Ideas for new Fallout threats
- Thread starter The Dutch Ghost
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Atomic Postman
Vault Archives Overseer
That'd be Victor Presper
Here's a new threat... FEV Corona Virus! 
I'll take him
I personally do not see Presper as "chaotically evil".
He is an extremist however, believing that the goal he strives for justifies the means.
One thing I personally would like to have made different about Presper's motivations was that Presper was not trying to pursue a goal similar to that of the Enclave; cleanse the world from its mutant filth so that it can be repopulated by "pure" humans.
Rather Presper in my take feels that too many bad ideas have survived the war or have arisen since the war and have taken hold of the world.
The world may have been reset but it has become just as divided again as it was before the war. The one main government that seeks to bring order and civilization collapsing because of its own corruption and too much self interest of its leaders.
And Presper feels that it is the same for the other major "nations". None of them have an answer or vision that will truly bring people together.
Hence why he feels that the world will need to be "reset" again, but this time having the right people at his side (put in the dome) to lead once the smoke clears.
Edit: I realize that this makes him sound like Ulysses.
Presper would be a competent done version on that character concept. He actually has a plan and a vision and doesn't just talk about symbols.
He is an extremist however, believing that the goal he strives for justifies the means.
One thing I personally would like to have made different about Presper's motivations was that Presper was not trying to pursue a goal similar to that of the Enclave; cleanse the world from its mutant filth so that it can be repopulated by "pure" humans.
Rather Presper in my take feels that too many bad ideas have survived the war or have arisen since the war and have taken hold of the world.
The world may have been reset but it has become just as divided again as it was before the war. The one main government that seeks to bring order and civilization collapsing because of its own corruption and too much self interest of its leaders.
And Presper feels that it is the same for the other major "nations". None of them have an answer or vision that will truly bring people together.
Hence why he feels that the world will need to be "reset" again, but this time having the right people at his side (put in the dome) to lead once the smoke clears.
Edit: I realize that this makes him sound like Ulysses.
Presper would be a competent done version on that character concept. He actually has a plan and a vision and doesn't just talk about symbols.
Atomic Postman
Vault Archives Overseer
I think Elijah and Ulysses are both versions of Presper that completely outdo the original
I don't know. I still would have liked to have seen Van Buren so I could compare Presper with Elijah and Ulysses.
But Obsidian did indeed bring the concept of this type of extremism back in FNV.
Atomic Postman
Vault Archives Overseer
At the very least, Presper being ex-Brotherhood is way more interesting and sensical than ex-NCR. Elijah's motivation is literally the same but more interesting. "Wipe the slate clean"
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
I thought Presper's deal was that he was a frozen pre-war scientist from Boulder Dome, and he explored the Four Corners before ultimately joining the NCR. This played a role similar to Ulysses's travels where he got a view of different societies but from his more objective pre-War viewpoint. He joined NCR only to realize it was deficient, so he then resolves to wipe the slate clean.
Presper's background went through several revisions.
Originally he was suppose to be the pre-war president's scientific advisor, explaining why he knew about various super weapons across the US, and he went into hibernation at the dome days before the bombing.
After awakening in the dome Presper went out into the world to determine the state of civilization and he determined that civilization was not recuperating as well as it should be.
Unknown to Presper was that he was actually a carrier of Limit 115 and after he awoke and he started to travel around he infected communities.
Most likely this triggered ODYSSEUS to activate and capture Presper and his NCR allies Coldridge and his soldiers and lock them up in Tibbet's as well as anyone else who got infected.
Coldridge's remaining free men busted Presper, Coldrige, but also everyone else out of the prison, unleashing a new threat in the wasteland.
Presper was then revised as a NCR scientist who discovered the dome during an expedition to the East, learned about ODYSSEUS, BOMB001, and Limit 115 and because he was witnessing the NCR dying because of internal corruption while its enemies wear tearing at it he decided to reset the slate.
But as he could not hack ODYSSEUS and make it activate BOMB001 he had to use ODYSSEUS' quarantine protocol to contain an outbreak of Limit 115 to activate the station and other missile sites.
For no clear reason Presper decided to infect himself, Coldridge, and other NCR army followers with the New Plague in order to get into Tibbet's (because he wanted to "talk" to ODYSSEUS?)
Coldridge's remaining free men then busted out Presper, Coldridge and the others in order to make Limit 115 spread through the region to the point that ODYSSEUS could no longer contain the threat by just locking up the infected, and instead started to send activation codes to BOMB001 and other missile sites to "warm up" their missiles to purge the infected area.
Presper as a pre-war scientist would work for me, I would then put him on the same level as Elijah.
Presper as a NCR scientist would also work for me, he would then have a more personal involvement or connection with the NCR, seeing it fail while other major powers in the wasteland are not doing any better effort at rebuilding the world.
The BOS in general don't work really well for me as empire builders, though that makes Elijah's frustration only more understandable.
