"Sir, we're the government and we like your project. We hereby claim it as government property and demand that you help us with it."
"That sounds fairly reasonable, and even if I do know some of the more sinister intentions of your president (somehow), it might be wise to pretend to play along and manipulate the project to serve my purposes from right under your nose, thereby placing myself into an authoritative position where I can personally ensure the safety of the people of the wastes and prevent any ulterior motives of yours.

Or I could be overdramatic and kill myself, thereby increasing the drama of the story. (ala http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7r9RqWBdl8)

I think I'll kill myself."

The beginning of that video says

"War.. war never changes"

Hmm, I think you just convinced me to go through with this quest and get the Ghoul mask! I just shouldn't think about "the aftermath", because honestly, Alice has no idea what will happen (only I do, thanks to the wiki haha)

I have yet to play through to the ending, but I really hated to see my Dad die! I do believe he really thought he could keep his kid safe in the vault. Plus, how could he know that everything would turn crazy? I mean, he slipped out "in the middle of the night" and thought the vault would be secure and his kid would grow up in that secure environment. I really don't blame him to try and revive the old project. I mean, his kid was old enough. He stayed long enough to see you grow to advlt hood. I almost cried when I had to watch him die and I HATE the enclave! Blowing up Raven Rock was soooooooooooo satisfying!

Anyway, I will sent in Fawkes when the time comes. I will not be a martyr and die for my parents project. I will bring clean water to the Wasteland and then go my own way and explore the rest of it!

"I will bring clean water to the Wasteland and then go my own way and explore the rest of it"
But only if you have Broken Steel.

LOL yup, otherwise I would be dead

Referencing the title: Pretty much everyone had a complaint with the story. Though it's valid, because the writing was more than disappointing. As the good Lieutenant pointed out, Fawkes wasn't the only companion who could have activated the Purifier. Charon and RL-3 could have. But they both refuse and only Fawkes or Sarah Lyons will head in. Fawkes bears no harm and yet the player is still scolded for not stupidly killing himself.

If you have complaints with FO3's main story, you need to go to a doctor or something.

Really? The guy was on screen for less than 20-30 minutes total maybe...I felt nothing when he died.

However I couldn't help but make note of Autumn's swagger:

"By the authority of the President, this facility is now under United States Government control."

I like his whole, "I kicked down the door, now this is mine" attitude.

And now you know WHY I kill everything with an Enclave Signature... including eyebots! LOL I really liked the Dad character though. His voice, his looks, the way he called his daughter "Honey". I mean all Alice (my character) wanted when she left the vault was to find her Dad! When she finally does and they start to work together, she's happy for the first time, since she left the vault. And then she has to watch how the Enclave just rolls in and takes everything away from her and destroy her happiness in one horrible moment? She changed that day. A little bit of goodness died within Alice when she had to watch her father die. She's become more cynical, but still knows the difference between right and wrong.

Woah, sorry, I tend to get carried way. LOL

The thing is that James killed himself, the Enclave didn't. If he let the Enclave just take the purifier then Autumn would most likely have stopped Eden's plan of cleansing the wasteland and instead use the Purifier for its original purpose. Autumn wanted pretty much the same thing as James, but instead dear old Dad had to get over-dramatic.

I do agree with you about the "over-dramatic" part! This part of the quest could have been handled so much better, but as I said in another post, I really think that Bethesda took the easy way out. Kill off Dad for silly reasons, so they would not have to write more content for him. -.-

Completely agree with all you wrote.

Put your endurance at 1, don't wear armour, limit your weight carrying to 50 or so. And act as though you actually had 1 life. It is not only more realistic, it's way intense. I have behaved in a 'cowardly' way a lot of the time. There is no heroism without real danger.

Going about the wasteland like a god is fun, but it's a waste of a good game.

When I first played it Fawkes refused to 'rob me of my destiny' or some such lame excuse. I guess they patched it in the DLC?

Still though, how dare Perleman judge you like that.

ALSO: I never liked the way Sarah Lyons says "so much for chivalry". A: I was a girl and B: like the rest of the BoS she had up till that point treated me as some sort of just-about-welcome passenger in their battle against the evil Enclave. Suddenly you are in charge and expected to volonteer to sacrifice yourself! What? Shame on you Sarah, what would your dad think?

Ron shoulda said: (Perleman voice) Sarah Lyons did not choose the hero's path that her father had raised her to follow, instead totally pussied out and left the ultimate sacrifice to a 19 year girl with an identical haircut.

Ehh... His death fit the story. Had he lived? He would've done the same thing as Li. The BoS takes over the purifier in the end, he breaks down, and being a similar person to Li, would probably follow her example by leaving or simply retiring.

About the Enclave, it was actually an ingenious move on Autumn's part. He has his own war with Eden that possibly even surpasses the magnitude of the war between BoS and Enclave.

Taking over the purifier would give him the upper edge against Eden in a few ways.

1. He's completely countering Eden's "purify" plan by actually trying to create pure water instead of poisoning it.

2. The Enclave has been hated since they made a large appearance in Fallout 2, and their bad reputation even reaches the east cost. What better way to gain support than to bring clean water to the wasteland, something that the "boys and girls fighting the good fight" (BOS) simply cannot do?

3. Not only would the purifier running and the Enclave's newfound leadership and Old World ideas give the Enclave some credit and popularity they deserve, it would give Autumn enormous popularity within the Enclave and would possibly bring him to a point where he could replace Eden, (which is in his best interest because he believes that a ZAX computer cannot lead the Enclave.)

If you don't think he dislikes Eden, go into his room and find Eden's destruction code. Yup, he was probably planning on using it once Eden got out of hand (A.K.A when he began to try to install the FEV).

Then how can we explain what he actually says?

