Note on images: I just wanted to write a story so the images are just random and have nothing to do with the story directly. Most are new but a few are older ones. The new shots are taken with a new preset I am working on that combines ReShade and ENB. It is called "The Institute - Advanced Systems Design (ASD)"
For some reason I have developed a passion for swing music since playing FO4 and often listen to it in the background. Here is a great 4 hour collection.
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Wolf Steelson – The Awakening
Wolf stirred, his mind a haze, as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He wanted to sleep but the alarms going off kept bringing him back to reality. Finally his military background took over and he shut down his emotions and acted on instinct and training. Once he felt he was safe he could evaluate his situation.
…
A few hours later Wolf found himself resting in one of the more secure vault chambers he had found. Looked like the private quarters of the Vault Supervisor. He had learned some very disturbing things about what the vault had been doing to its residents – like carrying out cryogenic experiments on all the survivors from his home town of Sanctuary.
It all felt vaguely familiar though. He had had visions of this; dream like glimpses of the future that he often only remembered until it was too late to do anything about them. Not that he could have done anything to prevent the Great War. It had been those visions that had gotten him kicked out of the army.
Wolf had always had some form of second sight but it had been mostly dormant until his teenage years and even then only kicked in under extreme stress. He suspected it had to do with the gamma radiation he had been exposed to as an unborn child. His parents had both been cold and distant scientists in the military. Always working on top secret research.
Course he didn’t know any of this until he had been old enough to read his mother’s journal. He had been an unexpected, and unwanted, child that his father wanted aborted. Said they couldn’t afford the time away from their research to raise a kid. His mother, however, didn’t want to take the risk of an abortion so late into pregnancy. Besides she thought having a kid bring back those fond memories of when she was a child and played with the family dog. The military would gladly provide a nanny and day care for their top scientists. They could then focus on the research and just visit with child when they had some recreational time.
Except things seldom go as planned. One of their experiments involving the splitting of gamma rays exploded. His father was killed instantly. His mother escaped but only after heavy exposure to split-gamma radiation rays, her eight month unborn child included. She had died during child birth. Her last journal entry had been a long list of experiments she wanted to carry out on the child to see what effect the radiation might have had on him.
The years had flown by. Wolf had been raised by a Mr. Handy in the military. Scientists poked and prodded but the only mutations they had found was his unique ability to survive for very long times underwater without air. Something in his blood let him extract oxygen from the water while also protecting him from radiated liquids. There was a lot of talk about trying to replicate the “explosion” that had taken his parents but most of their work had been destroyed in the explosion. Eventually they gave up on the idea.
When Wolf started having his visions he had not told anyone, afraid all the experiments and tests would start all over again. Instead he had volunteered to join the power armor infantry as a way to get out on the field and away from the scientists.
Except the stress of war and combat increased the rate that he was having visions. He spent many sleepless nights having nightmares of a nuclear holocaust. He would experience life through the eyes of other people back and forth through time. Now and then he caught glimpses of himself in that future but he could never remember the details that well; just a few key things that meant nothing to him at the time.
Finally his visions started happening while awake. When one occurred during a critical military operation he was put under examination. The doctors said it was emotional trauma and that his lack of sleep and mental imbalance was causing hallucinations. He was honorably discharged for medical reasons.
That was when he had met Steve and Nora. They were his neighbors in Sanctuary. It was one of those sleepy, peaceful little towns just outside of Concord New Hampshire. More of a community center, isolated from the rest of the world and its wars. Steve had just left the military and Nora was a lawyer. They had just had a son, Shaun was the name if Wolf recalled correctly, and were trying to get their lives back together.
Wolf found them pleasant enough but when they had asked him to baby sit one time had had to politely refuse. What did he know about taking care of an infant? He was a bachelor and happy to live alone. About the only thing he wanted was a dog, something he had never been able to do in the military. Besides the kid unsettled him greatly. He had only held the child once and it had caused him to break out in a cold sweat. Then he was hit by one of the strongest visions he had ever had and almost dropped the child. He had fled the house, claiming to be sick, and laid down.
There was something about that kid. It reminded him of what he thought his parents might have been like. Cold, distant, almost robot like. There was an ominous weight of destiny over that child. He didn’t know what or how but his gut told him that he was better off having nothing to do Steve and Nora’s child.
