Nuka-Girl: The Lone Teleporter (Or: "That time Taylor found herself in the Fallout Universe").

[Aurora Moon]

Well... They told Dima that the cultists would be allowed to leave the island alive. But they didn't say that they'd make sure the cultists would travel safely, did they? Plus, Nora really did not want to waste any of her good building materials on the cultists after all the trouble they caused. another reason why that "steamboat" was built so shoddy. *whistles innocently*

But yeah, the cultists are going to be in for a hard time. But don't worry, most of them will make it to Maine's shoreline... eventually. And, it's not like they're without sea-faring survival skills. They did live on Far Harbor's island for years, so they know how to do things like catch fish to eat. They also had to reach the island somehow when they first arrived, eh? Which means they at least know how to work with boats and ships. plus, some of the cultists used to be former Harbormen and Harborwomen before they got brainwashed. Yeah, most of them will be okay... a few still might die at first though.

 

[DireSquirrel]

Mount Desert Island is connected to the mainland by a bridge. There really wasn't a need for a boat in the first place.

 

[Arbitbit39]

They're no longer our problem now."

Click to shrink...

either they die out by starvation, killed, gone to the cool aid route or convert the people on the otherside of the ocean

 

[Aurora Moon]

The DLC game doesn't have a bridge, so I'm just assuming that in the fallout universe the island is a little further away that attempting to build a bridge would be ineffective and unsafe. Thus, needing boats to get there in the first place.

But that's also one of the reasons why I'm not too fussed about the cultists making it back to shore... because the island isn't THAT far away from shore.

 

[GamingGeek]

Eh, I'd give it about a 50/50 chance of making it to Maine. One reason is that they didn't do the sea monster quest, and that wee beasty could smash that nuke-scoop water-jet raft in a couple hits.

Even if they make it to shore, they didn't have much for weapons or supplies, leaving them open for raiders and other encounters, not to mention no maps of settlements on the east coast to head to. Nordham Beach and The Castle and few other possible settlements on the coast in the Commonwealth, unknown elsewhere except for DC.

I'd have made something like a PT Boat, sans torpedoes, and given it to the Minute Men at The Castle for coastal and riverene work, and have the MMs escort the Atom cultists to the Glowing Sea. But a PT boat or similar could run and fight against sea monsters and raiders and could go up river to the Star Light Drive In or Oberland Station pretty easy.

Click to shrink...

Honestly?

Not their problem. There were very few people who wanted the Cultists to live after all. This way they have a chance, and good riddance to them. No reason to put any more effort in helping them than the bare minimum,

 

[Aurora Moon]

Author Notes: Just wanted to give my character some R&R (rest and relaxation) after all of that.
====================================================
--A few days later--

"Oh yes, this will be perfect for my needs. Thank you for finding this place." Faraday looked around with a delighted expression on his face.

There were actual live dolphins and a pair of ghoulified whales here in those tanks that he could study to his heart's content, which was great.

For as long as Faraday could remember, he always worked in the bio-science department inside the institute. While other scientists cloned mammals like gorillas, he tended to go for marine life forms and aquatic ecology instead.

Early on, he realized that the reason why the world was still so radioactive even years later, was due to the heavy radiation in the oceans. When the earth was mostly made up of oceans, it was a small wonder why the radiation hadn't ebbed away. It was the vicious water cycle that was at fault for why radiation itself tended to proliferate instead of fading away as it should've had. Even the radioactive fog on this island existed because of the ocean.

When he first learned of pre-war marine life forms such as underwater plants, fish, jellyfish, and other things? Well, that was when he first had the idea to create living synthetic coral reefs and jellyfish that could reproduce on their own. They would act as nature's filters, feeding and living on radiation itself until the ocean eventually stopped being radioactive.

This way, the wasteland would also stop being radioactive eventually, and the institute would be able to conquer the surface world and reclaim it for their own uses.

The other people in the institute had been interested in his idea at first, but when he tried and failed on so many occasions to develop an aquatic lifeform that was completely immune to radiation without the help of the FEV strains that lend itself to super mutants and ghouls? Well, they had decided that his dream was completely impossible and stopped funding his experiments. They told him it was a waste of resources to work on something like that when the time was better spent working on other things.

Worse, they threw him out when he refused to stop working on his project on the side… leaving him without a home or a place to keep continuing on his experiments. Fucking assholes, the whole lot of them. It was the reason why he hadn't been too bothered when he first learned that they had gotten blown up by some vault dweller years later.

Of course, he had wound up on the Far Harbor Island because he had heard there was a thriving ecosystem here, but he still had the problem that he didn't exactly have a proper setup to do his experiments. A bunch of chemistry workshops and a dozen computers at Acadia weren't exactly cutting it for him.
Hence the reason why he was so elated right now. It was his first time hearing that a bunch of pre-war people had cracked the solution to radiation immunity, imperfect as it was. And on top of it, the place they had done it was still intact, with plenty of working machines that were perfect for his needs?

Why that was enough to make a scientist like himself swoon from happiness.

Nora and the others were explaining to a black-colored robot, who apparently went by the name Mr. Porter, that people like Faraday and Aster were here to keep on working on the project.

Dima was standing by him and smiled at him. "You must be so happy right now. I know how important this was to you."

Faraday smiled politely at the ancient synth. "Oh yes."

Truth was, Dima sometimes gave him the creeps. Most times, Faraday just felt sorry for the creature. Dima had exceeded his own lifespan, and it showed. His legs were literally held together with black duct tape and mesh wire. And let's not get started on what he did to himself to prevent any memory loss. The vacuum tubes on his head only added to the uncanny valley that Dima had going on.

There were times when he often wondered why people just didn't put the poor guy out of his misery. But for some reason, the other synths at Acadia seemed emotionally attached to Dima and treated him like he was a grandfather of sorts.

It was just strange.

Much to his relief, Aster came over before Dima could say anything more to him.

"Did you see the underground lab yet? This is so wonderful… it's the perfect place for us to conduct our studies!" Aster replied happily.

This time his smile was more genuine. Even though Aster was in a completely different field of study than he was, the two of them still bonded over having similar problems as scientists. Such as the lack of a sufficient laboratory to do their science from. Plus, it was also nice to be able to chat with another fellow scientist about the progress they made in their respective studies.

And from what he heard, a bunch of humans were also coming here to work on their own scientific studies, so maybe with them all working together, they could figure a way to realize his dreams of a working aquatic ecosystem that filtered all the radiation in the ocean into something more manageable. Maybe. It just depended on how compatible their fields of study were.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It's kinda creepy how small changes to his memory could result in him acting so differently…" Piper noted as the group watched Faraday roam around the place. Longfellow simply stood there quietly as he sipped from his flask.

Nora was building up the old tourist attraction into a place where people could actually live and work, so she wasn't standing together with everyone else here. She was also helping reprogram the robots working here so that they'd accept the idea of humans coming to live and work here more easily.

Hancock nodded. "I know right? Before, Faraday was always protective when it came to Dima, and tended to stick by his side. But now, it's like he doesn't even give a single flying fuck about the old synth. Did you see the way he seemed to act creeped out when Dima went to stand by him?"

