Chosen One

Said chronological series goes :

• We suggest first reading the Jolene Hassan profiles, in no small part because they have the setting information. Also, there’s a continuity between FO1 and FO2.
• The Chosen One (Alessa-Maria Hassan) (Profile #1 – Arroyo).
• The Chosen One (Alessa-Maria Hassan) (Profile #2 – Vic).
• The Chosen One (Alessa-Maria Hassan) (Profile #3 – Safe in Vault City).
• The Chosen One (Alessa-Maria Hassan) (Profile #4 – Biggest little city in the world).
• The Chosen One (Alessa-Maria Hassan) (Profile #5 – Take California).
• The Chosen One (Alessa-Maria Hassan) (Profile #6 – The trouble with the tribal).

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• This profile features a sample or customized Player Character. See our video games writeups FAQ for more.
• This profile assumes a specific video game playthrough. See our video games writeups FAQ for more.
• This profile features tabletop RPG mechanics about the video game’s gameplay. See our video games writeups FAQ for more.
• This profile features non-canon hypotheses about in-game events and mechanics. See our video games writeups FAQ for more.

Background

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Powers & Abilities

For months Alessa’s gunfighting skills had plateaued. Though operating at a near-cinematic  level of speed and accuracy, she wasn’t genuinely progressing.

At the Sierra Army Depot she found a collection of Jeff Cooper  instruction texts, reading them several times in a row. She then practiced incessantly for days, going through multiple M2A1 crates of 10mm ammunition. Sentry robots obligingly served as live targets.

Originally her shooting, through fast, emphasised deliberate bullet placement. It was clearly built upon a base of target-shooting practice in Arroyo, using varmint guns. After she retrains in S.A.D., it is much closer to shock infantry tactical shooting. The shots are still placed but in a quicker, more pragmatic way and she will almost always double-tap or triple-tap.

The Chosen One now works at a level closer to, say, John Wick – though she’s not as mobile.

In San Francisco, Alessa also starts training in jeet kune do. She’s really good at it.

Part of the stocks at the Sierra Army Depot. So yes, the one with the code to these war robots is the psychotic mutant tribal killer. Click for a larger version. The clickable banners in this entry are extended and not merely enlarged – click to see.

Heavy metal

In Mariposa, Alessa acquires her own suit of T51b infantry power armour . It is the same wartime model that her grandmother used to fight the Master – just a little bit of history repeating. So you’re familiar with it from our Vault Dweller character profiles.

In Navarro, this is replaced with a stolen suit of Enclave power armour, which seems to be an evolution of the T51b. It has slightly better performances across the board in terms of strength, life support, protection, etc.

The beauty of our weapons, part 7

H&K G11E assault rifle

An advanced assault rifle shooting a 4.7mm caseless round from a 50-shots magazine. Though it’s weirdly missing from the Fallout 2 stats, a G11E has a night vision scope (which is even clearly drawn on the icon. Go figure).

In the real world, these had but a tiny production run, but they were definitely more common in the Fallout future. One gets the vague impression that the US military ordered these to tide some infantry units over until they could be issued laser weaponry.

Alessandra uses it as her general purpose weapon during this era, usually shooting semi-auto. When she’s clad in power armour it’s wielded like a pistol, with a video feed from the G11’s sight to the T51b’s HUD.

Bozar smartgun

With the power armour, it is easy to carry, easy to aim, the harness can be pared down and the headset isn’t necessary any more (the feed gets displayed into the helmet).

The Bozar is brought to bear when facing hard targets (such as deathclaws or power armour infantry) or when severely outnumbered. After Alessa buys her Gauss rifle, the Bozar becomes a mission-specific weapon. Even with the T51b, there’s only so much one can carry.

Gauss weaponry

Alessa buys a M72 gauss rifle soon after she starts exploring San Francisco. For more about gauss weaponry, see our Fallout weapons locker article.

Ms. Hassan also owns the PPK12 variant with a greatly shortened barrel, no stock and a pared-down receiver. It is wielded like a large pistol, and retains a large percentage of the full-sized version’s advantages.

Enhanced flamer and rocket launcher

These are two heavy, mission-specific weapons that were used but a few times. See the Fallout weapons locker document.

More cybernetics

These are more sophisticated cybernetics than the previous implants within Alessa. These are also the same tech that was used on Jolene Hassan decades before.

These complex systems are intended to push elite soldiers even further up the curve to be measurably (but not vastly) stronger, focused, enduring, perceptive, etc.. One could imagine that it relies on stims factories implanted within the body, with cybernetics to manage secretions.

Part of the procedure is of a different nature. It makes the protective implants Alessa was using markedly less visible. She doesn’t look subdermally reinforced unless inspected real closely.

One genuine son of a bitch

K-9, Alessandra’s cyberdog, has his own entry.

History

Alessandra-Maria returned to her haunts at the Sierra Army Depot, to gain more knowledge about beforetimes military tech. The Enclave clearly had working wartime equipment, which she couldn’t hope to go against without an edge.

Whilst deep in the bowels of the base, she allied with the artificial intelligence Skynet. See Skynet’s character profile for additional data.

During a stay in New Reno, Alessa also learned from Father Tully  about an abbey in the North, which archived pre-War knowledge. Since she was now used to crisscrossing the Wasteland at high speed in her car, the Chosen One decided to take a brief look.

Alessa (in power armour), Skynet and a monk at the Abbey. Click for a larger version where you can see a whole lot more of the Abbey, and a glimpse of the quasi-junkyard behind it..

As part of her usual “I’ll scratch your back and you’ll scratch mine” approach, the lass learned that the Abbey had recently closed off its basement as they had a deathclaw problem. Thus, the deathclaw soon had an Alessandra-Maria Hassan problem.

