Tales from the Wasteland: Thistle

Author's Introduction And Notes on Lore

This is likely to be dull for those of you not interested specifically in the lore of the Fallout games and Fallout 3 in particular, so you may want to skip down to Chapter 1. Do please read this before leaving a comment arguing with my stated information about the Capital Wasteland, Fawkes, Ghouls, or other parts of the Fallout universe.

Where possible I've used information I got from the Fallout Wiki (the Vault). This information is sometimes subject to update or change, as with recent confirmation by game makers that Fawkes is (and was originally) male. I've assumed the Wiki to be mostly accurate as regards Fallout 3, which is the source of most characters and situations in this story. I have not played Fallout 1 or 2 and am not interested in differences in lore between those games and Fallout 3.

Here are some things I understand to be true about the Fallout world based on FO3 gameplay and the Wiki which will be pertinent to this story:

Fawkes is male.

If Fawkes reaches the end game with the Vault Dweller, he survives whether not the Vault Dweller dies.

Fawkes' Gatling laser is a unique weapon (i.e. not common in the Capital Wasteland).

The term Super Mutant is used in Fallout 3, although in other games and situations they have been called super mutants (no caps), supermutants, Super-Mutants, etc. Because the caps are tiresome I will probably use super mutant (although Fawkes has been known to say Meta-Human and probably will here, too). I'll try to be consistent, but I can't promise anything.

Super mutants created by the Vault 87 FEV strain are different from those made by the Master; except for Fawkes and possibly Uncle Leo, they are not as bright. All are both sterile and unsexed, although it's a bit vague whether genitalia are totally gone or nonfunctional (I've assumed they are, see the "deduced/made up" section below).

Ghouls may or may not live to great age depending on exactly how their DNA has been affected by radiation; similarly, Ghouls can come into existence merely by radiation exposure if they have the right genetics. (Contrary to how ordinary people react to strong radiation exposure, which is by dying horribly as in our world/real life.)

Ghouls are not harmed by radiation; Fawkes is not totally immune (witness his bloody appearance when returning with the GECK in FO3) but can heal from any long-term harm.

Super mutants are functionally immortal (they do not age) due to cellular regeneration, although Vault 87 specimens typically get larger and stupider as they age (eventually becoming Behemoths if they survive).

After the Vault Dweller completes the Main Quest and (in all probability, based on current gameplay with only the Anchorage expansion out) dies, the Capital Wasteland's water is drinkable and no longer radioactive. Not ALL radiation is gone from the Wastes, however.

Gary clones from Vault 108 are generally hostile to non-clones, with later ones being the most violent (and earlier ones, by extension, less so).

The Garys frequently say only their own name, but do have a small vocabulary of other words in Fallout 3, including "Hey", "Hello", "Watch Out", "Evening", "No," and "Damn."

The Operation Anchorage DLC indicates that at least one Gary left Vault 108, though whether voluntarily or not is not addressed.

Here are things I'm deducing or making up:

Ghouls regenerate skin somehow even while shedding it. If they didn't there would be Ghouls walking around with no skin, and the game doesn't support that. Ferals in FO3 often have no sloughing skin at all. I'm also assuming Ghouls can heal faster when exposed to radiation, although I'm not sure this is explicitly stated.

Vault 87-born super mutants are unsexed and/or asexual (meaning they have no sexual behaviors).

Vault 87 super mutants regenerate from physical harm as well as not aging. This process must not be instantaneous, since they can be killed by ordinary weapons. I'm assuming the ability to regenerate even to regaining lost limbs which is DEFINITELY not stated.

Some aspects of Fawkes's personality. I've tried to be true to him as I've seen him in the game, but everyone's experience of the character and interpretation thereof will be a little different.

Ghouls may choose new names upon being changed, or they may not. Many female Ghouls have botanical names (Willow, Tulip) and many male Ghouls have Victorian or Classical names (Winston, Charon). There are exceptions (Greta, Carol, Gob). I'm assuming this is individual choice or preference or, in Gob's case, abusive nicknaming.