"I'm still weirded out by the fact that they mastered him like this. I mean, all the synths were scared of being mastered themselves but then they go ahead and do that to one of their own because they thought it was the lesser of two evils? Just because they didn't want to murder him? That's just weird." Taylor commented.

Nick just shrugged. "Seems to be an Acadia thing in general? They like to think that a total personality wipe is the same as murdering somebody. Most likely due to personal experience seeing that firsthand when the institute did that to them or somebody else they were close to. So, of course, they didn't want to do that out of fear of becoming as bad as the institute themselves. So the option I came up with seemed less morally objectionable as a result. From what I heard, they're also planning to destroy Faraday's equipment back at their place so that nobody else can't do what he did to Dima or Jule. They don't want another Faraday coming along and getting ideas on how to use the mind-altering tools."

"Eye for an eye, choosing the lesser of all evils and all that, I suppose. But, I still agree with Taylor. It's fucking weird as hell." Longfellow replied.

"What's so weird?" Dima asked as he came over, only having overheard that last part.

"Ah, we were talking about how different Faraday acted just with a few tweaks to his memories. We haven't known him that long, but he seems like a different person now. It's just so… strange how a few changes to your memory could turn you into a different person like that." Taylor answered.

Piper nodded. "It just makes me wonder what really makes us who we are. That's all."

Dima smiled. "Ah, yes. That old philosophical chestnut. Synths everywhere's been pondering that question for a hundred years now, myself induced."

"Did you ever find the answer to that question?" Nick asked. He hadn't outright admitted it, but he had been one of those synths who constantly pondered his own existence and what it meant to be Nick Valentine knowing that the original human died a long time ago. He even occasionally wondered whenever he had something akin to a human soul at all. It'd be interesting to hear how Dima came to his own conclusions before sharing his own answer to that question.

But, to his disappointment, Dima simply shrugged and said, "There's really no right or wrong answer to that question in particular. After all, life is what you make of it… likewise, you get to choose who you are. That's the great thing about life, really."

Nick just grimaced slightly at that, unsure if he even agreed with that. He then gave Dima the once over, making sure that the repairs to Dima's body were holding up.

They had patched up the damaged power cell as well as the nasty hole in his chest, which meant that Dima would have up to two years to live until they found a better solution or a new power cell that he could use. Thankfully, that seemed to be plenty of time for them to come up with a better solution.

Nora came over just then and told them: "I turned the car park lot next to the Oceanarium into an apartment building. It'll be enough to house the people coming to live and work here for now. Come on, let's go."

With that, they left the Oceanarium building. On their way to the main road everyone could see the ancient car park next to it which had been retrofitted into a passable-looking building. If you hadn't known that it had been a place to park your cars before, it would've passed for an ultra-modern building in the commercial district. Or something.

"It was my first time transforming a place like that using only concrete pieces and the like into a place where people could call it home. I wasn't too sure about it, but the result turned out to be surprisingly nice. The concrete pieces I used blended well with the rest of the old car garage, so it looked like it had meant to look that way all along. Of course, the original flooring inside was too grimy for my tastes so I put in some nice light wood floors to offset all that concrete. I hope they'll appreciate that." Nora commented, talking as if the topic was about a painting that she had made while at Art class.

The others just nodded politely at this.

Taylor then said, "It looks very nice. Actually reminds me of some buildings I've seen back home. There's this place called the Forsberg Gallery that looks kinda similar to this building you did. Only it's painted orange and brown on the outside. Of course, it's' an art museum and not an apartment building."

Nora smiled at this. She was actually kind of glad that Taylor had said that because she had been worrying in the back of her head that the building might've been too horrendously modern-looking for anybody to want to live in. After all, it wasn't typically the building style she liked to build… She tended to go for things that reminded her of the good old days--sleek Deco styles, brownstones and or clean pre-war sanctuary stuff.

All of them walked down the road in silence for a little bit, until Strong pointed at something in the distance, and said, "Something glowing bright. What is that?"

Everyone stopped and squinted off into the woods where Strong was pointing. It turned out to be a sign that somehow still had power running to it, and it had a glowing red cross sign over words that said, "Aldersea Day Spa. Unlimited luxury for mind, body, and soul."

Nora got excited at this all of a sudden, as she said, "That's great! This is exactly what we needed after all the crap we went through. Imagine it, a luxurious soak in a bubbling hot tub… or even giving ourselves the traditional spa treatment…"

Taylor smiled. "You know, that does kind of sound nice… and not to mention I can't remember the last time I took a proper bath. In fact, we all probably reek right now but I've gotten kind of nose-blind a while ago so I can't really tell anymore."

Piper was the only woman in the group who didn't know what the big deal about a Spa was, and she looked over at the other men in the group in confusion. The other men just simply shrugged, save for Nick Valentine who only merely looked amused.

Nick Valentine, after all, had the memories of a pre-war detective so he knew how pre-war women tended to like going to spas.

Nora's eyes took on a determined glint. "Okay. that's it, we're making a detour here if you men don't mind. I'd really like to visit this place."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Aldersea Day Spa building was kind of plain-looking on the outside, a series of white-stone blocks slapped together to make a building. But on the inside, you could tell that they had made up for the plainness by having fancy, expensive marble stone on the walls and floors.

It had noticeable signs of Super-mutants having lived here, but thankfully they seemed to have left for greener pastures so all Nora had to do was clean up the place while the rest of her group explored the place.

Longfellow actually warmed up to the idea of an active spa center once he cottoned on to the fact that it'd be a place for people to bathe safely in nonradioactive waters. He then told Taylor something interesting.

It seemed that bathing was something of a luxury on the island, even when they were surrounded by so much water. It was mainly due to the fact that it was difficult to filter out the radiation in water, and on top of it, people tended to prioritize drinkable water over being able to bathe safely. So the idea of actually bathing in safe water? Well, that tended to be reserved for special occasions, like when you were getting married.

So when the island folks needed to get clean, they'd instead use this homemade mud-based scrub that didn't require too much water to get off once they were done scrubbing themselves clean. It was akin to something like a mud bath… which wasn't exactly clean but it helped people from stinking too much… not to mention the salt they put into it also helped destroy any bacteria or germs, which made it handy to help stay healthy longer.

Taylor was somewhat interested to learn about the alternative route they took to keep themselves clean

She then asked, "what does the people do to keep their hair clean?"

Apparently that was done by working mud thoroughly into it, and allowing it to dry. Then the caked mud is broken up and brushed out. Amazingly enough that seemed to be somewhat effective in absorbing all the oils and dirt in the hair, according to Longfellow. Taylor was a little doubtful about that, however.

Within hours the entire place was now a fully functioning building with a swimming pool, sauna and the entire works. Nora had built a bunch of filtering machines in the basement much like the ones that the Far Harbor's only hotel had, and the piping was thankfully intact so they were able to fill up the pool and the hot tubs in no time with clean, nonradioactive water.

It just so happened that you could find swimming suits in the store section they used to have here, so everyone was able to change into swimming trunks and one-piece suits.

Well, almost everyone. Both Nick and Dima were content to sit this one out and just watch from the sidelines as the rest of them whooped loudly and jumped into the heated pool.

"Ya know, I wasn't sure about this but this is actually kind of nice. I'm not normally into public or community bathing… so I'm pleasantly surprised. Pre-war folks did this all the time?" Piper asked.

