Van Buren main plot and the missing doc #13

[Ausir]

(I edited my previous post with additional info)

Anyway, the disease that the tree developed was probably entirely unrelated to Limit 115 (in fact, it *can't* be Limit 115 considering the rest of the story). If it were Limit 115, Diana probably wouldn't let Harold into Nursery, just like she does with the Prisoner, especially that Diana doesn't start working on a cure to Limit 115 until she gets data from Boulder ZAX and doesn't find it until after the game ends.

As for Limit 115/New Plague, as far as I know they're the same thing. It's just that Limit 115 was the codename under which it was developed at Boulder while New Plague is the public name it was given when it leaked out and started spreading across the US.

 

[Kan-Kerai]

Yeah, the unrelated disease hypothesis does make sense. Diana would tend to have a cure, being in a giant arboretum/wildlife preserve and all. It just seems kind of convenient, though Harold does have a history of that sort of thing.

A bit of explanation for my thought process:
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At first I figured that the tree was infected with Limit, but Harold's immune system (and the Tree) were able to keep it down at a low enough level that they weren't readily communicable.

I based that extrapolation upon the effects of the Nutrient Paste on the Plague. In combination with a guess that since Harold wasn't directly exposed to FEV (i.e. dipped), maybe he wasn't entirely immune to Limit.

Wrong, though.
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Then I had a brainwave: What if the "New Plague" were a mutation of Limit-115, which would explain why Harold didn't die quickly. His FEV-boosted immune system allowed him to fight it off to an extent because of its similarity to Limit, but not completely.

However, that wouldn't explain why Diana would let him into the Nursery, and it wouldn't explain how she could have a cure before she ever invented it.

So I scrapped the idea of Harold being infected, but not the general mutation concept.
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So there's the conclusion that yeah, it most likely was an unrelated illness Harold's tree was affected by and that Diana was able to cure, though for some reason I find that kind of disappointing. I guess I was looking for a deeper connection to the plague theme, even though that makes no sense. As you pointed out.

It actually does reinforce something was saying earlier, though. Harold's a Deus Ex Machina (classic definition) to a literal Deus Ex Machina (Diana for Twin Mothers). Chalk up another addition to Van Buren's considerable roster of thematic irony.
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As for Limit 115/New Plague, as far as I know they're the same thing.

It seems the nickname "The Blue Flu" is valid as well. I'd wager that's what most pre-war people called it, seems like your typical descriptive colloquialism.

It's just that Limit 115 was the codename under which it was developed at Boulder while New Plague is the public name it was given when it leaked out and started spreading across the US.

Let's see what ZAX has to say:

"Discovered in 2053, the New Plague was a socially transmitted plague that killed an approximately twenty thousand human beings in the United States, including cities such as Denver, Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, and Colorado Springs. The time of death from identification of symptoms was three to five days. "Symptoms included many symptoms in common with the flu or chest cold, and eventually resulted in clogged respiration, killing the infected subject.
"The discovery of the New Plague resulted in the 2053 quarantine, and several emergency programs were established to find a cure for the plague. The Boulder Dome has limited information on the New Plague, since it was not one of the research concerns in the Boulder Dome. If you could find a medical research database concerned with the New Plague, or provide me with holodisks related to the New Plague, I could provide you with more information.
"The only way we could fight off the New Plague was by creating better humans."

I don't think Limit 115 was a US project. It seems kind of odd that the USA would develop a disease, accidentally release it, and then start a project to control it almost two decades after the first onset? (remember the Glow holodiscs) It seems unlikely it was naturally occurring, either.

Thus an idea: Maybe it was the Chinese who developed Limit 115?

And now, back to an earlier idea:

Many serums and antibiotics were developed but they only seemed to generate a temporary reprieve, as it came back in different forms that affected survivors of the previous outbreak. Much propaganda was created about hygiene and inoculations, and that helped slow its progress. Outbreaks occurred in 2053-55, 2062-63, and again in 2077. Can go dormant in the cells, only to break out later, making seemingly "cured" people into carriers. Original versions didn't seem to cause sterility.

