Last update we put the satellite on top of the Washington Monument, so that Three Dog can broadcast his drivel across the wasteland. Now we head back.
If it wasn't for fast travel, we would have to walk all the way back through those metro tunnels, just to get back to GNR, and then we'd have to go all the back through some more tunnels just to get out into the wasteland.
We can just fast travel over to GNR instantly instead. It does make our accomplishments seem a bit insignificant though, doesn't it?
And like that, instantly in front of Galaxy News Radio. That was convenient.
They keep on spouting that same line over and over again. What are they referring to? The Behemoth?
For that matter, are these guys even part of the main Brotherhood of Steel anymore? I doubt the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel would care, considering they already wiped out the super mutants in their neck of the woods.
We find Three Dog sleeping. What, it's only been like
an hour a day or since we left to fix the satellite dish.
"Thanks, Three Dog. I was just glad to help with the Good Fight."
"Hey, you're the one who deserves all the thanks! You struck a major blow against tyranny!"
What tyranny? I mean sure, the raiders and super mutants are killing everything they see, but it's not like they're an oppressive government or anything. Even if they were, what does you radio station provide, except for really obvious advice?
"Now GNR can be heard clear across the Capital Wasteland again. That'll give Eden and those Muties something to think about. But before I get back to my calling, I bet you wanna hear about that military weapons cache."
"Yes, please."
"This holotape contains the location of the weapons cache. I hope you put them to good use and keep up the fight. Remember to keep us tuned in while you're out there, and watch yourself. Anytime you need a place to crash, duck in here. Be glad to provide."
That's probably the last we will see of Three Dog, unless I feel like coming back to have a chat with him. It's certainly not the last we'll hear of him though. Like it or not, if I want to listen to the radio, I have to deal with this asshole shouting through it like every few songs or so.
And now we're off to Rivet City. It's not accessible from the DC ruins, we would have to walk back through the metro and head all the way back near Super Duper Mart just to be able to get to Rivet City. Thankfully, we have the patented Fast-Travel? to help us out here.
Hamilton's Hideaway is quite a bit north from here. We're not going straight there yet, we're going to Rivet City.
Somehow the outskirts of the ruined city look more bleak than the actual ruined city.
"GAH! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? KILL IT, KILL IT, KILL IT!!!"
Was my first reaction when I saw one of those things.
As you can see the, the Monument is still pretty close. It'd be a short car ride away to get to there, but of course it's blocked by conveniently placed rubble.
He's breaking the fourth wall! Don't do it anymore, or the game's universe will collapse upon itself.
We walk into nearby tent with a super mutant, and a captured prisoner.
You know, this is really off-topic and I probably should save it for my big super mutant bonanza update, but it's possible to pull of the "big dumb orc" thing for laughs without comprising the grim dark direction this game was going for. Warhammer 40k does it really well, the orks are rather funny but at the same time still a threat, and they don't clash with the really, really dark setting.
At the very least, the super mutants in this game wouldn't be as boring as they are if they were more like that.
There's a tied up captive we can rescue. Of course we'll rescue her, and refuse the reward for extra good karma points. It's usually pretty useless anyway.
Gah, I hate Mirelurks. They're just a pain to actually do any damage to.
Oh god. It's Dukov. Great.
Yup, you're seeing it right. There's a giant glowing light with two people having sex that's lighting up the entire room. I have to ask, where would you get that, especially in a post apocalyptic wasteland?
Oh dear god, that accent is even more annoying that Moriarty's.
"Nevermind. You need a drink. Cherry! Need some fucking booze over here!"
"Who are those girls? And where are their clothes?"
"Ha ha! They're my party girls. I'm too much man for just one woman, so I need two! I wear them out every night. Why should they bother getting dressed when I'm just going to take it off?"
So wait, let me get this straight? This is the best place for you to do this? You know, considering on one said there is a giant horde of super mutants, and one the other, there are raiders literally
yards away from your house.
"I'd better go before I get a headache."
"You need to drink more. Ha, ha!"
Apparently this is Bethesda's idea of funny.
You know, speaking of Russians, it's odd that the Soviet Union has such a small role in Fallout canon. I know it's China that was the US's big enemy, but apparently Russia was one good terms with the US [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Russia].
I find it kind of ironic, considering in every other shooter nowadays, it seems like Russians are the big bads.
And like I said before, the is a raider camp right across the street. Dukov would be so dead.
There's a very hard locked ammo box here. I wonder what's in it, but we won't be able to find out as our lockpicking skill is much too low.
In a little shack underneath a bridge, there's a scavenger who sells things. I still don't get how these people survive out here, considering their close proximity to things that want to kill them.
More centaurs along the pathway. They get rather annoying with their spit attack, which also boosts your radiation levels.
There's a bunch of super mutants in that crumbling building over there shooting at us. Like the fight in the mall, one of them has a minigun, so rushing them is a bad idea. Eventually, I just get fed up with exchanging shots and use our last mini-nuke on them.
There's the Jefferson Memorial right up ahead. No need to visit that right away yet.
There is a super mutant base composed of twisted metal and spikes just a decent walk away from Rivet City. Let's clear the place out.
This super mutant just idly stands around with a grenade in his hand. Let's aim for the grenade and...
BOOM.
If we used the minigun, it would be useless to us because of our not so great big guns stat, but it will tear us apart outside of VATS.