Nora was somewhat mildly amused that piper seemed to think that this was what passed for bathing. But she said, "Eh, everyone had their own showers and baths at home back then. This was mostly just a recreational activity you did with friends and family. Especially in the summer, when it got so hot that all you wanted to do was swim in cold water all day."

Piper raised her eyebrows at this. "Ya know, I still can't get over how folks back in the pre-war days didn't even need to farm for food all day long in their backyards, and that they could afford to just laze about in the summer like that… It feels like you came from another world, just like Taylor here."

Nora frowned slightly, not really liking how that hit too close to home for her. There were times when she did feel like she had been displaced and put into the wrong world. But then she shook off that feeling, and smiled as she playfully splashed at Piper.

Piper raised one eyebrow at this. "Oh, that's how it's going to be, eh?"
With that she splashed back.

This led to a splashing fight, which also led to the two of them playfully wrestling each other in the water much to Hancock's appreciation. The ghoul wasn't afraid to admit that he liked watching a pair of beautiful, busty ladies in swimsuits wrestling with each other. Especially with the way their wet breasts bounced in the water…

Nick and Dima on the other hand, weren't exactly perving on the human women in the group like Hancock was. They seemed deep in a discussion about something, although Taylor couldn't hear what it was about from over where she was.

Meanwhile, Strong and Longfellow choose to go sit in one of the nearby hot tubs as they chatted about weapons that could take out large mobs and compared the large weapons they had. They kinda sounded like the nerds back home, only instead of comparing comptuer specs on their PC setups they were discussing how to improve their weapons.

Taylor grinned as she floated backwards on her back.
She then said out loud, "The last time I went swimming with friends like this? I did this two years ago with…. Emma."

Her smile faded away as she thought of her ex-best friend.

Nora was quick to notice, and she asked, "You alright, Taylor?"

Taylor swam to the swallow end of the pool so that she could stand in the water. "I'm fine. I just remembered somebody who I'd rather forget."

"Want to tell us about it? Sometimes the best way of getting rid of old pain is sharing it with a good friend." Piper wondered.

Taylor mulled this over. Well, she had been traveling with Nora and the others for a while now, and she had come to regard them all as trusted friends now, even though they weren't exactly peers her age. So she didn't see the harm in opening up to them, even though this was a wound that she didn't want to pick at.

"Alright. Um, there was this person who betrayed me. Her name was Emma Barnes, and once upon a time we used to be close like sisters…."

She found that once she started talking, she couldn't stop. It was like lancing a ugly boil and then watching every negative feeling she ever held back burst out.

Taylor didn't get into all the details, and certainly didn't list everything the bullies at her school had done to her over the past two years. But, she did tell them about how she had gotten here to this world, due to the school's negligence and her ex-best friend's cruelty.

She found herself sobbing into Nora's arms, as she had come to wrap her arms around Taylor as the teenage girl got progressively more upset the more she talked about Emma.

"She literally just left me there to die. If I hadn't suddenly developed superpowers and gotten the hell out of there… I would've died. I just don't understand what I did to make her hate me so much that she wouldn't care if I died!" She bawled loudly as she finally got to the end of her tale.

John Hancock was sitting at the shallow end of the pool, just enjoying the warm water as he listened to Taylor's story.

He shook his head. "Man. I've heard of some messed up stuff over the years, but that? That certainly goes in the top ten."

Nora just shook her head. "I'm more appalled at that so-called school of yours. What kind of people would allow that shit to go on in an educational institution like that? If you were my child, I'd be finding a way to make sure that every single adult there lost their jobs over that!"

Taylor calmed down some, and she sniffled slightly as she went to wipe her face with a towel. Oddly, telling somebody about everything she had gone back home had actually made her feel better. She felt pounds lighter, and it was helped by the fact that those adults didn't simply dismiss the bullying she went through just as something that all kids experienced as a passage of life like so many did back home.

Honestly, she loved the way that Nora and the others seemed utterly appalled by what she had gone through, and went as far to say that those adults deserved to lose their jobs for ignoring what was going under their noses for so long. It was somewhat gratifying to finally have somebody agree with her, especially so because they just happened to be adults themselves.

Piper narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure your world doesn't have synths? Because it's certainly strange that a girl could change so much like that…. Barring that, it sounds like that Sophia girl had something to do with her sudden change in personality. Could she be a parahuman? You said there were masters out there who could do that after all."

Taylor paused at this. Truthfully, there had been a few times when she had honestly wondered that. She had been tempted to call the PRT about a possible mastering situation just to make sure that Emma hadn't experienced something like that.

But on the other hand, the reason why she hadn't followed though on that was due to the fact that she was kinda scared. What if Emma hadn't been mastered all along? Then Emma was truly a nasty bitch who'd use the fact that Taylor called the PRT against her or something like that. Taylor couldn't stand that thought at all, so that was why she had held off on that…. Which was admittedly a weak reason in retrospect.

At any rate, it was a little too late to do something about that anyways so she simply shrugged at Piper's words. "I have no clue at all."

She then spun around in the water and put on a forced smile. "Come on, I don't want to bring down the mood. Can't we go back to swimming and pretend I never said anything?"

Nora got the feeling that Taylor was just trying to avoid her personal issues and pretend like they didn't exist. And not only that, but she also got a gut feeling that this was something Taylor Hebert was in the habit of doing all the time.

But she smiled all the same and nodded. "Sure, Taylor."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day went by in a blur after that because the entire group enjoyed the R&R they got at the Spa place. And so everyone walked out of there feeling refreshed and relaxed.

Incidentally, Nora had set up a radio beacon here and some defenses in the hopes that some enterprising humans might come along and see the potential of living and running a spa center. Hey, it couldn't hurt at all. And plus if this was to happen then the Far Harbor Island would at least have two places where people could bathe without fear of getting irradiated. The other place being that hotel, of course. And, she had left behind some detailed instructions on how to keep the filters and pipes running.

And when they left the building, Nora was quick to set up a large fog condenser tower for the new Spa settlement, just in case the fog came back.

They walked down the road for a while, and it was then that Longfellow smiled and said, "Hey, do you guys mind if I make a pit-stop to check on a friend? He's living in an ancient crashed plane just south of here."

Nora just simply shrugged at this. And so they all followed Longfellow's path to where an old plane crash site was, and Nora could see some lettering on the tail of the ancient wreck which read, "Skylanes P". It was obvious that the rest of the words had been ripped off, most likely from the crash, so the "P" word was left unfinished even though Nora could easily guess what it was from context.

Longfellow then called out: "Hey, Erickson! It's Longfellow!"

He then turned to the others and said, "Don't judge him by appearances. I've had dealings with him before, and he's not a bad sort."

It was then that a Super mutant wearing a bear skin outfit, which looked like it came straight out of a fantasy game, stepped outside and said "Longfellow. Good to see that you're still kicking."

Longfellow smiled at the Super-mutant. "You too as well. A lot of things have been happening on this island in the past few days. Important things you might want to know about."

Erickson then looked at Taylor, then Nora, and then the rest of the group. "You can vouch for them?"

Longfellow nodded. "They're decent folk, most of them I wouldn't mind trusting with my own life."

The super-mutant nodded. "Good enough for me."