Then it happened. The Great War. Just like his dreams and visions had warned him. Course those memories only became clearer once it was too late. He recalled walking into Vault 111 shivering in fear. Steve, Nora, and their child Shaun kept encouraging him alone, telling him everything would be alright. They were safe now. Yet when Wolf looked at them all he saw was a grinning skull hanging over them. He was moaning when one of the vault technicians put him into his decontamination chamber, too distraught to realize what was happening.
He recalled feeling bad for Nora. She was holding her baby and trying to waive at Steve, only they had put him in the chamber right next to his so she could see him. He tried to smile back but suddenly felt very sleepy and cold.
…
Wolf cocked his head, had he heard something in the hall? Moving slowly he took the vault laser gun he had found and looked out into the corridor. Yes! One of those giant mutated cockroaches was flying around. Taking careful aim he fried the bastard good! He sat back down. It was still too much. Taking a sip from some water he had found he went back to his memories, trying to figure out what to do next.
…
He had no memories for the longest time. But then something woke him. He was still trapped in his chamber but no longer frozen. He shivered though and not from the residual cold. He knew what was coming. He had seen it.
It played out in slow motion like some old B movie from the late 1950’s. He watched as Nora was shot and Shaun was taken away. Yet something new came into his memories. A man approached and looked at him. He would never forget his words.
”You’re a lucky man Steve even if you don’t appreciate it now. I advised against letting you live. You’re a loose end. But I was ordered not to. They said you were meant to be the back-up. Got that Steve? You’re back-up.”
The guy must have thought he was funny as he started laughing. Then the cold returned and with it sleep. Only now it was sleep filled with visions. His brain might have been in stasis but the second sight acted on another level.
Wolf found himself living out another life. A dream of what might have been had he actually been Steve. He saw what the world was … no had become. A post-apocalyptic world filled with desolation, mutants, ghouls, and its human survivors.
…
The alarms were sounding again. Wolf woke from his memories and dreams and checked the hallway. All clear. Moving quickly, now that rest and water had partially restored his energy, he found his way to the vault exit.
As he rode the elevator to the surface he wondered what he would find. Would it match his dreams? How true were his visions? The past had shown him that sometimes it was hard to separate regular dreams from those influenced by the second sight.
Only one thing was he certain of. Whomever “they” were they had screwed up. A classic case of mistaken identity. They thought he was Steve. They had killed the wrong man. Maybe he could use that to his advantage somehow. Perhaps go along with it should he ever meet those people. It might save his life if they thought he had value as a backup.
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NOTES: I played Wolf Steelson through the game once already. It was more of a trial run. I wanted to get my feet wet and see how the game played. But I got sucked into the story and the next thing I knew the game was over.
Well I loved the story but did not like the whole kid thing. It went against this style of game IMO. Open world, free form, exploring, take your time and see things. The kid meant, as a good parent (which you are – the opening of the game and dialogue shows clearly you are meant to be a devoted and loving parent), you should focus everything on saving him – not spending time exploring the world.
So I wanted to play again and this time experience all the content instead of following through the main story. But I like Wolf and wanted to replay him – with a bit more focus on agility so I could use both melee and guns. I gave up some charisma to do this (and don’t really need it now since I already saw what it could do) and Wolf uses sword and gun. He also is not anti-technology, he will use it whenever he needs to. But he is against its abuse and tends to have a strong dislike of scientists types – especially those who have lost their sense of ethics and morality and see people as only research subjects.
This story explains the first play through as a vision, a dream/nightmare that he has had while frozen in the vault. His second sight explains why he knows about many things about this new world even if he doesn’t know what all his own choices might lead to.
Also explains why he doesn’t care at all about finding Shaun, in fact he wants to put it off as he has a bad feeling about what will happen if he finds him. Eventually he will, if only out of some vague need to put Steve and Nora’s memory to rest, but he sure isn’t in a rush to do it. He isn’t who many seem to think he is though. To be on the safe side he is going to pretend to be Steve and Shaun’s father– his dreams have told him that the ones who took Shaun have eyes and ears everywhere. If they think he is Steve they might put some value on his life as their back-up … which Wolf could use to his advantage.