So Limit 115 mutated several times before the war. This adds credence to my idea of New Plague being a mutation of Limit 115. The New Plague being the most recent incarnation (in 2077) before the Great War breaks out (also in 2077).

All the previous incarnations can technically be referred to by any of the three names, from what we can see. One is scientifically correct (Limit 115), one is a colloquialism (Blue Flu), and the other seems not to fit in. It would if the "New Plague" name only referred to the most recent variant, though.

The nomenclature makes a bit more sense this way. It doesn't make much sense for a disease to be called "New" for 24 years, hence the "New" plague is just the most recent variant. (Look at me, trying to retroactively reorder chaos)

The plague's ability to lay dormant for so long and its shifting nature (repeated outbreaks, even amongst supposedly "cured" people) suggest that it was engineered. Since it seems unlikely it was a US project, that suggests outside origin. Since China was the main outside threat to the USA, China's the most likely suspect.

It would interlock with the "Red Scare" theme of Communist Insurgency in the tutorial very well. The Chinese were the new Soviet Union. The Soviets were heavily into research on diseases, so it stands to reason the Chinese would be too.

It's my bet that in Fallout's timeline Chinese agents in the USA started the initial Limit 115 outbreak, and probably helped the subsequent ones along as well.

That would add even more thematic irony, in that a scientist of Chinese descent (born in San Francisco) becomes infected with the New Plague at the Boulder Dome.

 

[Kyuu]

The nomenclature makes a bit more sense this way. It doesn't make much sense for a disease to be called "New" for 24 years, hence the "New" plague is just the most recent variant. (Look at me, trying to retroactively reorder chaos)

Not that I know much of anything about the Van Buren design docs or storyline, but my guess would be that the term "New Plague" would be a comparison to the old Plague, i.e. the one that wiped out large numbers of people in Europe during the middle ages. Which would explain the nomenclature, in that it wouldn't necessarily have to be a "new" variant of Limit-115.

Just my thoughts.

*returns to lurking in the thread*

 

[Ausir]

Exactly, it was called "new" because of comparison to the old (i.e. medieval) Plague, the Black Death. And in FO1 ZAX said PIV/FEV was created to combat the New Plague so it can't be a name for the new strain since FEV research is older than that.

As for the New Plague being a US Military creation, I actually got this from J.E. Sawyer:

They [pre-war and post-war strains] were both really intended for sterilization, I think. The intent was to use them against a) the Chinese or b) enemy Commonwealths within the U.S., which was bad bad bad. It was made by a group contracted either directly by the military/government or by the Enclave, and I believe it was developed at the Boulder Dome. Chinese "Black Ghosts" managed to steal some of the Limit-115, which caused an outbreak in Denver. The Chinese got the Limit-115 and in the process of trying to escape Denver, were killed, breaking a bunch of samples in a crowded public area. That might have been the more lethal version then, because the Denver outbreak sort of led to its condition right before the big war.

Which also explains why you could find a Hei Gui armor in Van Buren.

Limit-115 was the name under which it was developed in Boulder, New Plague was the name the media gave it before the Great War and the Blue Flu is the name it was given by people after the War, after it was released by Presper.

 

[Jesterka]

Limit-115 was the name under which it was developed in Boulder, New Plague was the name the media gave it before the Great War and the Blue Flu is the name it was given by people after the War, after it was released by Presper.

Make sense to me too; New Plague looks like a modern copy of a Death Plague (or Black Death), including some of the symptomns and periodic occurrence. This whole plot sounds catchy and realistic enough to me.

Anyway, nice to lurk here and listen your Van Buren retroactive meditation. Stay digging, ladies.

 

[Ausir]

I got a lot more info from J.E. Sawyer (and from Pop who also bugged Josh about some stuff):

The player was infected (effectively) by Presper at the prison. ODYSSEUS tracked all of the prisoners, so the spread of all the prisoners would alert ODYSSEUS to the various plague vectors. ODYSSEUS was far too secure for Presper to hack, so the only way he could get ODYSSEUS to send the launch codes to BOMB was to lead ODYSSEUS to a logical conclusion: the plague vectors (prisoners) had infected too much of an area for the plague to be conventionally contained.

