Was Dad a Psycho?

[The Enclave 86]

Okay I have one question about Dad which, to the best of my knowledge I have yet to receive an explaination for. His goal was to see the waters of life flow for everyone, freely, correct? Yeah okay, I can buy that he wouldn't want the Enclave getting their hands on his purifier, presumably all he knows of the Enclave (though were from is anyone's guess) is what their last plan was. He couldn't know that Autumn actually intended to distribute the water anyway; only Eden, behind the backs of everyone in the Enclave wanted to posion it (apartently, sometihng else I contest but that is niether here-nor-there for this discussion).

My question, however, is this. Why did he install a radioactive bomb, powerful enough to kill power armoured troops ( ), into the purifying chamber of his purifer? I mean what the [censored]. It is clearly a method of rendering the purifier useless, contaminating it and therefore making it unable to be activated; kind of like a self-destruct mechanism. He can't of known that the Enclave would show any interest in his purifier, especially when nobody had heard anything from them aside from the radio in two decades; even the radio itself was not understood by most people who thought that it was pre-war and the BoS were surprised when the Enclave spawned so surely they didn't know either. What motivation did James have for building it in there? He couldn't have known that the Enclave would come so who was he expecting to attack?

 

[Korin]

Are you sure it was a bomb? I could have sworn he overloaded something or other and it caused radiation to pour into the chamber.

 

[Courier]

I never understood that part. I also never understood why they had to activate the purifier right then. They could have just stopped whatever was about to explode, then gone and gotten a volunteer from Underworld to activate the purifier.

 

[Snikers]

I never really thought about that. I guess I always assumed the purifier ran on nuclear power like everything else, and he somehow flooded the chamber with radioactivity...somehow. Or maybe he could somehow flood the chamber with all the waste they'd purified out of the water during preliminary testing.

That still seems like something you'd need to specifically design a place for, though. Can't tell you how that worked out. Maybe James got a little weird for a while after his wife died.

 

[Walpknut]

RUle nubmer one of desinging in a sci fi work that is not that wel tought out, everythign has a self destruct mechanism, even an orphanage.

 

[The Enclave 86]

Are you sure it was a bomb? I could have sworn he overloaded something or other and it caused radiation to pour into the chamber.

I never really thought about that. I guess I always assumed the purifier ran on nuclear power like everything else, and he somehow flooded the chamber with radioactivity...somehow. Or maybe he could somehow flood the chamber with all the waste they'd purified out of the water during preliminary testing.

That still seems like something you'd need to specifically design a place for, though. Can't tell you how that worked out. Maybe James got a little weird for a while after his wife died.

He never says, he just tells Autumn to wait, pushes some of the numbers and then *BOOM*, decades of power armour armour development rendered useless in seconds... apartently.

Same with the power, nowheres power is explained really.

I really can't see that he simply flooded the chamber with radiation. The machine had never been used before I believe and why would they have designed the facility to acomplish such an action, on the main activation console no less.

I personally think I'll chalk it up to bad writing .

 

[Quagmire69]

He was an idealist, alot like the followers in vegas being too noble for their own good.

 

[vanzizzle]

He was a douche. All interaction you had with him was him either complimenting what you've done or being unimpressed. Would've been better to find have grown up in rivet city or something. More like rivet shanty town though...

 

[DarthBartus]

Radiation is commonly used to purify water of any kind of microbal life. However, in real-life water purifiers, UV rays are used...

 

[Ah-Teen]

I always assumed the radiation came from the extraction process and somehow the containment leaked. To purify the water you would need to remove radioactive containment. If the containment for the "sludge" as I'll call it was damaged the radiation from that would flood over the rest of the chamber.

Radiation is commonly used to purify water of any kind of microbal life. However, in real-life water purifiers, UV rays are used...

I don't think there are any microbes left would be effected by any more radiation.

 

[Millim]

I just think he built in a sort of radiotion bomb just to be on the not so safe side.
It was kinda dumb really. If you look at it in actual terms, the enclave wasn't as evil as they were seen. Fair enough, they did want to cause genicide, but at the same time, they wanted what was best for the CW. But still, it's all very dumb.

