brfritos said:
So, it's unnaceptable a cameo in FO3, but OK in NV? That's crap.
I loved Marcus in FO2! Sure, he gave me huge headaches, specially in Vault City the first time I've played FO2. Broken Hills was one hell of a place and a very funny place, well designed.
And the mayor and my previous great companion becomes a cameo, a fucking cameo?!
Ouch indeed...
I don't know... to me, it makes sense. He was sort of a pillar of the community, almost a mutant celebrity. If you want to start picking nits, the bigger head-scratcher probably isn't why he belongs in New Vegas, but why they let you recruit him at all in FO2. I mean... he sorta had a lot on his plate at the time.
When Broken Hills dispersed, I think it only makes sense that Marcus would've moved East. Mutants tend to do that, and the increasingly meddlesome hand of the NCR made the choice a bit easier. Vegas seems to be the first real pocket of civilization in the lands (that
were, at the time) beyond NCR control, so it makes sense that he would've settled there. And, mutants being a dwindling-but-highly-visible minority to begin with and given what we already know about Marcus' tendencies and inclinations, it makes sense that A). he would've tried to start up a community when he got there, and that B). no matter where he put it, people would take note that it was there. I don't find his presence in the game or the way he was handled at all implausible. As a matter of fact, if he'd been much more involved in in-game affairs, it would've left a bad taste in my mouth, as if they were trying to shove him down our throats in the same "Hey look, it's a beloved icon from your past!" fashion that Beth tried to give us Harold.
Speaking of Harold, as he's what the thread's about,
HE would've had no real reason to be in F:NV. Considering that the canon ending for Gecko was an incredibly amicable partnership-of-equals with Vault City and that the canon ending for V.C. was absorption by the NCR, it sounds like Harold should still be sitting pretty at the optimized power plant. If we really need to shoehorn him in, I suppose I can see him starting to feel a bit like a third wheel after things for Gecko start running smoothly and his talents (real or imagined) for keeping the whole thing together with duct-tape and spit seem to be less and less needed. Even then, though, he's never demonstrated a strong compulsion towards horizon-seeking or a problem with living under authority or in heavily populated areas, so I can't imagine why he'd strike out for Vegas instead of, say, Dayglow.
Maybe his time spent managing the Poseidon plant really did make him into something of a de facto expert on power systems and NCR asked he and Festus out to help with the Helios One or Hoover Dam conundrums? Alternately, I can see him, given his previous experiences in the wasteland, hiring on as a manager with the Crimson Caravan and ending up in the Mojave that way. It might even be kind of neat if, given his newfound uselessness/redundancy in Gecko and his years of far-flung and specialized expertise, he was conscripted into the NCR army in some kind of non-combatant capacity, and you could run into a dejected and disgruntled Harold working at McCarran. This would all be forcing him into the game, though-- as I've said, I believe his proper place is in Gecko or Dayglow.
(Though in my version of things, for the record, Bob is d-e-d
dead. He was cute, and he was good for a chuckle, but he was one of the goofier aspects of Fallout 2 and I was never entirely pleased that they had included him in the game. I know what they had planned for him in Van Buren, but logically speaking, I think he would've and should've died off before getting too big.)
Edit: Yeah, what Walpknut said, too. I gotta learn to type faster.