Diana was attempting to make a cure, but ultimately there was no way for her to successfully do so before ODYSSEUS sent the launch codes and went through its self-destruct sequence. If I recall correctly, Diana was also afraid of being located by ARGOS and connected to ODYSSEUS, which would eventually result in her being subsumed/destroyed. ODYSSEUS was always portrayed as being the mightiest of all mighty computers. ZAX units were nothing compared to ODYSSEUS, and even though Diana was made by ODYSSEUS' creator, she was developed to be emotionally sophisticated, not powerful. ODYSSEUS was originally created to be the central computer for tracking all U.S. citizens and maintaining the operation of the government vault system. After vaults were privatized, he was retrofitted for maintaining the prison and monitoring the prisoners, but he still retained an inordinate amount of security clearance. Tibbets was used to house infected prisoners prior to "the big one", and the government wanted ODYSSEUS to be able to "advise" on the spread of plague vectors in the case of a prison break. This included warming up launch sites like BOMB.

I think that repeated attacks from eye-bots would somehow reveal what ODYSSEUS' goal is, which is to continue to send out robots after the prisoners until they all have been brought back to the prison. The eye-bots and ARGOS get everyone pretty quickly -- other than the protagonist and six other prisoners. It becomes obvious pretty quickly that ODYSSEUS is checking dudes off as they return and keeps telling the robots that X more prisoners are unaccounted for, but ODYSSEUS seems to be unconcerned with prisoners that stream back out again after being captured.

So even if ARGOS captures you and other prisoners and dumps them back into the prison, you can escape through the breach created by Presper and the military guys. ODYSSEUS does not "re-assign" people to go get you.
Actually, you know what? ODYSSEUS would send out bots to re-capture prisoners, but none of the ones you return ever re-escape. obviously you can, but you have to come back for ODYSSEUS to stop sending out endless streams of eye-bots The presumption of the player (we hoped) would be that once all of the prisoners returned, ODYSSEUS would just settle down and leave everyone alone. And there are hints about a plague prior to ODYSSEUS' meltdown, but it isn't clear exactly what the deal is.

And it isn't clear why ODYSSEUS really gives a shit until after all of the prisoners have been returned, at which point it does some massive calculations of where everyone has traveled and it shows that you (and the other six prisoners) have spread the plague Limit-115 to a variety of places. At that point, ODYSSEUS makes the determination that the plague is spreading too far, so it arms the BOMB satellites and melts itself down to (try) killing all of the prisoners. You get the info from watching ODYSSEUS' monitors after the last prisoner is returned, which (if i recall correctly) were all over the prison.

It was really supposed to be a straight division between two "acts", I guess. In the first section, you spend time collecting the prisoners -- dead or alive -- and bringing them back to Tibbets' Prison. Once that happens, ODYSSEUS charts the disease vectors and decides that it needs to arm the BOMB satellite. The computer then blows up the prison and the second "half" of the game is spent building a second rocket (all of the bad guys took off in the first) at Bloomfield and launching to BOMB.

 

[Kan-Kerai]

The descriptions of the New Plague made me think of the Captain Trips disease from The Stand, too. And yeah, I was being pretty idiotic about the New Plague thing. Hundreds of words of circuitous (and misguided) logic, when it was explainable in one sentence. That happens to me a lot. Hooray for Occam's Razor.

By the way, I can trim the speculative posts down or edit them out completely if needed.

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More importantly: Great work, Ausir. You've definitely got my respect, for what that's worth. If J.E.'s willing to part with more info, well, that'd be great too.

The more I dig into it, the more I believe Van Buren would have been one hell of a game. And Fallout 3? I have my doubts, at least in terms of the plotline. Among other things.

And now back to what I agreed to do in the first place: transcription.