Super mutants are in some sense cannibalistic, although whether on each other or just on smooth-skinned humans is not clear in FO3 nor on the Wiki. Human, not animal carcasses are found near the sacks of organs and parts found in FO3. I will assume some quantity of protein is a dietary necessity for regeneration (not surprising considering the typical mutant physique). Given their durability otherwise it seems likely uninjured mutants can go long periods without food.

Ghouls don't become hideous overnight unless exposed to fallout from a direct nuclear blast. Carol from Underworld says something to this effect in FO3 and something similar happens to Moira if the player character blows up Megaton in FO3.

I've deduced from the Gary clones' small vocabulary that at least some of them can learn new words, even if they've only chosen to use them with each other. I assume earlier clones to be at least a little smarter than later ones as well.

Gary 3 is not in Fallout 3; his existence is deduced from the presence of later clones. His individual personality traits and history are made up by me.

Thistle and Jay are original characters who do not exist in the game. There will probably be other original characters in this story as well.

Fawkes's quotations here will include things he says in the game ("There is safety in mindfulness") as well as other classical or historical things added by me. I've tried to be true to his speech patterns (he still uses contractions but has an advanced vocabulary and grammar), though it's hard to do them justice in print.

I will assume that the Vault Dweller (the FO3 player character) was a single-minded individual who did only the main questline before meeting his unfortunate end. Other quests will have been performed by others or not at all. As with my Oblivion and Warcraft III fics, my interest is less in the game's main character than in the peripheral people and lore of the gameverse.

On to the story.

1

I've been a Ghoul for something like five years now.

A lot of the folks you'll meet in Underworld are a lot older. Carol and Greta have been around since the Big One, something like two hundred years ago. We don't age much, which seems to me like a little karmic compensation for the fact that we tend to be ugly. Really ugly. But then, if you're reading this terminal, you've probably seen Ghouls around. Unless you're reading this after someone even worse than John Henry Eden has come up with another version of the modified FEV and we're all dead.

In which case I'm dead too, so none of this matters and the skin I'm losing to this keyboard is pretty much a waste. But if you're still reading, you can think of the author of this little piece of journaling as a very leathery permanent twenty-five-year old (Hayflick Limit confirmed, not that I generally pass out that info) with no nose and some very scary missing skin patches. At the moment the area around my right biceps is acting up again. Most of the fatty underlayer between the top layer of skin (the person reading this over my shoulder says "epidermis," which I call irrelevant) and the muscle is visible, with a bit of the red showing through. If you were to shake my right hand, which smoothskins mostly don't, some parts would crackle and others would slide, and I'm one of the lucky ones – unless I'm cut deep enough to bleed, I don't ooze. Mostly I wear gloves and keep my hands to myself.

Fingerless gloves, that is. Easier to operate a plasma rifle that way. And believe me, in this Ghoul's Wasteland you're going to want some kind of heat. Goes double if you're one of us. Maybe the super mutants don't always attack us on sight, but the Ferals and Raiders will kill and eat you no matter what your skin looks like. And unless you're in D.C. Proper, there's more of them.

But I got off-track again. Five years. I don't know where I was born or to who (the other person here says "to whom"). The first thing I remember is Little Lamplight, which is where I grew up right up until they kicked me out for getting too old, same as everyone does there. That's where I learned how to read, how to shoot, how to walk soft, and not to trust anyone taller than I am, which was anyone older than about 10. And this was when I was still cute, mind you. Not like I was blue-eyed and blond and curly or like that, I was pretty tan even underground and my hair was black and straight, but I had like a little snub nose and big brown eyes and all the other stuff that qualifies little kids as cute. (My eyes are cloudy now; you can't tell what color they used to be. My commentator here says he can tell they're brown, but I wish he'd shut up or type this himself. At which I am sure he will point out that his fingers are too big for the keyboard. Smug bastard.)

But I was talking about Little Lamplight. After I got out of there I wandered around the Wastes for a few years, learning things no sane person wants to know and drinking an awful lot of bad water. I managed to keep out of reach of the slavers and shoot or run away from the Raiders I ran across. I've spent some time in towns, but the predators in those places are a bit too much of the subtle for me.