He turned to face the group, and told them. "Just don't do anything to my dogs, and we're good. But otherwise, you are welcome to sit at the fire pit with me."

Erickson then led them to a large fire pit which sat just outside the airplane, and it was then that Taylor could look into the large gaping hole on the side of the ancient wreck. It was there that she could see a bunch of cages but the said cages were open, letting the dogs wander around.

The dogs noticed the group coming, but due to the fact that there were so many of them they just stood there sniffing the air warily instead of coming out to greet them.

All eight people sat around the large fire pit in a half circle while Erickson took up the other side where a massive metal pot was cooking on the fire. By the smell, it smelled like he was cooking up some large meaty stew. There were even a few hanging deer that had been mostly stripped of their skin and meat on the outside of the plane behind him.

Erickson then eyed every single person here, and then remarked in a casual tone, "You're a pretty unusual-looking group, if I say so. Not everyday I see one of my own kind hanging out with humans, much less what looks like machine men and a ghoul."

Nora smiled. "I was gonna say something similar about you. It's not everyday that we meet another friendly super mutant like Strong here."

Erickson nodded. "I'm not too surprised. Most Super Mutants are set in their ways, and it's very hard for us to change. When I first came here to this island a very long time ago with my brethren, I too had the mindset that all humans were to be captured or killed on sight. It took me a few years to change my mind on that."

"What changed your mind?" Piper asked.

Erickson gestured at the island all around him. "The island, mostly. Back on the mainland, it made sense to be hostile to humans as we were all competing for scarce resources like food and a safe place to live. But here? The island is a renewing resource. You cut down one tree, it just grows ten trees in its place thanks to the seeds scattered by the fallen tree. All the plants are constantly renewing themselves, yeah? So this means all animals living here are eating well and breeding well. Animal resources renew themselves too then by default. So why kill humans when we no longer need them for food? Super Mutants also don't need to replenish our numbers either if we just stay in a safe place without fighting everything we see."

Hancock nodded. "Makes sense."

The super-mutant then sighed. "I just wish that the group I came with saw things my way. They were so set in their ways that they couldn't fathom the idea of living off the land and leaving the humans alone. They said such a way of thinking was weak human thinking, as they put it. As a matter of fact, I had to lock up their leader Grun inside that Vim Factory before I could escape them…. Otherwise I'd have been killed for supposedly having weak human-like beliefs."

Strong started snorting loudly at this while the rest of the group had interesting reactions to this. At Erickson's look of confusion, Strong then finally spoke up.

"Vim Factory Mutants killed off by Strong and friends. Behemoth dead too." Strong explained.

Erickson nodded. "Ah, I see. By any chance, did you happen to loot some crates of Vim from there? I've had a strong hankering for them lately but didn't want to go back."

"You, uh, don't seem bothered at all by the fact that we killed your old friends?" Nora wondered.

The other Super-mutant simply shrugged at this. "Eh, That's what you get when you're so set in your ways that you refuse to consider any other way that would've made your life better. They were hostile to everything else, so it was only natural that they'd run into hostile forces that wiped them out eventually. Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly sad that they died, but they did deserve what they got coming."

There was a moment of silence at this, before he spoke up. "So….. about the Vim? It just so happens that I'm a merchant, so I'm willing to trade for any Vim drinks you might have…"

Taylor couldn't help but chuckle slightly at that. Seriously, it seemed like all this super-mutant cared about were his dogs and the Vim Drinks.

======================================================

Author notes: And so we meet Erickson. Seriously, he's such a cool super mutant character and you can't even get him as a companion but you get somebody like strong who doesn't even have his own personal quest line for you to go through? No fair.

 

[TerraBull]

The Vim Factory.

What is preventing you from restoring it to purify water & make drinks?

Would Nuka-world care to fund it?

I just imagined a Skyscraper habitat next to it.

 

[Trufla]

The Vim Factory.

What is preventing you from restoring it to purify water & make drinks?

Would Nuka-world care to fund it?

I just imagined a Skyscraper habitat next to it.

Click to shrink...

Nora probably could make a good shot at renovation of the factory, but they'd need to import some more people for the workforce to get the plant running, I suspect.

As for Nuka-world backing it? I suspect that the big boss there would start messing with the recipes pretty quick. And I just can't see Nuka Vim catching on.

 

[Aurora Moon]

Funnily enough canon lore has it that the owner of Vim Factory Doyle Reed and John-Celeb had been feuding somewhat with John wanting to buy out the entire Vim factory and having that be a off-shoot of Nuka-cola. So.... if John-Celeb in my story ever found out that he could finally own the Vim brand name after all those years, he'd probably be feeling VERY smug about it.

"Haha! In your face, Doyle Reed!!" John-Celeb says as he makes his robot body do a jig.

Although for Doyle Reed's original recipes, John-Celeb Braderton wouldn't have the resources at all to alter the Vim Formula at all. Especially so because nearly all of his old workers are dead, and he has enough on his hands already restoring Nuka-world into a city instead of the amusement park that it originally were.

Hmm. Thinking on it, it's probably best that Vim Factory owns to a local person on the island instead. John-Celeb's got his hands full already.

 

[TerraBull]

So, if the Vim Factory were worked by an 'Anti-Nuke' Tinker?

I am sure they can do a lot with a Factory dedicated to making Drinks.

Especially if encouraged by Nora. She can own part of the company!

 

[_Autumn_]

Thinking on it, it's probably best that Vim Factory owns to a local person on the island instead. John-Celeb's got his hands full already.

Click to shrink...

robot body

Click to shrink...

Easy! Just Slap on some more hands! /s

 

[Aurora Moon]

So, I noticed that my story reached 200k words. Well, I thought that was a milestone of sorts so I did a picture. The next chapter's coming up soon too as well, in a few more days.

Taylor Hebert and Nora by Lady-Aurora-Moon on DeviantArt

fav.me

somewhat unhappy with Nora's face but I spent hours on this thing so I figured it was as good as it got.

 

[Aurora Moon]

Author notes: In this chapter I was supposed to wrap up the entire Far harbor storyline and have them leave… but you readers had to remind me about the Vim Factory. So that got me re-reading about Doyle Reed's history and how he built the Vim factory, etc….

So as a result this chapter snowballed somewhat with the Vim Factory bits. So I'm totally blaming this chapter on you guys.

Also, Erickson is the best when it comes to buying guard dogs. All the dogs have their own unique names instead of something generic like "guard dog", etc. so much better than the creation club dogs too, that's for sure. That is all.

====================================================================

Taylor woke up to a warm body weighting on top of her body, and she nearly panicked until she remembered what had occurred the other night.

As the group helped Erickson catch up on current events, all of the dogs had slowly crawled closer and closer to the group, sniffing warily as they did so. Until they were relaxed enough to sit by everyone at the fire once they were sure that the eight newcomers weren't going to harm them.

It was then that Taylor got to befriend the Supermutant dog named Gracie. The super mutant dog wasn't used to being petted, hugged, or scratched behind her ears, but she greatly enjoyed Taylor's attention so much that she refused to leave Taylor's side all night long.

So naturally, when she had put down a sleeping bag and tent for the night, Gracie had chosen to come inside and become her sleeping companion. Taylor didn't mind too much as it was cold and nippy at night. Gracie was a nice cuddly heat source.