He is a man who seeks to push things forwards and he is part of a group that is conservative in its ways and ideology, adhering to a codex that is decades out of date, and still expecting everyone outside their own group to just die off.
Instead it is they themselves who are doing the slow dying off.
Atomic Postman
Vault Archives Overseer
In one version yes but I believe there were also drafts where he originates from NCR.
I just find Elijah as a one man representation of the Brotherhood's zealotry and his desire to wipe the slate clean not being an Enclave retread but rather an extension of his neurotic madness and wanting to be able to obsess over technology undisturbed. Far weirder and more interesting
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Bit of a necro but it's something I've thought a lot about since this thread; the fundamental threat or conflict in Fallout should not be faction based or ideologically based, at least not in the way that it was in New Vegas. The factional/"high ideology" based threat was something very fundamental to New Vegas. That WAS it's threat, not just the factions as specifically constituted, but factions and 'high ideology' in a more general sense. But I feel like since it was done so well in New Vegas, a lot of people (including Bethesda to disastrous results if Fallout 4 is anything to go on) seem to think that at the core of all Fallout settings should be ideology. This is the exceptional case, factions should in most settings be background - substantive, related to the main plot thematically and substantively, but not at its center.
Could you elaborate a bit.
My mind is being slow again.
My mind is being slow again.
Atomic Postman
Vault Archives Overseer
I believe he means that Fallout games being based around factional conflict is an exception to the rule with Vegas rather than how it should be as standard. Fallout 2 had factional conflict but it was a background element.
Same thing I've done in my Van Buren Worldbook. Hecate and Legion are a background factional conflict but Uncle Sam/COLOSSUS/BULLMOOSE is the real threat.
Never thought of it like that but I agree for sure. Fallout 4 felt really weak. But it would have probably helped the game to not have shallow ass factions be the potential antagonist.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
I think Atomic Postman's summation got it. In fallout 1 and 2, the central threat isn't really about conflict between groups - of course tha antagonists in Fallout 1 and 2 are both groups of people with an ideology that drives them to do what they do, but importantly the plot of the game isn't about battling these groups for power. In Fallout 1, the burghers of the Hub aren't lobbying you to destroy the Master to expand their trade routes.
In Fallout 2 you don't fight the Enclave for the glory of New Reno. These threats stand on their own, only somewhat related to the rest of the world. Instead, they're about the emergence of different aspects of the Old World: fthe Unity is the return of a specific technology, the Enclave is the last sliver of the shattered American psychosis trying to reassert itself... and NV is about the return of IDEOLOGIES, or Politics, as a force that can martial a ton of people and throw two distinct groups of people at each other. But that is the unique old world threat of New Vegas - using it again as the main driving force of the plot is sort of like using FEV Super Mutant armies or the Enclave again as the main plot.
Does that make more sense?
Obviously Fallout 4 is beyond saving in a lot of ways, but yeah I think the fact that practically all of the fans played Fallout 3 and Fallout NV, saw that NV was obviously better, contributed to this. It made them think what a Fallout game should be is centered around factions fighting each other, but without direct experience of the first two games they didn't realize that NV's plot is just a specific example of the general pattern of threats: the return of something from the Old World.
Ah, I get it.
That was also sort of my own mindset when I wanted to come up with new ideas for Fallout threats.
But when FNV came along, it seemed that people preferred the idea of ideological conflicts between various government style factions, hence why I also started to think more about such situations.
Personally I do not mind mystery factions or antagonists on the background, that have some presence and influence in the wasteland (the player learning about them here and there, but always a step behind the antagonist(s) )
But coming up with a new mystery threat that is well developed is not easy.
Like Black Isle studio wanted to do, it might be interesting if the opponent the player faces is basically another player character with his or her own band of adventurers and their allies.
I remember years ago discussing that with Surf Solar for his Fallout mod.
The player was actually dealing with what in another game would have been the adventurer's party
In this case a group of Vault Dwellers.
You had the leader; basically the Vault Dweller, Chosen One, or Courier. The most capable member on the team, though other members can excel over him in one or two areas.
The lancer or female team member; the second most all round competent character and possibly the love interest of the leader
The tank dude: basically the silent strong type. He punches hard, takes a lot of punishment, and can yield the heaviest weapons without need of boosters. He has a relationship with the female team member, but no lover. More like good friends or the tank guy seeing the female character as someone he needs to protect.
The smarty-pants; the uber nerd of the team. Anything biologically or technologically including medicine and computers, he is your man. Possibly the smartest member the team, but more theoretical oriented than physically.
The slick; the shadiest character of the team. A swindler or grifter type. Where as the others may be repelled or neutral towards the anarchy of the wasteland, this guy loves it. This is the type of environment he can thrive in and make his own rules.
He is mostly along for the ride because the leader or the Vault Overseer back home holds something over him, or perhaps he owns the leader a debt.
But once that chain is gone, he is outta here.
This BTW, is why I would have wanted that Lonesome Road was set after the Second Battle for Hoover Dam.
