My 2020 Stream Play Through of Fallout 3:The Main Story Pt.3
- wanderingwonderbread
- Sep 7, 2020
- 13 min read
*THIS BLOG CONTAINS ALL THE SPOILERS*
Little Lamplight: Picking Up the Trail
In the last post we had left off wrapping up with the ‘Picking Up the Trail’ quest. This means the next quest is ‘Finding the Garden of Eden’ and heading in to Vault 87 to search for the G.E.C.K.
Here is a little history of Vault 87: Vault 87 was finished being constructed in December of 2071. The vault’s experiment plans were thrown out and it was decided that the vault would be used as a secondary research center. They researched the effects of the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) on humans. The plan was to create a virus that would make humans adapt to withstand a post-apocalyptic world. Their work failed and the creation of super mutants was born. The super mutants were capable of living in highly irradiated areas but they suffered from aggressive tendencies (which is very obvious as you are playing) and they also had a considerable amount of damage done to their brains. After the nuclear detonation right on top of the entry cave (hence all the radiation still present), Vault 87 sealed its doors. A year later though some of their test subjects broke free from the cages and overran the vault, eventually spilling out of the vault in to the Capital Wasteland. From here on out super mutants roam the Capital Wasteland. Because they are sterile and wanted to continue to persevere, the super mutants began capturing humans and dragging them back to vault 87 to be mutated (so, their brains are not completely gone, they understand to keep their kind going, they would have to find a way to make more of themselves). Two-hundred years of the mutants using the FEV to gain numbers, they eventually started to run out of the virus (or "green stuff" as they call it) and began searching the Wasteland for more sources of the virus. This is why you see so many groups of super mutants wandering the wasteland.
If you’ve been exploring the map as much as I was, you would have discovered that it is impossible to enter Vault 87 through the front vault door. The radiation kills you long before you can get near enough (it will actually kill you in second if you don't use mass amounts of radaway, rad-x, and a radiation suit). The super mutants in the area also do not help your progress. So you have two options to gain access to the vault. Both options have you going to Little Lamplight.
"Entrance to Vault 87 will be particularly difficult for you, I'm afraid. The area is highly irradiated; lethal levels are all around the entrance. Gaining direct access will be quite impossible." ~Scribe Rothchild
The first option is to talk to Mayor MacCready to get the gate to Murder Pass open. This passage way is swarming with super mutants (hence the name Murder Pass). Be prepared to fight your way through. If Murder Pass doesn’t sound like a fun time, you could always ask MacCready about an alternative way. To go this route you have to help Joseph restore power to a computer terminal. Murder Pass requires more time and resources to fight your way through, but there is also some good loot along the way. The alternative entrance is an easier route and doesn't require so much ammo and health, however you miss out on the loot. I liked the sound of Murder Pass so I went the tougher route and had to fight my way through super mutants until I found myself inside the vault. Regardless of which path you choose, you will end up in the Reactor Chamber of Vault 87.
Vault 87: Finding the Garden of Eden
As you proceed through the vault you can read the computer terminals to learn more about the vault and its occupants. There are some pretty interesting stories to find on the terminals. When you find the Test Labs you will hear Fawkes over the intercom asking for your help to escape his cell. Fawkes is a super mutant who is more intelligent than the regular mutants. His mind was not as affected as the other test subjects. He did forget his past and who he previously was but he held on to his intelligence and morality that is usually lost when becoming a Super Mutant. Poor Fawkes has been trapped inside his cell for two-hundred years. Fawkes calls his cell a cage (which for me added to the sadness of his story of being stuck in there). He explains how he kept his sanity by reading the terminal that linked to the mainframe of Vault 87. The mainframe contained a lot of information from both inside and outside the vault (and a lot of information on the history of the world). Fawkes tells you how he came to choose his name (because he forgot his original name). He enjoyed the ‘Gunpowder Plot’ where Guy Fawkes and a group of rebels tried to assassinate King James I and blow up the House of Lords. I love that he chose a historical name for himself.
There are some opinions out there that Fawkes is actually a female character, but that has been disproved in a few ways. The voice actor had said they believed Fawkes was actually a female character. However the lead designer, Emil Pagliarulo confirmed that Fawkes is in fact male. His Fallout 3 Wiki page also lists him as a male character. Another fact to help his male status is that Fawkes is wearing an old male Vault 87 jumpsuit. When doing some research on this topic I discovered that there were five holotape diaries that were left out of the final game. In these you discover a character by the name of Shelton Delacroix, a Vault 87 security officer. It is believed that Fawkes is actually Shelton in his former life. Apparently in the game’s dialogue file, Fawkes is defined as the speaker of the final (unreleased) holotape. Before I really knew any of Fawkes’ backstory or the controversy around his gender, I had always just assumed he was male. Though it was really interesting to hear he has such a controversial gender for some folks.