I was helping guard one of the merchants when we got hit by some Raiders who, Atom only knows how, had got hold of a Fat Man and a mini-nuke. Me and my colleague (my commentator says "my colleague and I" under his breath, or tries to; he doesn't have much of an inside voice) had the merchant and his pack brahmin tucked up safe behind a ridge and thought we had the situation pretty well under control when this big round muzzle comes up over a rock a quarter-mile away, where I could only see it through my scope. I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I shot a wad of plasma down the barrel.

When I woke up, my clothes were blown mostly off and so was a good bit of my skin. The Raiders were in bloody shreds scattered around the landscape. I'd kept my grip on my rifle, I still don't know how. Even in the state I was in I knew calling out might be a bad idea, so I turned onto my good side and I crawled up the ridge. That was not a fun trip, let me tell you. I was in some pain, bits of me scraped off on the rocks, and I could tell by the smell I wasn't going to find anything nice once I got there.

The merchant had been protected from the blast by the ridge. That's why it was easy for me to tell he'd been shot in the face with something that shot big bullets. After that I didn't bother to look for the brahmin or my colleague. I hadn't figured him for that kind of asshole, but you never know with people. He did always carry that .44. At the time I didn't worry too much about that because I thought I was going to die, lying out there in the minimal shade with no water and almost no ammo.

I didn't die, though.

One important reason was that I found a water bottle on the merchant's body. I guess I ought to tell you his name, but the sad truth is I can't remember it now. He was just another grubby guy in an old pinstripe suit, chosen for the staying power of the prewar fabrics rather than because it was practical. I figured that my ex-colleague (I remember HIS name – called himself Jay) would've taken time to search the body, but I was hurting pretty bad at that point and I figured it was worth checking for a stimpak. There was one, just one, and there was the water.

And there were two extra cells for my plasma rifle in his right pants pocket. Which I know he didn't put there, because he only ever carried a shiv. Right then was when I decided that if I ever found that son-of-a-bitch Jay we were going to have a talk about his sense of humor.

I'm still not totally sure how long I was out there, but I know I healed up a lot faster than I expected. I shot a mole rat that came after the body, and that helped even if it tasted lousy. It didn't seem like that long before I had it together enough to stagger on back to Megaton and see Doc Church about fixing me up the rest of the way.

The damage didn't seem too bad at first. I had some gnarly scars, which can hurt a lady's social opportunities, but I have never been what you'd call a sociable gal. (Sorry, it's been a while since I had to remind anybody I'm female. Even now it's usually not too hard for folks to tell, at least when I'm dressed nice and having one of my better days facial-surface-wise. Not that those both happen at the same time very often. Forget I mentioned it.)

It was a few weeks before the sloughing started, and things went pretty much downhill from there. People don't care a lot what color you are out here. They do care if bits of your nose fly off when you sneeze. No smoothskin would hire me as a guard any more, so I eventually found my way to Underworld and started doing smaller jobs for other Ghouls. Eventually I worked my way up to guarding travelers again, because it does sometimes happen that a Ghoul will want to leave the old town and not have to worry about slavers or hostiles or those trigger-happy idiots from the Brotherhood of Steel. (My commentator here feels this description may be overly harsh considering the role the BOS played in Project Purity. I'm going to be diplomatic and say his experience is different from mine.)

Things went okay like that for a while. I took to carrying an extra water bottle. Got shot a few times, never fatally. Shot some other people with more success than they had shooting me. Project Purity didn't make much of a change in my circumstances, being as how radioactive water had not been a concern for me for a lot of months by that point, but it made a lot of smoothskins happy and I profited from that once or twice. I kind of missed having guys look at me like they used to, but sometimes that had its advantages too – getting drunk was a lot safer if I was of a mind. Usually I'm not. (I don't like not knowing what's going on around me, like when I'm sitting here typing and I know my commentator isn't keeping watch because he's breathing down my neck.)

The problem with getting shot is that even if the first time isn't the last time, there being a first time means there probably will be a last time. If you catch my drift. Anyway, that's not really important. I'm trying to get to the rest of my story here, which involves me laying out in the rocks under the hot sun with one water bottle and not enough ammo. Again. You'd think after the first time I would've learned, wouldn't you? I don't know why these things keep happening to me. It's not like I've ever gone around kicking puppies or like that.

This time I hadn't been hit by a mini-nuke. This time I was gut-shot. And this time it wasn't Raiders.

It was Jay.