Only, it seemed that Gracie had moved in her sleep overnight so that she was practically lying on top of Taylor now. And she was snoring loudly. And excessively drooling in her sleep, which is what had apparently woken Taylor up as the drool was pooling up on one side of the sleeping bag where Taylor's hand was at. Ew, her hand was completely coated in drool!

"Ugh, gross." She muttered to herself as she wiped her hand on Gracie's green leathery skin. The contact woke Gracie up, her head perking upwards and she panted happily right in Taylor's face, letting her powerful and smelly breath wash over her.

"Just what I wanted. To start my morning with doggy drool on my hand and smelling dog breath on my face…" she mumbled sarcastically, although there was no real annoyance behind her words.

The truth was, even with Gracie being a pain in the ass right now Taylor still thought she was cute as hell, for a super mutant hound. Apparently, when they weren't attacking you they were kind of weirdly cute… who knew? In fact, Gracie kind of reminded her of a Bulldog breed, just ten times more muscular and green.

"Come on, get up. It's time to eat some breakfast…" Taylor said as she struggled to free herself from the dog pinning her down.

Gracie seemed to understand the word "eat" out of everything that Taylor said because her stubby tail started wagging like crazy as she got off Taylor.

As Taylor climbed out of her tent, Gracie bounced slightly around her in the hopes that she'd give her a bowl of food.

It was then that she noticed Erickson, Strong, and Dima sitting around the campfire. They all seemed to be holding a philosophical debate about whenever it was possible for there to be a peaceful world where everyone got along.

Predictably, Dima was the one who seemed to think that was possible, while Strong was the opposite. Erickson seemed to be somewhere in the middle, taking on a more realistic viewpoint.

"World belongs to the strongest. Super mutants the strongest there is, so Supermutants will eventually rule the entire world." Strong replied bluntly.

"But, Strong? Didn't you say earlier that you were worried that Supermutants would eventually kill everything in their path? So isn't it better to try to convince the others to get along with humans?" Dima wondered.

"That why Strong travels with humans and metal people. To look for Milk of Kindness, which makes Super Mutants smarter. Smart Super Mutants then know not to kill everything in sight." Strong said.

Dima raised one eyebrow at this. "By milk, do you mean metaphorically or…..?"

Erickson just shook his head. "The Earth needs to renew itself first so that there are renewable sources all over the earth. Only then, will everyone feel secure having a safe place to live and eat, and be more open to peace among all the races? But, it may take a long time for that to happen. I don't think that's happening any time soon now, but it may come in the future. Who knows?"

It was then that all three saw Taylor approach them with the super mutant hound at her side.

"Hey, guys." She greeted them all, "Having a philosophical debate so early in the morning?"

Dima brightened up at seeing Taylor. "Aha. Maybe what we need is a human viewpoint on this debate of ours. Tell me, Taylor, do you think it's possible for there to be world peace?"

Taylor mulled this over. She then said, "Well, from what I've overheard so far, I'd have to side with Erickson. Sure, it'd be nice to have world peace but we'd need to be realistic about it. And the world the way it is right now, it won't be coming for a long time now until we've fixed all the problems we have currently. And you can't force it on everyone, because they all need to get used to change over time. That's the only way that true trust and love between neighbors can be earned."

Dima looked both mildly disappointed and thoughtful at the same time at this response.
"I see… well, that's certainly something for me to think about."

Taylor then turned to face Erickson. "Hey, can I get two bowls of that meat stew you got there? One for me, and one for Gracie here."

Erickson nodded and turned around to grab some large bowls before heading over to the open fire where the pot of stew was still bubbling.

He then casually remarked, "Ya know…. Gracie sure seems to like you a lot. And she'd make a really nice guard dog for you. Ever considered buying her off me?"

Taylor blinked. "Eh? But isn't Gracie your pet dog?"

The Supermutant shrugged. "Eh, I take in dogs and train them. I then sell them off to the local settlements here… so I don't really think of them as mine. I'm just a foster who cares for them until they're ready to go to loving homes. And of course, I can't take in more dogs unless I sell the ones I have. And I can tell that you'd take good care of Gracie here."

"Oh…" She didn't know what else to say to that. She did have a fair amount of bottle caps now, mostly from looting the old abandoned places and then trading with the locals. So it wasn't as if she couldn't afford buying Gracie and keeping the hound well-fed.

Still, it wasn't as if she was going to live in this world forever… she would go back home eventually, right? So what would happen if she took Gracie back home with her?

She had a sudden mental image of herself suddenly appearing before her surprised father and saying something to the effect of, "Hello, dad, I finally arrived home from my adventure in a parallel universe! And look who followed me home… a large mutant hound! Can we keep her dad? please?"

That, of course, led to even more weird mental images such as when she took Gracie for her morning walks before school in Brockton Bay. With everyone else staring at the teenage girl just casually taking her mutant hound for a walk. That would be the fastest way to out herself as a cape, that was for sure. Heh.

She stifled a small giggle at the mental images that her brain was coming up with.

Of course… buying Gracie didn't mean Taylor would have to take the mutant hound home with her… Maybe Nora would like a Supermutant guard dog for Sanctuary Hills after Taylor had gone home?

"Hmm. I'd have to talk to Nora first, see if she agrees with it." Taylor replied.

"Agree with what?" Nora said, only having overhead the tail end of that conversation as she walked up. Nora's bedhead hair was a total mess, sticking up all over the place.

"Oh, Erickson wanted to know if I'd like to buy Gracie here because the dog seemed to like me so much. I don't mind having a guard dog along, but I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it." She replied easily.

Nora raised her eyebrows. "Oh, is that so? I wasn't aware he sold dogs..."

With that, she looked over at the Supermutant speculatively.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that was how the group managed to have a couple of guard dogs walking with them as they walked down the path after leaving Erickson's place.

"I'm kinda surprised. Don't you already have a German Shepherd dog at home?" Taylor wondered as she looked at Nora, who was walking alongside her newly acquired female wolf-dog.

On Taylor's left side, Gracie was flanking her.

Nora just smiled sheepishly. "Uh, there was this book series I used to be a huge fan of growing up. In it, there was a pair of twins, a boy, and a girl, who went on adventures in the wilderness with their white wolf-dog. Because of that book, I've always wanted a wolf-dog of my own. So when presented with the chance, I couldn't help but indulge my inner child a little bit… besides, I'm sure Dogmeat would love having a female companion as lovely as this one."

At the last part, she smiled down at the silvery-white female wolf-dog walking by her side. Incidentally, the wolf's name was called Mishka.

"Speaking of which…." Taylor raised one eyebrow as she asked, "Did you seriously name your other dog Dogmeat?? Because… uh, no offense but that's a terrible name for a dog."

Nora made a rude noise. "Hey, I didn't name him. He used to belong to somebody else, and he won't answer to anything else now after having had that name for so long. That's all there is to it."

Taylor shrugged. "Fair enough."

As they slowly walked past the Vim Factory on their way back to Acadia, Taylor then commented, "It's too bad that this factory is completely defunct. Imagine if it kept on producing Vim drinks? Then Erickson would have plenty of it without coming off like a jet addict every time he traded with people, and this island could have an income coming in from trading with the mainland if they produced enough of it to go around."

