Jump 418: Fallout New Vegas

Jump #418: Fallout New Vegas
>Six of Pentacles (Success), reversed: Deception and petty disputes driven by greed and envy.
Gee, that sounds familiar.
>Location: Goodsprings
>Identity: Wild Card
>Faction: New California Republic
>Drawbacks: (+100) Courier 6
Tell me quick, ain't that a kick in the head?
>Wild Wasteland (Free, Wild Card)
Oh hey, look what happens when you try to survive a nuke in a fridge. Shocker.
>Ranger (Free, NCR)
Having the equivalent of NCR ranger training is useful, at the very least.
>Death From Afar (900, NCR)
So the further my bullets go, the harder they hit? Remind me to rig up a rifle that shots over the horizon later.
>Begin Again (800)
I think this is actually something I need to apply to myself. The future's stretched out, why worry overly about the part?
>Finishing Touches (400)
It definitely helps, being able to push back certain events until I'm ready to deal with them on my terms.
>Pip Boy (Free, Wild Card)
I already have a heavily upgraded Pip Boy 3000, but heck, why not?
>Ranger Armor (250, NCR)
This'll look quite spiffy in the warehouse.
>Sunset Sarsaparilla Crate (200)
Endless sarsaparilla! The next time some asshole says they wish for a nuclear winter I'm going to dump the entire crate over their head.
>Companions (0)
It would be very silly if I didn't bring my companions along!

So, this had potential to be an interesting stay. My companions went their separate ways and mostly stirred up trouble in New Vegas while I played Courier for a while. This means, essentially, that Doc Mitchell patched me up (and got a very confused "Colonel Tigh?! What are YOU doing in Nevada?!" out of me), and the vitomatic vigor tester confused the crap out of him as I effectively had ten in every stat. If only because it can't measure higher than that. I thanked him for his help, because he did at least patch me up and fix that hole in my head. Not even a scar left over from the bullet.

And from there, I start walking. And I decide, you know what? Fuck it. I know how this ends if I play it straight, so why play it straight? Why hide anything at all? I put on my armor and leave it in bodysuit mode, just wearing it under the NCR armor, sans gas mask, because it is pretty damn snazzy. Powder gangers? They're a bunch of maniacs, and frankly, screw them. They see me in my armor, they attack, and I wipe their minds rather than kill them outright. This follows for all the powder gangers - I round them all up, leave them ALL in prison if mindwiped, and leave them for the NCR to deal with.

I find and fix up ED-E, and let it follow me around for a while. Nipton? I walk into town, grab Vulpes Inculta with telekinesis and explode the heads of his compatriots, and while Vulpes is panicking about me being a psyker, I commit a ritual to resurrect the town's population and restore the entire damn town to pre-war status. And then I set him down, strip him to his skivvies, and tell him to tell Caesar that the courier will be bringing a special delivery for him. (And then I spend the next couple hours wiping minds in Nipton, because nobody deserves to suffer the memories of such horrors as they experienced.)

Next stop: Novac. I bring Craig Boone a cold sarsaparilla and have a chat with him upstairs in the dino's head. Sure, he thinks I'm crazy when I tell him I'm basically a wandering godlike being, but franky he got a really shit hand dealt to him and I'm going to handle that imminently, what with the bitch in the office downstairs being a turncoat. And so I bring Carla Boone back to life, and after the Boones are done freaking out (and Carla realizes that yes she's still pregnant), I arm them up and we all pay a visit to Jeannie May. Proof and a confession are obtained, Novec's population is brought into the know, and wasteland justice is served.

It really doesn't take much to have Carla take over managing the motel for the next year or so. Sure, she wanted to move to Vegas again, but I pointed out that a shooting war was imminent and they were best off waiting until the dust settled there.

From there... well, I split apart into multiple clones, because there's simply too much to do and even at quarter-power I'm not worried about any trouble. Between all the various versions of myself I try to find as many people as I can to push everything toward the best possible outcomes - the Khans leave Nevada because it's suicidal to do otherwise, the Brotherhood of Steel packs up and heads east to meet up with the Midwest chapter, the Big Mountain lobotomizes a clone (rather ineffectively) and I loot literally everything that is not bolted down before restoring the scientists to (upgraded) human bodies, another chats up Joshua Graham and gives him a miracle to fix his injuries, the real me ends up going to the Sierra Madre casino and the air starts cleaning itself up outside (much to the confusion of Elijah)... mm, speaking of Elijah, he gets locked inside an absolutely empty vault, the Ghost People are restored to normal bodies and relative sanity (as is Dog and Dean Domino), Christine is properly healed and reunited with Veronica and they left with the rest of the Brotherhood eastward, though I cataloged all of the tech at the Sierra Madre and gave an STC to them with the designs. Oh, and the full contents of the vault, because you never know when that much gold may come in handy.

Goddamn, that was a run-on sentence from hell.

Anyway, side objectives: tracking down every last Super Mutant and Nightkin and putting them back in human bodies; systematically eliminating the Legion and breaking it back into tribes where possible, and destroying them where not; disarming any and every nuke in the state; putting Mr. House back in a human body on condition that he cuts a deal with the NCR (which he reluctantly did when I pointed out he'd probably live at least a hundred years if he took care of himself properly); humiliating Vulpes repeatedly and forcing him to take the walk of shame no less than three times; and slap Ulysses upside the head, point out that the old world is gone and he could take lessons from it to help the new world grow into a better one, and shooting the messenger for delivering a package that no one should have touched is a stupid idea.

He really didn't like his idiocy being thrown in his face repeatedly, but in the end acquiesced and worked alongside Mr. House, finding a place for himself in Vegas as a go-between for the nascent government and the Followers of the Apocalypse.

Oh, and I followed through on what I said. Special delivery to Caesar: NCR special ops group completely liquidating his camp, snipers throwing everyone into disarray from a distance, and a B-29 bomber courtesy of the Boomers blowing the hell out of the Legion's lines before the NCR encircled and crushed the Legion in a most permanent fashion.

After that... basically, I quit being a courier and spent the next several years with my companions enjoying New Vegas, and spending my free time cleaning up radiation and FEV when I can be bothered, because magic.

And also using jumper powers to exterminate all of the cazadores in existence because WHY WOULD ANYONE MAKE THESE THINGS.