 

[Ausir]

Some more bits of info from JE:

About Presper being changed from a cryogenically frozen pre-War scientist to an NCR scientist:

Presper's role was changed to make his condemnation of post-Fallout 2 society seem more sincere. He and the others effectively grew frustrated with Tandi, the BoS, the caravans, and everyone else. They just want to start over by wiping the slate clean. Presper needed military help, so he wrangled all of the pissed off NCR Army dudes into helping him. Even though the NCR Army was winning the war against the BoS, morale was really low due to the sheer number of causalities they suffered. For every Paladin the NCR took out, they would lose ten or more dumb yokels with leather armor and a bad rifle. The army was also really tired of fighting against powder gangs, which were essentially created because NCR didn't have enough money to pay its railway workers.

On Poseidon Energy:

In the larger world's background, ODYSSEUS was developed by someone working for Poseidon Energy. I revised the nomenclature of Enclave/Poseidon technology so they all followed Greek mythology. The following items were linked to PE in the world:

PHOENIX - Sub-dermal thermal armor implants, like the ones received in the Fallout games.
NEMEAN - Sub-dermal ballistic armor implants.
ATHENA - Advanced Power Armor project abandoned by Enclave/Poseidon. You could get this in the
game, but only if a Science Boy built it.
HERMES - Advanced Combat Armor, also abandoned by Enclave/Poseidon.
ARTEMIS - 15mm Light Rail Gun, another abandoned project.
HERMES - Power Fist, another abandoned project.
ARES - Plasma Spear, another abandoned project.
APOLLO - Laser Pistol, another abandoned project.

ARGOS:

ARGOS is, uncreatively, the robotic juggernaut controlled by ODYSSEUS, the central computer of the prison. It's an enormous (building-sized) multi-legged rover armed with missiles, extremely accurate long-range laser weapons, and an advanced array of sophisticated sensors used for communicating with ODYSSEUS and tracking prisoners via their Lil' Pip 3000s (small mini-Pip Boys locked onto their wrists).

In the game/story, ARGOS was damaged on its release from the prison. This weakened it slightly (moved more slowly) and made it impossible for ODYSSEUS to command. ARGOS ceaselessly attempts to retrieve the prisoners no matter what ODYSSEUS tells it to do. This is bad because ODYSSEUS needs ARGOS to seal an enormous breach in the prison through which the PCs can repeatedly walk right out of. Further, Cell Block 13 is completely blasted open, so there's absolutely no barrier for the PCs if they get re-captured. At least the other cell blocks can hold the prisoners that the PCs/ARGOS recover.

On interaction with other prisoners:

Very limited interaction. Each cell block was six cells in a ring facing a central open circle and the cells were monitored by a central camera in a dome, very panopticon-style. No physical contact between prisoners was possible. Once the military dudes blow open the side of the prison, the player was free to explore, though he or she would be harassed by eyebots and Mr. Handys.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

* Sight *

The more I hear, the more I long for this game than Bethesda's "FOBOS 2: Taking DC" masked as Fallout 3.

BTW, is it me or does ARGOS sound like one of those Behemoths from Fallout Tactics?

 

[Ausir]

I think I found a small plothole in the Mesa Verde document. In Mesa Verde, you can find one of the 6 other escaped prisoners, Blackjack, who is a... super mutants. But weren't all super mutants supposed to be immune to the Great Plague because of the FEV? Since there's no explanation for it, I think I'll just assume that it was a mistake on the designer's part.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hello Ausir,

Perhaps he is just a carrier and not 'infected' as in being sick.

 

[Ausir]

He shouldn't even be a carrier, since FEV should repair any infected cells.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

He shouldn't even be a carrier, since FEV should repair any infected cells.

Yeah, I have also been thinking about that after I wrote down my response, FEV corrects all cells in a body, doesn't it?

Hmm, how does FEV react with other viruses again?

