Since starting to play 2.4 (my first real TTW version), I've been churning thoughts about plot continuity and Fallout lore. I've played Fallout 1/2/3/NV, looking forward to 4 (aka HL3), and have started to think that the TTW framework may help plug a couple of glaring holes in FO3. I'm thinking of developing a story mod and I'd like some developer input on it.
FO3/FNV spoilers below.
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The first time I played through FO3 - and little did I know I'd still be avidly playing it six years later - I obviously didn't pick up the subtle game plot clues and headed west rather than east from V101. As a result, I ended up at V112 far sooner than I should have, and inadvertently jumpstarted Scientific Pursuits long before it made any sense. It's always bothered me that for a pristine vault that's so plot-critical, they just let me right in for the pressing of a couple of buttons. That place needs - demands - a better lock on the door.
So here's my thoughts, and I'm not sure exactly how it screws with the FNV story, so I don't know how practical it is:
You reach V112, and there's a control panel on the door leading to Vault112a interior. The door is unpickable without the panel's help, and the panel needs a quest object to open it. The quest object is the Platinum Chip, so you have to go through much of the FNV storyline in order to move onto the Enclave portion of FO3.
Lore backstory (based off Fallout wiki notes):
1. Robco designed and built virtually every piece of computing electronics in the FO universe, and by 2077 House had led the company to move heavily into the defense tech space (i.e., the 2075 REPCONN takeover). Robco also had a tight partnership with Vault Tec, and was responsible for items such as the Pip-Boy.
2. As House determined by 2065 that a nuclear war was inevitable, he began taking measures to acquire military techs and to fortify Las Vegas. The REPCONN acquisition was almost certainly part of this process, as would have been anything Robco produced in the 2070s.
3. Stanilaus Braun was the head of Future Tec, the division of Vault Tec tasked with developing tech based on advanced and alien designs. House would have known about Braun and FT, and Robco techs are throughout V112. Any vault security system would have probably been based an advanced Robco systems design.
4. The same advanced security systems - the best of their era - would have been integrated into Lucky 38 as its own security infrastructure. After all, it's highly effective. V112 is pristine, while nearly every other vault has been broken into and ravaged. Use what works.
5. Among other functions, the Platinum Chip currently acts as an unlock mechanism for certain doors in Lucky 38. I don't think it's outlandish to consider that the chip contains a software "overseer override" feature of some kind, and that it would work with V112's systems as well.
6. V112 wasn't necessarily on serious lockdown when Dad showed up. But after that point, Braun sealed the vault to prevent anyone from doing what you're doing - following Dad into the pristine V112 environment. Dad just hacked his way in, but you'll need the remaining override to bypass the lockdown. Much of this information could be conveyed at VT HQ, Rivet City and Jefferson via journals and terminals.
7. Any local copy of the override codes in DC is long gone: buried under tons of rubble, lost to the centuries of high radiation that Vegas didn't suffer through. The only remaining override option is in the heart of Robco territory, in New Vegas.
8. The override doesn't work on standard Vault security systems, which are password-locked at those familiar yellow control panels outside the Vault door. It's currently only known to work on the advanced prototype systems found at 38 and V112.
I'm thinking of a quest called something like "Westward The Wagons" or "Go West Young Man" that would lead the character to head to the NV area in search of the override, not knowing that it is the subject of intense plot machinations out west as well. It'd hold up the third act of FO3 until at least halfway through FNV, avoid the "I got Dad out and then left the Enclave invasion for nine years" problem, and give the player a main quest reason to seek out the train. It'd also start to integrate the main object of both plots.
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Granted, there's still holes I haven't plugged up here. Without voice work, exposition is going to be a little tricky, but I think it could be done. It could also lend itself to interesting subplot possibilities involving corporate espionage, House's relationship with his brother, etc. without ruining major plot arcs or getting in the narrative way of whatever Bethesda has in mind for FO4.
Thoughts?