Hancock smirked. "Oh boy. Now you've gone and did it… did you have to say that in front of Nora?"

Taylor looked confused at first, and then groaned loudly when she realized what John Hancock meant by that. Nick, John, and Piper then looked over at Nora, who was now just standing there staring at the old factory with a thoughtful expression on her face.

Nick then shook his head. "I suppose it's a good thing that we weren't in an urgent hurry to leave this island."

Taylor sighed. "I'm sorry! I just said what came to mind without thinking about it…"

Not that Taylor minded at all. It wasn't like she had anything important to do on the mainland, other than training her powers to get stronger so that she'd be able to get back home under her own power if the teleporter machine tower didn't pan out.

"You know what? Taylor's completely right. John-Caleb's probably planning on getting that Nuka-Cola factory of his working again back home, but this island should have its own source of drinks so that it doesn't have to keep on trading with the mainland if they want something besides local homemade alcoholic drinks." Nora murmured thoughtfully.

She then grinned widely. "Besides, I've never renovated a factory before…. That should be fun!"

Nick, John, and Piper all looked at each other and sighed while wondering how long this was gonna take. It might be enjoyable for Nora, but it was kinda awkward for the rest of the party as they wandered around waiting for her to be done.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They all wound up in the deep basement of the Vim Factory again, talking to the bored AI that resided there.

Who by the way, seemed to be way too into the story that Dima was telling it.

"Oh, my word! You were being mind-controlled by a secret mastermind all along?? How exciting! What was it like?" Kye practically squealed like a giddy schoolgirl as it probed Dima for more information.

Taylor raised one eyebrow at this. There was really not something right with that AI at all.

Nora interrupted Kye before it could quiz Dima some more, and asked, "I was wondering if you'd like to take over this factory once I was done restoring it. I'd covert everything down here into a full computer and robotics factory so that you'd be able to put yourself into a dozen bodies and run this factory as you please."

"Uh, a word?" Nick asked before Kye could even respond to that, and he dragged Nora away from the AI's console and out of the eyesight of any monitoring cams that Kye might have around the room.

Piper and Taylor followed after them just in time to hear Nick say, "Are you sure it's a good idea leaving this AI in charge of this entire factory? From what I've seen, it doesn't seem to place any value on human life. And you want to put Kye in charge of making something that humans drink on a regular basis? Surely you see what's wrong with this picture, right?"

Taylor nodded. "I'd have to agree with Nick. We should get some humans to live here so that there's oversight of Kye's actions, just in case."

Nora frowned slightly. "Kye always came off more like a bored gossipy housewife to me than he did a murderous AI. So I didn't think there was any danger there."

As the others looked at her, she then sighed. "But, you might have a point."

She then came back to where Kye was waiting for them, and told it: "Slight change of plans. You can help upkeep the factory itself, but with supervision from some humans. And you'd have to be okay with taking orders from them. Is that okay?"

Kye seemed happy with the turn of events either way, but he said, "Oh yes. But you'd have to keep in mind that said humans would need to be related to Doyle Reed, the owner of this factory, in some way. Otherwise I can't accept them. It's part of my original programming to prevent human enemy forces from taking over the factory, you see. It was a factory run by Reed's entire family and trusted friends… So Doyle Reed was quite insistent that it stays a family business. He especially didn't want the humans who he called 'Nuka-cola bastards' taking over the factory and turning it into a subsidiary of Nuka-cola."

John Hancock raised an eyebrow. "Wait. You let Dima here put extra programming into you even though he isn't the owner of this factory. How come?"

Kye giggled slightly. "Eh, loophole. Doyle Reed specified all his human enemies who he didn't want taking over this factory. But Dima wasn't human, and he's not associated with any of the enemies who might've wanted this factory to start with. So I saw no harm in letting him fiddle with me some, especially if it kept him around longer so I'd be able to chat with him. You just have no idea how lonely it can get down here sometimes."

Nora sighed loudly. "How are we going to find somebody related to Doyle Reed? Do you even have a way to verify their DNA?"

Kyle then replied, "Actually, yes. Doyle Reed built a secret room to store most of his prized possessions in this factory. But it was also to keep a DNA scanner made by the Greenetech Genetics company. Doyle hated having to purchase from a group who had been publicly accused of being supremacists, but he felt it was necessary just in case any familial disputes came up when he died. He couldn't stand the thought that people might marry into the Reed family only to snatch the company away from his blood relatives. This way, the family could always ensure that his will was carried out for generations."

John Hancock nodded. "Makes sense. A lot of scam artists out there."

"Where's this secret room?" Piper asked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Turns out that Doyle Reed's secret treasure room wasn't quite what everyone envisioned. The room was nearly an identical copy of the massive computer room in the submarine base, save for the stupid helmet thing that had transported Nora's mind into a digital space. Something she was thankful for, because she didn't want to repeat that experience.

Instead, the computers and the files here seemed to contain complete records of the Reed family tree, containers that contained vials of blood samples taken from Doyle Reed himself to ensure that they had complete sets of DNA to compare to in case he needed to find their descendants in the future.

There were copies of wills, documents of ownership rights to the factory, etc. Stuff like that.

But what really grabbed Nora's attention was the fact that they not only had some working DNA scanner, but Doyle Reed had gone so far as to have blueprints on hand documenting how to build or fix themselves a DNA scanner should the original one break somehow. He had gone out of his way to pay a lot of money to The Greenetech Genetics Company just to be able to get his hand on blueprints of that, with an formal written agreement that he wasn't to share the documents with anybody else lest he get legally sued for it. There was also a written agreement in one of the files that Doyle Reed wouldn't use the blueprints to start up a DNA-testing company.

The Greenetech Genetics Company had made a lot of money in the past not only doing genetic and military experiments, but from DNA tests for families out there. There were always a lot of people out there who were keenly interested in knowing where their ancestors came from. In fact that was their bread and butter so naturally they had patented their DNA testing technology to ensure that no other company would be able to do the same thing.

Nora vaguely remembered that the company had run into some scandals in the past over that though. Such as the fact that they apparently had been building up a DNA database on every American out there, and that the owner of the company had been caught saying on tape that he wanted a "pure America" where none of the Americans were even remotely related to any foreigners overseas at all. Thus, he was accused of being a supremacist.

It didn't help that it had been discovered that they were the sponsors of a movie called "I married an Maoist", which was one of the most blatantly racist propaganda movies out there at the time 200 years ago. Nora and Nate weren't a bunch of communist lovers, but even that movie had been too much for them and they had both walked out after watching 10 minutes of it. It hadn't been popular with the other theater-goers neither, which was how bad it had been. Turned out that people wanted entertainment, not force-fed opinions and propaganda even if they did agree that the Maoists deserved to die. Who knew?

Come to think of it, the ghouls back in Nuka-World would also find this handy wouldn't they? Extra tools to help them in repopulating the place with animals, plants and human beings couldn't hurt at all. It would be especially helpful in ensuring that none of the animals or cloned humans accidentally ended up inbred with genetic issues as a result.

Nora's train of thought was interrupted when Piper asked, "Are we really going to go around the island asking everyone if they'd like to be in charge of a soda factory and then DNA-testing every single one? I was fine being here for a week, but I can't stay away from Diamond city any longer. What about my sister?"