 

[Ausir]

From ZAX:

{118}{}{Research into possible cures for the New Plague created
the Forced Evolution Virus, which was further developed
in an attempt to create a transmittable genetic-engineering
virus -- in effect, infectious evolution.}
{169}{}{The FEV is pre-programmed with introns of corrected DNA
appropriate to the proper type of species. It therefore
attempts to correct the DNA of the individual.}
{178}{}{As the FEV causes constant regenerative update to DNA, it
would effectively render the subject largely immortal, as
cell death would be offset by augmented growth.}
{179}{}{Additionally, as the gametes of the reproductive system consist
of 'half-cells' using split DNA, they could be perceived as
'damage' by FEV, which would 'repair' them, rendering the
subject sterile.}

 

[Kan-Kerai]

In medicine, anyone who harbors an infectious organism without ill effects but can pass the infection to others. The term is also applied to those who carry a recessive gene for a disease or defect without manifesting the condition.

It seems FEV just "repairs" the DNA, thus plugging the receptacles that the New Plague would latch on to. However, the Plague could still be extant within the circulatory system. We know about Limit-115's ability to lie dormant and to reemerge within people would were supposedly "cured".

Unless FEV also reprograms the immune system to actively destroy the virus within the bloodstream, it's entirely possible Blackjack could be a carrier. Since we know Limit can spread through the air (the Boulder Dome were wearing quarantine suits), it's actually very likely.

Thus, it's not a plothole.

 

[Ausir]

Viruses are not carried within the blood stream, they're always within the carrier's cells, and FEV repairs those (to the point of repairing gametes for having only half of the DNA).

 

[Kan-Kerai]

Um... no, sorry. That's really wrong. AIDS, Ebola, Malaria, they all spread through the blood.

Virus in bloodstream

That's the whole point of what a virus is, it free-floats in the blood and then latches onto and injects its DNA into a cell. It's genetic code in a protective shell. The immune system creates antibodies for the sole purpose of destroying viruses in the bloodstream before they can deliver their cargo at all. That's why we use Vaccines, they give the immune system a boost in the creation of antibodies.

FEV doesn't work like a vaccine: FEV rewrites genetic code so that the receptacles Limit-115 inducts itself into are "repaired", thus preventing infection. However, it doesn't cause the creation of antibodies so even someone FEV-affected can still be a carrier. There's no resistance to the virus simply free-floating along in the bloodstream.

Thus, not a plot hole.

 

[Ausir]

Sorry, I was wrong about the blood. But if the virus freely floats in the bloodstream and cannot rewrite the DNA of any cell, it wouldn't be able to spread to new carriers or make any new copies of itself, so I don't see how someone mutated with FEV could give it to someone else - it couldn't even really be detected without taking the subject's blood samples.

While a super mutant could somehow contract the virus by contact with its carriers, he wouldn't spread it to others (unless they have direct contact with his blood) and even the copies of the virus that managed to get into his bloodstream would soon die out simply because they'd attempt to infect his cells which would then be repaired by the FEV.

A carrier is someone whose cells are infected but who suffers on ill effects while he infects other people with it, I don't think it would apply to a super mutant. Thus, a plot hole.

By the way, even though Presper was said to have infected himself and his people with a lighter strain of the virus in the BOMB design doc to get inside the prison themselves (which frankly didn't make much sense to me), it wasn't so in the original version:

No, his [Presper’s] people were not infected. They were all in environmental armor. When they attacked the prison in the pen and paper game, they literally hit the side of the prison with a missile. It created a breach that the robots were unable to repair, which explained how you could escape after each time you were (potentially) captured. I always figured they would just blast open a hole and let all of the prisoners try to run free.

I figured that was a little more spectacular a beginning anyway. Rocket blows open side of prison, dudes in environmental suits basically run through saying, "run for it!" and blasting robots and then they disappear mysteriously.

 

[Jesterka]

By the way - Ausir, is there anything known about hero´s journey through life before / after the Van Buren game period? I mean things like Chosen Ones´ founding Arroyo, etc.

 

[Ausir]

As far as I know, he was going to be a prisoner at a normal prison (you could choose whether he was a real criminal or just convicted by mistake or something like that) who suddenly wakes up in an entirely different prison than the one he went to sleep in. There was no special background beyond that.