This mutant is still no match for a couple of shotgun shells to the face. There's a prisoner we can save for more good karma points, yay.
We level up too.
In the distance, we can clearly see a giant wrecked ship. It's the biggest landmark in the area, it's kind of hard to miss.
And apparently it's a city now. Huh.
Some med-x wears off right as I hit the intercom button. Ah, my eyes.
Only two guards out at the front to defend from the mutant and raider onslaught, literally right outside your door step..?
"State your busines in Rivet City."
"I'm looking for a Doctor Li."
"Yeah? Let me guess - no, she's not expecting you, but it's really important and you need to see her right away. Been a lot of that going around lately, I've had just about enough of it. So you're going to have to do better than that."
"[Charisma] Hey, it's no big deal. I just need to see her for a minute, and I'll be gone."
"Fine. Just don't bother her. She's real busy, what with all her work. She's up in the Science Lab."
We'll be seeing Harkness again... later.
Navigating Rivet City is a nightmare. It's a singularity of loading screens.
I also have to ask, what's the logic in building a city on a potentially unstable giant boat? I get that it's easy to defend, but if you explore it a bit, you would find that there's plenty of easy ways that raiders and super mutants could get through the bottom of it.
This is the Rivet City science lab. Impressive, it looks like they invented carrots.
It only took them 200 fucking years to do it.
Let's try to stay out of this and-
Gah! Stop forcing me to talk with people I don't want to. Warning guys, you're in for a long conversation.
"Are you by any chance... for hire?"
Of course we're for hire, we're the protagonist in an RPG.
"That depends. What exactly are we talking about, here?"
"To the point. I like that. Well, as it turnts out, I've misplaced some very sensitive "property."
Hardly to the point.
"Missing property? What kind of property?"
"Hmmm... how do I put this in a way you'll understand? All you know of robots are those buckets of bolts - those Mr. Handshakers and whatnot. Well... that's not ALL a robot can be. You see, in the Commonwealth, we've made artificial persons. Synthetic humanoids! Programmed to think and feel and do whatever we need."
Okay... Couple of questions:
Why the hell would you program a robot to think and feel? Nothing good will every come of that.
The Commonwealth is presumably in just as bad of shape, if not worse as the Capital Wasteland. (I would say it should be rubble, but according to the Wiki, this particular Commonwealth is in Massachusetts). How are they able to make this extremely advanced technology from scavenged parts?
Some consistency is all I'm asking for, honest.
"And... occasionally they get confused and wander off."
"Sounds like slavery to me. You sure they don't "wander off" on purpose?"
"Nonsense! This is a machine we're talking about. Can you enslave a generator, or a water purifier? Of course not. The same principle applies. But let's get back to your mission. You are to find this missing android. I've tracked him to somewhere here in the Capital Wasteland. He must have done something drastic, like facial surgery and a mind wipe, or else I would have found him by now. It will be no easy task. He may not even realize he's an android. Don't upset him by talking with him. Just come get me immediately. I'll handle it."
"Sorry, I've got better things to do."
I find it annoying on how you can't express moral outrage about what this guy is doing, instead of just saying that you got better things to do.
"You're as ignorant as all the other rats on this boat. When you realize I have the real cheese, you'll come crawling back. They always do."
I do not want Blade Runner in my Fallout, no thanks sir.
In all seriousness, we'll probably do the quest later. We have bigger fish to fry right now, however.
And we get to talk to Doctor Li. Like Three Dog and Moriarty, she is also a complete asshole towards you. I'm sensing a pattern here.
"I... It's you. My heavens, you look so much like him... You're James' daughter, aren't you? What are you doing here?"
"Wait... How do you know who I am? Have we met?"
"You were too young to remember, and I suppose James never spoke of me. Typical. I am Doctor Madison Li. I worked with your parents many years ago. Now I run the Science Lab here in Rivet City. It was all I had left. When your mother died, you father decided to leave with you. He abandoned our work. We had no choice but to do the same."
Doctor Li was that nurse at the very beginning of the game. Yup, I was waiting 10 updates just to reveal that extremely important plot twist.
"I'm trying to find my father. Have you seen him?"
"You mean you haven't? I assumed he sent you here. For that matter, aren't you supposed to be in a Vault? James said he left you there."
"I left the Vault to look for him."
"Did you? I was under the impression that's exactly the opposite of what he wanted for you. Well, you won't find him here. He's come and gone already."
"I'm sorry. Could you please tell me where he's gone?"
"Your father insisted that we return to work on Project Purity. I tried telling him too much time has passed; there's no way it would work. Predictably, he refused to listen to me. He says he can prove it will work, and headed off to the old lab. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to tell you. It's in the old Jefferson Memorial building, northwest of here. Please don't go after him. It was foolish of him to even think about going there alone."
Well, foolishness hasn't stopped us from chasing him across the wasteland yet, has it?
We head towards the marketplace of Rivet City. You know, this place would be so much more impressive if it wasn't for all the goddamn loading screens. There's the same problem with New Vegas as well.
I blame consoles-*shot*
This is the marketplace. There's a gun shop, medicine, and clothing shop here. I got to wonder how many people besides the player character who would particularly care about getting new clothes, but whatever.
We leave, as we really can't afford much here, nor do we need anything.
So now, we stand at a crossroads. This is probably the most logical jumping off point for some exploring and sidequests. What we do and where we go next is completely up in the air. New possibilities just stretch across the horizon.