LW: "See this vial? He trusts me more than he trusts you."

Autumn: "You could have stolen it, that means nothing. He would never go behind my back like that."

LW: "Why do this? Why give your loyalty to a machine."

Autumn: "I am sworn to protect the Presidency. The chain of command must be up-held. I wouldn't expect you to understand."

LW: "But Eden can't be the President! He wasn't elected! Hell....he isn't even human."

Autumn: "When the Enclave fell on the west coast, Eden was next in line for the presidency."

I'm not saying that we should just ignore the holotape that Autumn has in his office which clearly suggests he distrusts Eden. However that works both ways. You can't just pick and chose and then decide to throw out what he says at the purifier.


So the people of the wasteland are just going to ignore the fact that the Enclave shoot them on sight and have been doing so for the entire time they've been in the CW? Autumn seems to believe that the people of the CW are just going to fall in step behind him when he gets the purifier running, but has he considered the implications of what that means?

Rebellion, disorder within the ranks, and protecting wastelanders from outside threats using soldiers that clearly want absolutely nothing to do with them.



Not likely. As I mentioned, the soldiers don't want to be protecting wasteland scum and acting as a police force for these people that they consider of a lower genetic pedigree. Besides, to them, it almost would appear that Autumn cares more for the wastelanders than he does for them.

Ex: Autumn tells the soldier at the purifier the wrong code that the LW gave him. Which of course ends in an explosion.

Enclave soldier: "Negative sir. That's another good man down."

Autumn has been sending Enclave soldiers in to test the purifier and die.

Now you may ask. But what about Eden? Doesn't Eden turn his sentry bots on the soldiers?

Yes, but the Enclave soldiers don't know that. They believe Eden is a human and not the AI in control of Raven Rock and its technology. For all they know, the LW sabotaged the robots like he does later at the Mobile Base Crawler.

In any case, its also a moot point if the LW sabotaged Eden.

Yes, FO3 is not well written.

I never saw why he killed himself.
It's like, oh no, the enclave are coming!
What shall I do? Start the purifier properly, then let my heavily armed child crush the enclave soldiers for me? Join the enclave? Lock it all up, then escape. I can come back later with the BoS.?
No I'll lock myself in here, and sabotage my own machine. Then my daughter/son will have to go all over to find things to fix it.
Why the hell does'nt he just open the freaking door and let you kill them?! He's got enough time.

He could join the enclave, if he joined willingly, or seemingly willingly, he could continue working with better machinery and far more security. Not like he could'nt get out, he's ingenious. He might even like it.

I wish there was a option to join the enclave, take the purifier with them, kill him if he did'nt surrender, then hand it over to the enclave.

I can't stand him. He's a freaking idiot. He runs project purity. Then leaves, abandoning his teamates. Joins a freaking lunatic vault, that no sensible person wants anything to do with, FFS! Then he leaves you there, despite knowing they're almost all completely bats**t mental and completely brainwashed, and will probabely try to kill you.
So he f**ks his childs life up, denies them the oppertunity to be part of something big, or even a normal settlement, which is something Catherine could not have wanted, then runs off, knowing they will probabely die.
Then expects you to help him.

He's a complete and utter moron. He'd be a dead moron if I could kill him.

If James had thought his offspring would be in danager, he would have brought the PC with him. Talking to the overseer, at times he appears to be rational. Didn't foresee him going berserk and having his security force go on a shorting spree.

Radroaches are the weakest nasty. The security team should easily call have killed them. At other times some radroaches have entered and been dealt with.

Having the overseer going berserk was to entice the PC to leave the vault. How many would leave the vault looking for dad otherwise?

I'd paint the walls with their blood and blow it up, vaults are horrible. But I would'nt be looking for James.

I'll never understand you.

A fan of Fallout 3 might say:

Amata: You have to go, it's my dad, it's....oh my god, they killed Jonas!!
Fallout 3 Fan: What?! Jonas, NOOOOOO!!! They'll pay for this!!

My first playthrough I said:

Amata: You have to go, it's my dad, it's....oh my god, they killed Jonas!!
Me: Lol who the [censored] is Jonas?

A fan of Fallout 3 might say:

Dad: -kills himself-
FO3 Fan: DAD, NOOOOOOOOOO!!! They'll pay for this!!!

My first playthrough I said:

Dad: -kills himself-
Me: ..........wat

I think I chucked slightly and then immediately turned my attention back to Colonel Autumn and how awesome his uniform was.

Needless to say it was anti-climatic.

Nah it just means you know a bad story when you see it.

Okay not bad, just extremely unoriginal and ripped off from the previous games.

I'm back in the DC Wasteland after ME3's abortion of an ending and have been thinking seriously on similarities between the two. Interesting that this was the first topic after popping in on the FO3 forums. Must be kismet.

Ditto on the earlier comment about almost everyone having gripes about the end of the story ("gripes" was being nice back at release time). I'm still unclear on why you get dinged for having someone like Fawkes turn on the purifier. Perhaps the writers were taking a more philosophical than a pragmatic approach to the problem. As long as the thing gets turned on, does it really matter who does it? Of course pre-"Broken Steel", that was supposed to be the end of the story, so it makes a little sense from that perspective. If the PC is still alive after all is said and done, then people start wanting more answers, so "you gotta die" is a pretty straightforward way to deal with the problem. As evidenced by the initial player reaction, it created other problems, but I was always a dutiful son and followed in dear old dad's footsteps. Didn't much care for it, but did it anyway.

It really svcks that the two handed weapons clip into the back of the uniform ....sigh....

it seems that the enclave is as bad as the outcasts. there is a few bits of this in the game. perhaps james knows more about the darkside of the enclave than the PC does. maybe the enclave would only give pure water to those who would kiss their behinds. WATER IS POWER

death to all muties!