Fallout New Vegas Day#5: Their Name is Legion and They are Many

Day 5 is a pretty post-apocalyptic session. I’m introduced to a major enemy group in a quite nice scene that really grounds the dark future of the game. There’s quite a bit of fighting and I’m back in the rhythm of the strategy of the game. The narrative is pretty good overall — there’s a lot of nice subplots although the melodrama gets kind of thick and predictable in a couple places. Overall though, the game is reaching a steady level of Fallout quality and the core plot is just starting to take some interesting twists. Spoilers within.

I think I have an idea on how to Nipton — if I just go through the lake and kill the ants, that’s probably the easiest way to go. So I try that first this this session. I fast travel back down to the rest station and head into the lake. I kill a bunch of ants with the whole antenna/frenzy trick and then try to navigate around the jackal camp,  but one guy at the camp sees me and starts shooting.  He gets distracted as a couple of ants invade the camp. That gives me the opportunity to kill him, and shortly thereafter the leader of the gang and two others, getting only a little wounded. I did well enough there that I decide to save. I then continue to clear out the jackal road stop by killing everyone and I get some grenades and mines for my trouble. Not how I thought that would go down but who’s crying except the jackals?

Road stop down, I get to Nipton. On my way in, I meet a crazy guy who says he’s won the lottery. He says he used to be a Powder Gangster, but now that he’s won the lottery he’s not. It’s weird and I let him run off.  As I enter, I notice that Nipton’s on fire in lots of places. I go into the general store. When I walk in, a guy in there screams that I should just kill him already (he thinks I’m a powder ganger). He tells me that the Legion attacked the town.  He’s alive because he got second in the lottery (the other guy got first).  He further says that he was here to ransom some NCR guys with the help of the corrupt mayor, but there was a Legion ambush. The lottery was how the Legion determined everyone’s punishment; a dog headed guy said they were all bad people and needed punishment. The “prizes” ranged from decapitation to enslavement to freedom. For second place, he was allowed to live but he’s crippled. He tells me the mayor was burned alive. I give him a med-x for some karma and then search the place. I go upstairs and raid the safe before leaving. I go back outside and search some nearby houses to basically no avail.

Turning up another street, I see crucified people and heads on poles. It’s a pretty gruesome scene. You can try to talk to the crucified people, but the game tells you they are too weak and taking them down would kill them. I approach a main building and see Vulpa Inculta (a guy with dog head hood) and about five other guys.  He immediately tells me he’s not going to kill me because he wants me to be the witness to what they’ve done. I choose to ask him about the “lessons” he taught, and he tells me that he punished Nipton for being a town of whores. I tell him he’s evil and he tells me I can try to stop him if I want to die. I save first and then I do try to kill them. I throw a bunch of grenades and do some damage, but there are just too many of them and I’m killed. I reload and this time, I decide to let them go for now. I probably could have taken them down with a lot of deaths and retries, but there’s something really nicely post-apocalyptic about them being too powerful right now.

As they walk away, I go inside the town hall and am almost immediately killed by dogs inside. I respawn in the building and kill them with some quickly thrown mines and my rifle. 6 dogs altogether, wow that’s a lot.  I search all over the building. I kill 6 more hounds on second floor taking no damage,  but then I accidentally trip a mine and cripple both my legs. I find the mayor’s computer on third floor, and the files there tell me that he was as corrupt as everyone said he was. I learn about the prison break and his role as dupe in the Legion’s arrival. Damn it – the game froze. I start again on the third floor and go back to the terminal.  The mayor also set up a safe  house between here and Mojave Outpost; are those the people I killed coming here? I’m stopped at a door I can’t unlock and so I leave. I fast travel back to Goodsprings to heal and sell, and go back to outpost to report on Nipton to Ghost.  When I tell her, she tells me Nipton deserved to be burned but not by the Legion. That completes that quest. I fast travel back to Nipton. I search around the town a bit more and find the tinkerer’s house, killing a robot inside. I then head to the next marker, even though I’m not sure what’s there. I decide to sneak forward just in case, and there’s a weird bug with the arm position while I’m crouching; it keeps moving back and forth between standing and crouched arm positions. It turns out my sneaking was wise, and there are a couple of guards posted on the way down the road that I kill fairly easily. I arrive at a new location: Wolfram Ranch. There’s nothing much here to my surprise: no important characters and no major spots, at least none I find. As I continue on, I find a farm and take some crops. Further down the road, I see a traveling merchant and some Legionnaires. They fight, and I help the merchant. This earns me a shunned status with Legionnaires for my trouble.

I wander on and see more NCR fighting Legionnaires. I again try to help the NCR, but this time accidentally shoot one of them and they immediately start attacking me. I’m not sure how to make them not enemies after that so I run away. I’m glad there’s no change in status for me in the NCR for what was a random mistake. I then come across a new location: Ranger Station Charlie. I talk to a ranger there and find out that they are scouts and sheriffs for the NCR. Most of the camp is on patrol, so there’s nothing much to do here. I wander further and finally reach Novac. In contrast to Nipton, this town seems fine. The first person I meet is a doctor, and get healed by her despite her statements about recent mistakes in last few services. Victor the robot is here. He’s heading to New Vegas but doesn’t know why. I try to recruit him but he declines. I meet Jeannie May in the town’s hotel. She tells me about a rocket lab nearby and a town to the east (Nelson) that was taken by slavers. She also tells met that the Khans (the people who shot me) passed through and the sniper might have seen them. I rent a room to have a place to keep my stuff. I meet a local crazy named no-bark as I head to my room. He gives me a bunch of crazy talk about the locations the Jeannie May mentioned. I go to room and drop stuff off, and then talk to Cliff in the gift shop of the giant dinosaur statue they have here. He tells me more about the rocket factory and I buy a rocket souvenir from him. I think climb to the top of the dinosaur to talk to the on-duty sniper, Boone. He’s standoff but then he opens up enough to ask me to kill the person who enslaved his wife. I’m supposed to take the person in front of the dinosaur while wearing Boone’s NCR hat (he gives it to me) to signal the shot.  This is interesting – I can kill anyone I want just by bringing them here. I wonder what I’ll do with that.

I wander a bit more around Novac and find Ranger Andy. He’s old and too hurt to fight anymore. He’s worried about the rangers but doesn’t want to mother hen the. I speech him up and as a result, he teaches me a new unarmed move that I imagine I will never use. As I leave, he tells me he does want me to check out the station. That is a bad sign – I’m sure the station will be destroyed. I fast travel back there and enter the office where I spoke to the ranger earlier. As I walk in, I’m killed by mines I don’t see. CRAP. I respawn at the door and shoot out the mines first. No surprise,  they’re all dead. I fast travel back to Novac and to Ranger Andy. He asks me to help him find the station’s attackers, but surprisingly it’s not a quest. I guess I’ll just roleplay that. Checking out each room of the motel, I find and talk to the other sniper Vargas. He used to be Boone’s friend, but Boone’s wife got between them before she disappeared. He believably denies involvement in the disappearance. He also knows about my attacker but he wants to trade for the info. He wants the ghouls cleared out of the rocket site in order to facilitate trade to Novac and keep the town alive.  I agree to the deal. Oh he was IN the Khans. That’s interesting — good thing I didn’t say I was looking for revenge.  In a different room, I find a singer on the run from a casino boss (he slept with his daughter and stole from him).  I offer to hook him up if I find work for a singer. It’s been a long session, so  go back to my hotel room and call it a night.