Fawkes will ask you to help release him from his cell. You get to make the decision if you will help him escape or not. You could leave him to his misery and go find the G.E.C.K on your own. If you choose this route you will need to prepare to go in to some heavily irritated areas (that will kill you in seconds if you're not prepared) of the lower floors of Vault 87. However, if you choose to help Fawkes escape, he will offer to retrieve the G.E.C.K. for you. I released him because it was the good-guy thing to do. The poor guy has been locked in a cell by himself for two-hundred years. All he wants is freedom, that was something I could not deny him. To help him escape you have to trigger the fire alarm. When you do this all the cell doors will come open. This is great for Fawkes, but not great for yourself because all the other test subjects will also be free, and they are not as friendly as Fawkes. An option you have to avoid having to fight multiple enemies in a tight hallway is to hack their terminals. This requires you to be able to hack hard terminals. Once you hack them you can select the option ‘terminate subject’ which will initiate a ball of flame that kills the subject.
Once Fawkes is free he will keep up his end of the bargain and go retrieve the G.E.C.K. for you. You can help him fight off the Super Mutants along the way. I went with him as far as I could before the radiation started and he went off on his own to grab it for me.
On the way out of the vault you are accosted by a flash-bang and that damn Colonel Autumn who you ran into previously at the Jefferson Memorial comes sauntering in. You pass out shortly after seeing him.
Raven Rock: The American Dream
When you come to you realize that the Enclave took the G.E.C.K. and all of your items from you. You are also stuck behind a force field inside Raven Rock, the sacred Enclave hideout. Colonel Autumn is there to greet you. Once again he wants the Project Purity code your father had refused him. You have a few different options to respond to him with. You can give Autumn the actual code but he kills you as soon as you give it to him. You can refuse to give him the code and he gets really made and yells “Fuck you” (this is the option I chose). Another option is playing dumb, this also makes Autumn angry and he’ll yell “you lie!” The last option is to give him a false code that will get one of his men back at the purifier killed (this is the option I wish I would have chosen, but I didn't know that would be the outcome when I played).
President Eden comes over the intercom and Autumn leaves the room. Eden lets the force field containing you come down and you’re free to walk around. There is a locker in the cell that contains everything you were carrying before being captured (minus the G.E.C.K., which makes sense. They’re not just going to hand that back over to you). After you get all your items from the locker you can proceed to go find Eden and explore Raven Rock. Eden will order all of his soldiers to stand down and let you freely walk about the place.
Once you reach the second level, Autumn will come over the intercom and order all soldiers to kill you on site. Now this is where things get tricky. You are now surrounded by hostile Enclave soldiers stuck in their secret base. You have to fight your way to Eden before escaping Raven Rock.
"Attention! This is Colonel Autumn! You are hereby ordered to ignore the President's previous directive. The prisoner from Vault 101 is to be shot on sight. I repeat, shot on sight. This is an order." ~Colonel Autumn
When you finally make it to President Eden’s quarters you will learn that he is not human. He is a brand of autonomous intelligence, AI created by Vault-Tec (no surprise they were dabbling in AI along with all their other experiments with humans and technology). Talking to Eden you will learn of his plans to cleanse the Capital Wasteland. When he says cleanse, he means murdering everyone who is mutated or irradiated (this is basically all Wastelanders, Super Mutants, beasts, and Ghouls; feral and non-feral ghouls. Eden has a modified version of the FEV (the virus that created the Super Mutants). If you put this modified FEV in to the Project Purity purifier you will “cleanse” the wasteland.
Here again, you are faced with a few choices to respond to Eden and his Wasteland plans. You can attempt to convince Eden he is insane and that he should self destruct, blowing himself and Raven Rock up. You can convince him his thinking is very flawed, and one again to blow himself and the base up (I did this option). You can go in to Autumns room and initiate the destruct sequence, which again will make Eden and the base explode. Or the fourth option is to just leave Raven Rock, not blowing it and the Enclave up. Regardless of your choice, you can not leave Raven Rock without at least taking the modified FEV (you can choose to use it or not, but you have to carry it around with you).
Once you make your decision you can escape from Raven Rock. Getting out is easier than when you were trying to get to Eden. The robots will attack the Enclave soldiers, helping you kill them faster as you try to escape. Once you get outside you will see Vertibirds escaping the base before it explodes from Eden’s self-destruct (assuming you choose one of the self-destruction options). You will also see Fawkes again! He came to try and rescue you from Raven Rock. Good guy Fawkes trying to pay you back for freeing him. You now have the option to have Fawkes as a companion. He is the only companion I enjoy having with me, but I only like using him for End Game. If you don’t want him to be your companion he will retreat to the Underworld and protect the Ghouls there. If you have good karma standing you can go get him as a companion at any time. I went off to do DLC and find bobble heads, so I let him head to Underworld and went back to grab him when I was ready for End Game.
The Citadel: Take it Back!
