier to NOT make themselves King of Vegas?
I specifcally ask, because I'm writing a fanfic, and my Courier is very old. She passes herself off as a Ghoul who's had enough plastic surgery to look human (which is a real thing in this story). But considering she has an extensive past in the region, been on lots of adventures (which is kinda canon considering the Courier was a big deal enough to attract settlers to the Divide half a decade previously), the question becomes, why has everything comes to New Vegas' plotline? Why are the fiends running rampant, why haven't she put a stop to Black Mountain or helped Marcus when it counted?
My character, certainly with the mods I play with, has long had the capacity to be a warlord in her own right even without House's Securitrons. She's been everywhere, salvaged power armor, reprogrammed bots in old bunkers for Caesar's Legion. And she's not a warlord, because she doesn't want to. At the beginning of the story, she doesn't feel that the old should dominate the young, that it's not her place to try and set everything right like some overbearing, control freak grandmother. Besides, she saw what happened in the pre-war when rich, power hungry old people turned the US into a totalitarian nightmare simply to secure their grip on power until the day they died, and she doesn't want to be that.
But it seems in that case, the only course of character development for her, is to go Independent, to decide that she has the power, and it's OK for her to use it. She may not care for governments, but someone has to rule so why not her? Siding with either House or NCR feels like a cop out from a narrative perspective.
So, when you have your Couriers help someone else win, what are your justifications? What are good reasons not to assume the throne, despite having a demigod for a character with more experience under their belt than a whole team of SEALS?
I specifcally ask, because I'm writing a fanfic, and my Courier is very old. She passes herself off as a Ghoul who's had enough plastic surgery to look human (which is a real thing in this story). But considering she has an extensive past in the region, been on lots of adventures (which is kinda canon considering the Courier was a big deal enough to attract settlers to the Divide half a decade previously), the question becomes, why has everything comes to New Vegas' plotline? Why are the fiends running rampant, why haven't she put a stop to Black Mountain or helped Marcus when it counted?
My character, certainly with the mods I play with, has long had the capacity to be a warlord in her own right even without House's Securitrons. She's been everywhere, salvaged power armor, reprogrammed bots in old bunkers for Caesar's Legion. And she's not a warlord, because she doesn't want to. At the beginning of the story, she doesn't feel that the old should dominate the young, that it's not her place to try and set everything right like some overbearing, control freak grandmother. Besides, she saw what happened in the pre-war when rich, power hungry old people turned the US into a totalitarian nightmare simply to secure their grip on power until the day they died, and she doesn't want to be that.
But it seems in that case, the only course of character development for her, is to go Independent, to decide that she has the power, and it's OK for her to use it. She may not care for governments, but someone has to rule so why not her? Siding with either House or NCR feels like a cop out from a narrative perspective.
So, when you have your Couriers help someone else win, what are your justifications? What are good reasons not to assume the throne, despite having a demigod for a character with more experience under their belt than a whole team of SEALS?