Nick shook his head, "Thankfully, Doyle Reed seems to have kept a very good detailed record of every single family member he had at the time. He had a pretty large family if you take the extended families into account. He had an infant son at the time with his wife, and he had five siblings. Each sibling in turn had four to six children each. And that's not even taking in account his cousins, uncles and aunts who also lived here on this island who also had large families of their own. Considering that this is a small island relatively speaking… I'd take my bets that half of the population here is related to Doyle Reed in some way. It'd be way too far-fetched for every single family member to have died out back then."

Hancock then said, "Doyle Reed never specified in his will how closely related they had to be him, did he? As long as they're distantly related in some way, I'm sure Kye will accept them. We just have to go to every settlement here and ask everyone if they want to run a factory and then do the DNA test on them. I'm pretty sure we'll find somebody that way. Plus, there's only five settlements here so I don't think it'll take that long. Right?"

Nora then said, "Thanks to the blueprints I can make more DNA scanners, so we could always split up and visit all five settlements… this way we won't waste so much time on that."

Piper relaxed slightly at this. "Yeah, I guess so."

Nora then smiled. "In fact, I was hoping you all would take up this task for me while I stayed here? I really, really want to fix up this place and I don't want to put it off any longer than I have to."

At this she put on her best pleading expression and stared at everyone else with what amounted to puppy eyes. On a young girl it would've been effective at pulling the heartstrings, but on an adult woman like herself it kinda looked ridiculous.

Piper burst out laughing, and then shook her head. "Alright, I guess I'll do that, but you owe me one."

Not that it was such a hardship for her. Piper liked having something to do and just standing around for Nora to finish building could get boring at times.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Piper and Taylor ended up at the Dalton Farm, because the reporter figured that it'd be faster to scan that settlement off due to its low population. There were 11 people living here now, but it seemed as none of them had any interest in managing an old run-down factory even if Nora was fixing it up.

They were more invested in cleaning up the pier to the side of the settlement so that they could set up a low-tech fish farm in which they captured and bred fish to eat. The Saloon-style hotel and bar that Nora had built here ended up very popular too, as seeing all of the settlers had already claimed their own permanent living spaces there and they weren't keen to abandon such nice rooms. They seemed worried that if they left, somebody else would claim their old rooms and that they wouldn't get it back in case the factory didn't work out for them.

They seemed to think there'd be more profit in setting up the old Dalton place as a trading post and a rest stop for weary travellers. And who knows, maybe they'd be right about that. But in the end coming here was a bust, so Piper and Taylor walked out of there and down the road.

"So, where to?" Taylor said as she inspected the DNA scanner that Nora had made for them. It was shaped like a gun, but it clearly wasn't one. On the end of it where a gun nozzle would've been, there was a large syringe-type thing which you'd press against somebody's arm with their consent and draw the blood out from.

On the bottom of the "gun-body" where the bullets would've been, there was a vial of Doyle Reed's genetic sample next to an empty glass vial where the person's blood would've gone had they drawn a sample from them. On the back of the gun where the firing pin would've been, there was a series of lights. Red light to indicate that they weren't related, and green light to show that they were. Below that, it had a small digital display to show numbers indicating whenever they were direct descendants or distant cousins.

Apparently, there was a bunch of miniature scanners and radio sensors in the gun itself that sent all the information it had back to the computers in the Vim's secret computer room, which scanned the results and then automatically sent back the result to the "gun", indicating if the person in question was related or not. This saved time on having to build a computer system into the DNA scanner itself, and also saved it from becoming so bulky that you couldn't carry it around.

"Well, Nick and Hancock said they'd go to the Lumber Mill town and then visit the oceanarium. So, I guess we go to Far Harbor?" Piper replied.

Taylor just nodded at this. Longfellow and Strong were back at the Vim Factory, keeping watch while Nora worked on renovating the factory.

She held onto Piper and they reappeared in front of the Far harbor's gate. It was then that Taylor noted that the Mariner had been VERY busy indeed, as seeing the walls all around the town were completely covered in hard steel walls.

She then looked behind her to see that the massive ship sitting just outside of Far harbor had half of it completely stripped for parts, to the point that only the ship's skeleton remained.

Smiling at this, the two of them walked into town. And speak of the devil, the Mariner just happened to be standing in the perfect spot in time to greet them the moment they got into town.

"Hello. Nora and the others aren't with you, I see." The grime-covered woman replied, as she cleaned her glasses before putting them back on.

"You did a very nice job with the wall out there. I don't think anything can knock them down now." Piper complimented the woman.

The mariner smiled at this, and said, "Thanks. So what are you in town for?"

"We need to DNA-test some people, see if they're biologically related to a man named Doyle Reed. then we see if they'd be interested in running a soda factory or not." Taylor replied.

"DNA… what's that?" The Mariner blinked.

Taylor briefly explained what that was, and the story behind the factory, how the AI there wouldn't acknowledge any orders from a human unless they were known to be related to Doyle Reed, the founder of the factory.

By the end of that, the Mariner looked highly interested. "Can you test that on me? I mean, I have no intention of running a factory, considering that I have a short lifespan to start with… but I'd like to know if I can use that to find any relatives I may have. So I know who to leave all my junk to when I die. Haven't got any kids, neither."

Taylor and Piper looked at each other, and Piper just shrugged. "Sure, why not? Plus this way we can tell the others this is perfectly safe."

The woman rolled up her sleeves, and let Taylor draw her blood. The gun beeped for a good ten minutes, before the lights on the back of it finally lit green.

"Huh. Turns out you're related to Doyle Reed after all. According to this, you're descended from one of his five siblings." Taylor replied as she read the readout on the back of the DNA scanner.

The Mariner blinked, not having expected that. She then shook her head. "Heh. Real bittersweet finding that out. When I was younger… when I wasn't slowly dying of cancer back then, I would've loved to have learned that. Heck, I wouldn't have minded taking over the factory then. Now? It's too late for me."

Piper looked sympathetic at this, and she then asked: "Would you like to come with us all around town? This way we can find out who else you're related to. Find some people who you'd like to put into your will."

The Mariner nodded at this. At this, the three of them headed deeper into the town….

 

[Isebas]

Interesting to see all useful bits of tech just laying around waiting for the right people to find them. Hope we hear more in the future on the cloning bit. I'm not sure about cloning humans unless they were braindead/comatose for organ harvesting and even then that's iffy. Especially if you can just clone the organs themselves. Hell you could even clone organs using the DNA of the person who needs it to reduce the possibility of rejection.

Would be nice if they found a repository of DNA samples from plants and animals from before the war. Might seem a bit convenient but it could seriously help people. Think four of the biggest animals I think would be pigs(surprised we don't see any mutated pigs even though those fuckers spread like crazy. Cystipigs anyone?), rabbits(there is a reason these guys are references for large families), chickens(a fairly quick renewable resource) and horses. God horses would be a big help to people. Labor, pack animals and for travel.

Perhaps they could trade for some of Harold's seeds for study and/or planting. Also do some serious study on glowing mushrooms since I think they reduce radiation.

 

[Aurora Moon]

We previously saw rabbits on the island itself... in fact, rabbits is one of the many animals you can hunt on the island in-game, but they're such fast bastards that it's a pain in the ass to chase after. you also can find chickens in the base game of fallout 4 and other games, but they're extremely hard to find. That is, unless you mod the game and have "Sim settlements". then you can generate chicken farms all you want.