After you are finished at Raven Rock your quest will lead you back to the Citadel. This is where I make sure to have Fawkes with me as a companion because this is basically the End Game content. When you get to the Citadel you can listen to the briefing going on between Rothchild, Elder Lyons, Sarah, and the Lyons’ Pride. Elder Lyons will ask you for any updates you have on the Enclave. You can tell him your decision you made at Raven Rock, so in my case I updated him on how Raven Rock and President Eden have been blown up. Sarah then makes you an honorary member of the Lyons’ Pride and will offer you a full suit of power armor or some recon armor. You can also inform Elder Lyons that Vault 87 is the catalyst of the super mutant problem in the Capital Wasteland. He is grateful for this information.
Sarah will ask you if you are ready to go to the Jefferson Memorial to take back Project Purity from Colonel Autumn and the remaining Enclave. Make sure you are 100% ready if you say yes, because this initiates the end game and you will have to fight your way to the Memorial site and prepare to make your decision on how to handle Project Purity. If you’re not quite ready (like you want to go finish finding the bobble heads, do some DLCs, side quests etc…) then just save and go do your thing and when you’re ready to finish the game you can come back and tell Sarah you are ready for battle.
Once you tell Sarah yes, Rothchild releases Liberty Prime!! This is one of my favorite parts of the game because he is just so cool. Who wouldn’t want to fight with a giant robot who thinks it is ridding the world of Communists!? Your quest “Take it Back” officially starts here. He is hoisted up by a crane and dropped at the Citadel front gate. This is where you will start your advancement on the Jefferson Memorial.
Liberty Prime will shoot lasers to take out the Enclave’s Vertibirds. He also spouts funny anti-Communist lines while engaging in battle. If you wanted to skip all this you could just fast travel to the memorial, but I love fighting my way to the memorial with Prime and the Brotherhood. Prime can be a bit buggy and get stuck sometimes, and since its a Bethesda game it will occasionally crash (see my “Liberty Prime Time” video to see fun examples of my struggles during the battle, link posted at end of this post). Liberty Prime’s main function during this battle is to take out the Enclave’s force field walls along the route. He basically just pushes himself into them to short circuit them until they come down and we are able to pass.
You and the Lyon’s Pride (and in my case Fawkes too) will fight off Enclave Soldiers along the way. Even though sometimes it seems like Prime will be overtaken by the Enclave’s might, Prime just fights back and overpowers them all. Once you reach the Memorial everyone will wait outside (unless you have a companion, in my case Fawkes followed me inside) while you head in to the gift shop where you will have to fight a few Enclave soldiers before reaching the Rotunda.
When you reach the Rotunda you will once again encounter Colonel Autumn. You have two choices in how to interact with him.You can talk him out of attacking (if you have high enough speech checks). If you choose this route he will concede his and the Enclave’s defeat and will just walk out the door. Your second option is to fight Autumn. If you go this route you must kill him and his soldiers. I went for the first option because it seemed like the good guy thing to do…. Though this was one of those choices I wanted to do the evil option and just kill him (I really hate how smug he is).
If your game doesn’t get bugged like mine did, you will be able to go up the stairs now and talk to Dr. Li through the intercom where she will tell you that the Purifier has sustained severe damage and it is overloaded. If you do not act quick enough, it will self-destruct. You have to start the purifier before this happens. The caveat is that the closed room the purifier is in, is still heavily radiated and will kill whoever enters the room.
This will be the last decision you make in the game (unless you have the Broken Steel DLC). You have four choices. You can enter the room and start the purifier yourself, you can tell Sarah the code and have her turn it on, or you can have a companion do it (if you have a companion with you, but most will actually decline to do it unless you have Broken Steel). Or you could do nothing and let Project Purity explode (this option will end the game even if you have Broken Steel installed, you will not be able to do end game content). I chose to sacrifice myself for this task. A good guy wouldn’t choose someone else to die for them. This was the most selfless option I could do. At this time you also get to decide if you are going to use the modified FEV that Eden gave you to “cleanse” the Capital Wasteland. I obviously chose not to use the FEV because it would have murdered almost all humans (except vault dwellers who haven’t been affected by the Wasteland and the Enclave members) and it would have also killed all the nice ghouls in the Wasteland and I really like the Underworld. It didn’t seem right to murder them just because they survived the war and are now living their lives.
If you choose to sacrifice yourself without having the Broken Steel DLC, you will die and the game will end. A cut scene will tell of your great sacrifice and how the Wasteland goes on. Because I had Broken Steel, I somehow am rescued before dying from the radiation and will wake up (after a cut scene) to Elder Lyons standing over me explaining what happened. I will save discussing what happens in Broken Steel for my future DLC blog post that will be coming soon.
If you want to watch my YouTube videos go here: Liberty Prime Time OR End Game
**Future Fallout 3 Blogs COMING SOON! One on Fallout 3 Vaults, one on side quests, and one on DLCs.**
Questions:
Did you choose Murder Pass or the alternative?
What are your thoughts on Fawkes’ gender and previous identity?
How did you deal with Eden and his “cleansing” of the Capital Wasteland?
What was your end game choice? Did you sacrifice yourself, Sarah, or try having one of your companions take the hit?
My Socials:
***The awesome Fallout Bread Boy featured image was made for my Twitch Subscribers by MissCupOfTeaDraws
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