I'm still trynna work out if the writters were mad geniouses or idiotic dumbos

Good game through

 

[Faceless Stranger]

He was an idealist, alot like the followers in vegas being too noble for their own good.

By idealist you mean murdering a group of people he knew nothing about with a switch to flood a room with radiation specifically installed on the main control panel? Obviously just like the Followers.

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

One thing I don't understand is...why he did that? He wanted to render the purifier useless? He failed. He wanted to kill the commander and the two foot soldiers so his son/daughter would have had an easier escape? Duh, the door was sealed and there's a whole squad outside anyway.

The only thing I can think of is that he wanted to commit suicide so his son/daughetr wouldn't have tried to save him, but that part is really confusing.

Of course the real reason is that Heroic Sacrifices are cool.

 

[Crni Vuk]

the whole topic of Fallout 3 was about "sacrifice". All the time. So much that it stinks.

It is ok to have that once. As major part of the plot. But yeah ... you guys see what we got in F3.

 

[The Enclave 86]

One thing I don't understand is...why he did that? He wanted to render the purifier useless? He failed. He wanted to kill the commander and the two foot soldiers so his son/daughter would have had an easier escape? Duh, the door was sealed and there's a whole squad outside anyway.

The only thing I can think of is that he wanted to commit suicide so his son/daughetr wouldn't have tried to save him, but that part is really confusing.

Of course the real reason is that Heroic Sacrifices are cool.

Exactly, I always assumed that he was attemping to stop the Enclave from using it for whatever purpose - despite him not having any ability to know what that was.

Know what else pisses me off? The two soldiers in Power Armour die instantly yet Dad gets to give his last words.

the whole topic of Fallout 3 was about "sacrifice". All the time. So much that it stinks.

It is ok to have that once. As major part of the plot. But yeah ... you guys see what we got in F3.

You didn't want to sacrifice your young life for total subservicience to your father? What an evil son-of-a-bitch! Clearly your wish for independence makes you no better than the Enclave!

 

[Courier]

I was pissed I couldn't side with Colonel Autumn. He was the only guy there who seemed to have a pretty logical plan to rebuild the wasteland, and with minimal loss of life.

 

[The Enclave 86]

I was pissed I couldn't side with Colonel Autumn. He was the only guy there who seemed to have a pretty logical plan to rebuild the wasteland, and with minimal loss of life.

Hardly, his entire plan revolved around blowing up Raven Rock, the place which had harboured the Enclave, provided in food & water along with manufacturing abilities for the last three decades.

He got signed everyone's death warrants in Raven Rock when he tried to stage his little coup - even though he is later shocked and in denial that Eden was still trying to use the FEV, so why did he start shooting?

Oh and if you go by what the soldier says over the radio after you give him the false code to the purifier it seems that he has ordered more than one person into the purifier on essentially a suicide mission.

Autumn belongs next to Eden on the end of a rope.

 

[Crni Vuk]

You didn't want to sacrifice your young life for total subservicience to your father? What an evil son-of-a-bitch! Clearly your wish for independence makes you no better than the Enclave!

You know I was pretty happy once I found my dad. Thinking now that I could send a 12 gauge round right through his thick skull I had to be remembered again about the way how Bethesda is designing their games ...

I was pissed I couldn't side with Colonel Autumn. He was the only guy there who seemed to have a pretty logical plan to rebuild the wasteland, and with minimal loss of life.

Since you mention him. I really wish Bethesda would have some different designing philosophy. No clue. People with great writing and such.

They could have done a hell LOT with autumn. Creating a "gray" intelligent character. Someone you could side with. It would have been very nice to kick Lyon-Brotherhood asses on Autumns side.

 

[Courier]

They could have made Autumn the 'Neutral' option, at least then it wouldn't seem so black and white. It also would have been nice to be able to fight on the Enclave's side if you side with Autumn, especially in Broken Steel.

 

[Crni Vuk]

exactly my thinking.