After the player has decided which faction to support during the battle, and the battle has been won, the player is contacted through ED-E, Ulysses, the courier the player has been learning about during the main game and the first three DLCs, has finally decided to appear out of nowhere to challenge the player's choices for the future of the Mojave.
Failure to do so and Ulysses will 'reset' the South West.
If the player wants to challenge Ulysses, he better come to the Divide. Oh, and he best bring ED-E along.
The player does not actually know that Ulysses is actually after ED-E, it containing the launch codes Ulysses needs to activate the Divide's missiles silos.
If the player stayed away from the Divide, Ulysses' threats would have been idle.
Ulysses would have been the game's true final bad guy, but like in the DLC one that is redeemable.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Yeah, this used to be my inclination too. New Vegas does make a very compelling case for it, but I think ultimately the desire to make that at the center of every Fallout game is misguided. Fallout 3, for instance, would not really have been fixed if you could join the Enclave even though that's what the bulk of the fanbase seems to think. But the way to go for me is secret threats of Old World provenance, with open factions with direct conflicts as icing on top.
Really I think there's a lot of things that were done well in New Vegas, that now most people think Fallout is all about - largely because most people have only played 3, NV, and 4, so NV is naturally the model to conform to.
Would probably work better in a PnP setting than a video game, since video game "parties" of followers tend not to conform as neatly as player parties to these sorts of archetypes. But this is a really cool concept, a "Bizarro Party" as the main antagonist, I like this a lot. Takes the Ulysses stuff to another level, with the added benefit of making it seem a little less outlandish in-universe. What was this mod?
Also, just on the topic of the kinds of Old-World threats, a party of Vault Dwellers is a really really good one. Sort of similar to the Enclave, but I think distinct and interesting enough.
Though if it's after the main story isn't the threat a little moot? Even if he nukes Long 15, the NCR doesn't need to imminently supply a war effort, they have time to use and find other routes, even if they're less efficient.
That is delusional.
Fallout 3 fans always have had this weird boner for the Enclave.
They are honestly not that interesting.
Also, the Enclave is not the legitimate successor of the US government. They're the descendants of the old leaderhip and the military industrial complex.
And the US was a republic, in which positions of leadership was not gained through succession
So they are going to milk that out now.
It was meant to be a Fallout 2 total conversion.
One of the major changes was that the player would not have a Pipboy, having been born outside a Vault.
Surf Solar's mod would have been set a few decades after the nuclear war, with most of the US still being in chaos.
There would have been a group in Detroit, trying to organize a new government, and re-establishing industry.
The Vault Dwellers came from a Vault who's occupants were under the assumption that they were the sole survivors in the area, most of the population having been killed after Michigan got hit hard by Chinese ICBMs because of the war material production going on here, as well as playing an important part in the invasion and annexation of Canada (yeah there would also be some Canadian militias or bandits around who wanted to get even with their southern neighbors)
When the Vault Dwellers opened the Vault Doors and discovered that there was a significant population of survivors they were really surprised.
But they also found out that the land was still severally contaminated to the point that colonizing the surface might be difficult.
From old recovered records the Vault Dwellers learned that the US space agency had been working on a project to colonize Mars and turn it into a habitable planet with a breathable atmosphere.
Believing the technology, a combination of machinery and genetic engineered organisms could perhaps be used to make Michigan suitable for colonization, and getting rid of the anarchists, the Vault Dweller party set out to recover the terraforming tech, and form local alliances to get access to resources and tech to build the terraformer tower that is needed for the process.
(think the atmospheric processor from Aliens)
The player would accidentally have been infected by the terraformer organisms when a dispersal pod detonated close by.
As a result the the player had become infected, and would die unless he or she managed to find a working auto doc in time.
There would be one in a secret EPA environmental monitoring station, but the player would have to look for it.
Once in the station, and after being treated, the player checks out the equipment that is still monitoring environmental conditions, and discovers that over the last couple of months they have been drastically changing.
The computer gives an estimation scenario that if these changes continues, that anyone without protection outside is going to die in so many months.
So the player needs to find out what is causing these environmental changes, and in the process learns that it is connected to the player's infection in the first place.
Well in this take Ulysses would nuke California, Arizona, the Mojave, or all three.
Its not about cutting off a supply route, it is about wiping out the side the player choose.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
It comes down to "It's a cool aesthetic" it seems. But yeah, the faction itself was underwritten and a poor choice for a main antagonist, just being able to join it wouldn't fix anything
I don't follow.
How would PIP-Boy UI aspects be handled? Just normal menus without justification, I guess.
I think I remember you alluding to the terraforming concept in the past, but this is really fantastic for a lot of reasons. They way it actually gives some meaning to the Enclave space colonization plotline makes me feel like it could have been the plotline to a Black Isle Fallout 4 (which is always something I've wondered about). Like it's a sympathetic antagonist with understandable motives, firmly grounded in the Old World. And it makes really good use of the "Party of protagonists" antagonist. It's a shame that mod didn't get off the ground, but that's mods for you.