Part 40: What Came After

Update 40: What Came After



After the Enclave's destruction, the refugees of Arroyo and Vault 13 resettled, building a new community with the aid of the two Garden of Eden Creation Kits. The people from Vault 13 decided to stick around since they were hundreds of miles from the Vault. Their technical expertise helped out a lot, and the new settlement has done pretty well over the years. They even chose me to be the Elder, despite my main skills being shooting and punching people in the face and lying through my teeth. Come to think of it, those aren't the worst traits you can have as a leader. So far I like to think it hasn't worked out too badly. We offered Sulik a place, but he went back to his tribe and then headed east in search of his sister.



Modoc and the Slags are still doing fine these days, and since they're working together they've become a major farming community. We actually buy a few things from them even out here, and they make a damn fine whiskey too.



With Metzger gone, slavery kind of stopped being a thing in the area. Becky's Casino and Bar expanded, and Rebecca Dyer bought out her competition. The place has grown a lot, and these days it's a tough, but honest community.



And Vault City… well, I went to visit shortly after everything was said and done to talk with Lynette about what had happened.




I tried one last time to get it through her thick skull that Vault City was one tiny city that was making a lot of enemies, and that considering the fact that a bunch of mercenaries from New Reno almost took the place out they should rethink their actions.



Somehow I think Lynette took entirely the wrong message from it.



Over the years since then Vault City continued to stagnate, choking on its own isolationism. The generator prevented them from expanding for too long, and eventually they were absorbed by the NCR as it expanded north. Vic still lives there with his daughter, although he's getting pretty well on in years. Cassidy moved on and went in search of Texas. I hope that he eventually found it.



Unfortunately, before that happened they took over Gecko to control the reactor. The ghouls ended up enslaved by Vault City, despite my best efforts to help them out.

The "Good Ending" for Gecko and Vault City is an alliance between the two that helps curb Vault City's xenophobia and creates a center of learning and tolerance. According to Fallout: New Vegas this is the canon ending, but it's bugged.



I've heard through the grapevine that one of the Bishop women had a son, who ended up taking over the family a few years back and led them to victory over the other families. Considering that he was born more than 9 months after John Bishop died, I've very carefully not asked any questions about that. I'd advise you not to either.

The Wrights never completely recovered from Richard's death, but knowing who had been responsible for his death and that I'd ventilated the son of a bitch helped them sleep at night.

New Reno has about 10-12 different endings, some of which can be mix and matched. You can get one for killing everybody, three for the Bishops, one for the Salvatores, a good and a bad end for the Mordinos (their bad end is bugged), three for the Wrights, and a good and a bad end for solving the murder of Richard Wright.



I hear that Myron died less than a year after I defeated the Enclave, stabbed to death by a jet addict while he was drinking in the Den. Everybody but me and a few people who actually met him have forgotten his discovery of Jet, and that's okay by me.



A couple of years after I sold the Excavator Chip to Marge LeBarge she was able to buy out the Morningstar mine and controlled the entire operation. She was elected Mayor in a landslide and used her office to get Redding into the NCR with a seat in the Hall of Congress. Naturally, Marge LeBarge was the first delegate from Redding to sit in the Hall.



Broken Hills started to thrive after we destroyed the conspiracy to kill the mutants. Then the uranium ran out, and the town no longer had a reason to exist. The residents dispersed and led the place a ghost town with a few holdouts who could only hang out for a few years. As for Marcus, he headed east to look for refugees from the Master's Army. Considering that he's a super mutant, he's probably still out there today.



By helping with their Vault 15 plan, I set the NCR on a push to civilize its neighbors. They've been expanding pretty steadily since then, as you know, and before long we're going to have to figure out what we want to do about them. There are worse options than joining the NCR, but we had to fight pretty hard for our own place in the world. That's a decision for later, though.



Speaking of Vault 15, with help and supplies from the NCR the squatters soon had a pretty nice little satellite town built out of the Vault. They're doing pretty well for themselves, although Zeke wasn't able to hold on for much longer after the deal was brokered.



The Shi flourished, and they're the other major power in the region around the coast to the west of NCR territory. The botanical research they were doing resulted in a vine that absorbed radiation and cleansed the soil, even though it wouldn't grow too far from the shore. These days there's talk of a Shi Empire, but they don't seem like they're going to try to be pushy about it.



And as for the tanker vagrants… well, as vagrants do, they drifted on. No word on whether or not Chip learned his lesson about betting internal organs.

Shortly after my return from the Enclave I went back to Vault 13 to see what Gruthar and his pack were up to.



Not much, as it turned out. They were kind of busy being dead.



Not just the deathclaws, either. I found the bodies of some of the human residents of Vault 13 as well, and blood stains in the rooms of those that I couldn't find.



They'd made it through to the nursery, as well. As fearsome as the deathclaws were they really weren't a match for a determined assault with modern weapons. Hell, I could have wiped them out on my own if I'd wanted to.



The only person left was Goris, who'd somehow escaped the mayhem sound in body if not in mind.



The security recording told the entire story. While I'd been in San Francisco and Navarro, Frank Horrigan had paid a return visit to the Vault.



Letting Goris know that I'd taken care of that already didn't do much to help him. I have a feeling that eventually he ended up hunting down the remnants of the Enclave.



For the moment, he alternated between swearing vengeance and saying that he had to go back to help. It was, to say the least, disconcerting.

The ending for Vault 13 is broken as well, and Goris's buggy nature is only a symptom of it. That's part of the reason I didn't take him: if you do, he'll go with you for a little while and then leave abruptly. If you go back to Vault 13 after leaving during the main storyline you can see this, and then you'll receive an ending blaming you for killing the deathclaws. There was supposed to be a good ending for killing Dr. Schreiber in Navarro, but it's bugged out.




After leaving Vault 13 I passed through New Reno. Turns out there are a LOT of fringe benefits to saving civilization as we know it… although there was some confusion as to what had actually happened.



"Wait, you've got it all wrong. There was an actual oil rig involved, not their rigs, and…"



"Seriously, I'm not THAT kind of guy. I'm… I'm leaving now."



"Well, when you put it that way…"

And that explains about half the rumors that you might have heard about me.



After all was said and done I stopped in for a drink with one of the leading figures of the local temperance league and then headed out for my new home. I still believe what I said then… people call me a hero, but I've done a lot of things that weren't exactly heroic to get here. We all try to get along as best we can in this world, and if I've done a bit better than most… well, I've had a lot of friends to help me along the way.

And yes, I will be covering the special reward the priest gives you… just in the next update.



And with that, our final stats as of the end of the game. Level 28 is a fairly high level to finish at, but considering that we did just about every available quest it's kind of to be expected.



Not many Karmic titles, but 1911 is a pretty decent overall Karma score and a damn fine pistol. Slaughtering most of New Reno probably brought that up by a couple hundred points. We're universally pretty well liked across the Wastelands, although a few places are a bit more welcome in some places than others.




And finally, our combined kill counts throughout the game. I like that Big Bad Boss has its own entry, but we've certainly racked up quite a body count over the last forty updates. Now, about some extras and the ending of our two parallel sagas...