Horses... heh, I'm not surprised that you don't find any of them in all the fallout games. I have relatives who run a horse farm, and they'll tell you that they're notoriously hard to take care of. To paraphrase one of my relatives, the moment a horse feels threatened or scared they seem to think that the best thing to do in that situation is to break their own legs. There's also the specialized diets, being overly sensitive to diseases and the like. So not too surprising that they went extinct in fallout. Horses might not be a thing in the story yet because of this.

Mole rats on the other hand, did you know that in real life they're effectively immortal? no wonder why those little bastards seem to be everywhere. *mutters*

 

[Quinn Porthos]

Would be nice if they found a repository of DNA samples from plants and animals from before the war. Might seem a bit convenient but it could seriously help people. Think four of the biggest animals I think would be pigs(surprised we don't see any mutated pigs even though those fuckers spread like crazy. Cystipigs anyone?), rabbits(there is a reason these guys are references for large families), chickens(a fairly quick renewable resource) and horses. God horses would be a big help to people. Labor, pack animals and for travel.

Click to shrink...

There are chickens and rabbits still about, though squirrel and iguana are for some reason more plentiful. Horses don't seem to have done as well as cows in surviving the rads. And mutant cows fill the pack and labor rolls in Fallout. As for pigs, they probably got eaten by radscorpians and deathclaws. Hell, even a small swarm of molerats could burrow up into a pigpen.

 

[Isebas]

There are chickens and rabbits still about, though squirrel and iguana are for some reason more plentiful. Horses don't seem to have done as well as cows in surviving the rads. And mutant cows fill the pack and labor rolls in Fallout. As for pigs, they probably got eaten by radscorpians and deathclaws. Hell, even a small swarm of molerats could burrow up into a pigpen.

Click to shrink...

My main idea was them being non-mutated and thinking more about wild hogs than not. Even normal hogs are mean S.O.Bs and I could see them taking on molerats. Radscorpions maybe not unless they grew large when they mutated. I think horses would be better for traveling, faster too.

 

[Quinn Porthos]

My main idea was them being non-mutated and thinking more about wild hogs than not. Even normal hogs are mean S.O.Bs and I could see them taking on molerats. Radscorpions maybe not unless they grew large when they mutated. I think horses would be better for traveling, faster too.

Click to shrink...

Oh I could totally see the hogs putting up a fight. Right up until the bloody molerats burrowed up out of the ground into the bacon. And I don't want to see a giant mutant hog. Damned hermit crabs and sloths are bad enough.

Cloned, non-mutant hogs would probably do well in a controlled environment. In the wasteland, even on a farm...I don't see them doing well.

As for the horses, I gotta agree with Aurora Moon on this one. They're panicky and fragile. Not to say they wouldn't be useful, but I can't see the risk/expenditure vs. reward coming out in favor of the horses.

 

[Aurora Moon]

Robot horses on the other hand... I'm surprised that canonically nobody's tried to make a life-sized version of Giddy-up Buttercup yet.

There's a mod for that though. Not canon however.

 

[Isebas]

Oh I could totally see the hogs putting up a fight. Right up until the bloody molerats burrowed up out of the ground into the bacon. And I don't want to see a giant mutant hog. Damned hermit crabs and sloths are bad enough.

Cloned, non-mutant hogs would probably do well in a controlled environment. In the wasteland, even on a farm...I don't see them doing well.

As for the horses, I gotta agree with Aurora Moon on this one. They're panicky and fragile. Not to say they wouldn't be useful, but I can't see the risk/expenditure vs. reward coming out in favor of the horses.

Click to shrink...

Suppose I can see that. Didn't see her post before you mentioned it. Wonder how hard it would be to corral and train up some bighorners...the battle chariot rides again! No dwarves though...

 

[Keflyn]

Doesn't that gene-sequencer, or whatever, at nuka-world have a large DNA library? So they didn't have to try and get to replacements, proper animal food or breeding stock from places out of the USA?

 

[Aurora Moon]

Doesn't that gene-sequencer, or whatever, at nuka-world have a large DNA library? So they didn't have to try and get to replacements, proper animal food or breeding stock from places out of the USA?

Click to shrink...

The thing is, Nuka-world was an amusement park-slash-zoo. So they were more interested in having exotic animals to show off than they were having farm animals, etc. so it didn't exactly have this huge archive of animal DNA from all over the Americas, only what John-Celeb and others at the time thought would be profitable for the park.

They all didn't think that they would end up surviving the nuclear fallout and then having to feed a bunch of squatters living in the park... and thus didn't really have any survival plans in mind for that. Of which I'm sure many of the survivors were kicking themselves in the ass for.... hindsight's 20/20 after all.

Canonically in-game they had: Gazelles, Gorillas, African buffaloes (Now known as Brahmiluffs), giant ants and crickets, Yao guai (bears).

In my story, I added the fact that they also had African Parakeets and other wild birds' DNA on hand... because what kind of park doesn't have pretty birds for the visitors to gawk at? I also made it so they had a massive library of exotic plant DNA, mainly because seeds would've been easier to smuggle across enemy borders than animal samples were.

But on the bright side, if I look in the list of the animals that made it in the Fallout universe, there's still a fair number of rare and surviving animals across the wasteland. There's the goat-sheep things (bighorns) and the like living in New Vegas, for example. So if the ghouls in Nuka-world was to learn about that... well I'm sure they'd make it worthwhile for anybody who ever wanted to go travelling and collect animal samples to send back to them.

 

[Mage_Man.1842]

If horses are so finicky and fragile, needing special food and care; why are there wild mustang herds in OTL? It might be a bit tough on them but a bit of mutation might see them though into the wastes of Fallout. Also because dang it I want to see a herd of Sleipnir and Taylor explaining the Norse joke/myth about Loki and a craftsman's horse.

 

[Aurora Moon]

Well.... to be fair, the ghoul geneticists at Nuka-world could totally slice Horse DNA together with a bunch of other stuff If they wanted to and had the means to do so. just give them some horse bones and stuff like that.

Heh, they could even slice the horses with some bighorns and maybe create some really beefy-looking "unicorns".
or better yet, this triple-horned horse: The elhorn (horned horse) by VirginieCarquin on DeviantArt

Now that's a type of horse that could easily surive the cruel and wild wasteland out there. instead of being a dumb panicky animal it just.... headbutts the hell out of you until you're completely dead.

 

[Mage_Man.1842]

Well.... to be fair, the ghoul geneticists at Nuka-world could totally slice Horse DNA together with a bunch of other stuff If they wanted to and had the means to do so. just give them some horse bones and stuff like that.

Heh, they could even slice the horses with some bighorns and maybe create some really beefy-looking "unicorns".
or better yet, this triple-horned horse: The elhorn (horned horse) by VirginieCarquin on DeviantArt

Now that's a type of horse that could easily surive the cruel and wild wasteland out there. instead of being a dumb panicky animal it just.... headbutts the hell out of you until you're completely dead.

Click to shrink...

I think there is an african or south american deer that is as big as a sheep that does that. It won't stop gorring you until it knows your good and dead, and then probably give you 15 more pokes just to make sure.