Ms. Hassan then got an access to the archives. Ironically, the most interesting data she unearthed was… about how a G.E.C.K. worked, precisely. Oh, well.

Deeper underground

Cautious reconnaissance West of Vault 13 led to abandoned Enclave tents near a military base. An access to a nearby underground complex had been dynamited shut, but Alessa blew it back open.

She discovered that these were the remains of the Mariposa base. It had been used by the Master to build his super-mutant army, then destroyed by Jolene Hassan. For more about the Enclave and its activities at Mariposa, see our Frank Horrigan character profile.

Exploring these tunnels led to close combat against super-mutants. Alessa used her Bozar smartgun. Due to the weight, she couldn’t really aim it and had to take frequent breaks to rest. But at CQB  ranges, aiming a machinegun wasn’t that important.

Mariposa mon amour

Alessandra used San Francisco shops as her rear echelon to resupply. But she was entirely focused on her intrusion into the underground ruins of Mariposa.

On one hand, killing the super-mutants within allowed her to locate important resources. The big one was a suit of T-51b power armour in passable condition. With the data and supplies from the Sierra Army Depot, she could recondition and adjust it, giving her a key equalizer against Enclave troops.

Alessa in power armour at last, next to the Mariposa gate. Click for a larger version that shows more of the area, and Skynet.

On the other hand, she found little useful information about the Enclave, the Vault 13 humans or whatever was left of the Arroyo tribe. The only clue at this stage was what Hakunin  had said about the ocean to the South, which vaguely suggested nearby San Francisco and its docks.

Big trouble in little China

Though San Francisco has been ravaged during the war, a small part of it had since become thriving. This was the result of a huge Chinese nuclear submarine washing ashore after the nuclear destruction. The surviving sailors had used their equipment and knowledge to survive in the radioactive ruins.

By the Chosen One’s time this community spoke English and seemed culturally American (albeit with haphazard Chinese or pseudo-Chinese trappings). It likely was mostly made of Chinese-Americans. Apparently the Chinese sailors (calling themselves the Shi, after their submarine’s name) had soon allied with San Francisco survivors who spoke enough Mandarin Chinese for them to join forces and endure.

This restored, decontaminated bit of the old Chinatown was prosperous (if regimented and with surprisingly monotonous food). It benefited greatly from decades of research in reclaiming pre-War tech, and creating further advances. After seeing the military equipment available at the best San Franciscan suppliers, Alessa decided that these folks would be her new best friends.

She even could buy power armour supplies, a gauss rifle, and the occasional ammunition pack for her gauss weaponry. Furthermore, there was a small but intense martial arts community. They practiced the sort of techniques Mr. Sullivan  had described months before in Klamath.

The way of the intercepting fist

Alessandra studied and sparred with a community leader and martial arts master. She also discovered that she had a common acquaintance with Dr. Fung , the main local physician.

Due to her lack of cultural familiarity, Hassan supposedly insulted an enemy of her sifu. It was but a pretext – this rival kung-fu master  had seized a pretext to kill a student of his competitor. Hassan didn’t have relatives to avenge her, and the rival sifu simply didn’t like foreigners.

A public duel to the death was organised as part of the influence struggle between the two community leaders. The predatory, underhanded sifu soon lost the initiative due to his overconfidence.

As it became clear that he was losing, he produced a pistol he had smuggled into the ring. Alessa used it as a lever to break his trigger finger and his wrist then execute him.

(Incidentally, the depiction of the Chinatown in FO2 is, at best, cringe-inducing.)

Brotherhood of Steel

Ms. Hassan was then contacted by the Brotherhood of Steel . They knew both about her and her grandmother. The BoS man explained that they had become complacent, and that the emergence of the Enclave had thus taken them cold.

Though the Brotherhood didn’t know much about the Enclave, the newcomers had even better tech than they did. As a result, they wanted to ally with the Chosen One and send her to scout the Enclave’s nearest base. Hassan took the deal.

The small but excellent Brotherhood of Steel bunker in San Francisco. Click for a larger version that shows the entire floor (the thing on the left is the outpost’s mainframe).

She also attempted to become an ally of the Shi government. To do so, she located one of their missing scientists and confirmed that he was creating super-zombies using human corpses and mutated plants.

However she couldn’t investigate further. Though relatively civil, this mad scientist wasn’t entirely coherent, and she couldn’t make sense of his instructions about where to find more resources about mutated plants.

(In other words, the E.P.A.  map marker bugged. Sorry.)

You’re in the Army now

The Brotherhood man had intelligence about Enclave recruitment drives. Thus, Alessa left San Francisco alone to pass herself as a new recruit at the Enclave’s base in Navarro. As a result, Skynet decided to join the Shi research infrastructure and bade her farewell.

Though she did run into Enclave patrols near Navarro, the Chosen One proved that she could take them. The combination of her tribal bushcraft, superb markswomanship, fine-tuned power armour and powerful gauss rifle resulted in deadly ambushes.

A typical Enclave Vertibird. Click for a larger version where you can see the rest of the pad and nearby security and maintenance facilities.

After removing the sentinel, Alessandra-Maria infiltrated the complex. She bullshitted something about needing to upgrade her armour, stealing an Enclave suit to replace her T51b. Now even more fully uniformed and masked, she fast-talked everything that moved then hacked the mainframe.

This allowed her to get the location of the Enclave’s main base and document the access routes. She then stole a friend-or-foe emitter keyed to this base while bullshitting something about a security threat.

A senior Enclave researcher was present. He had realised that they accidentally had made their uplifted  deathclaws too smart, and was busy interrogating a specimen. Alessa freed the deathclaw, slew the sadistic scientist and adopted his cyberdog pet. The cyberdog, K-9, became her closest and arguably only friend.

Hassan then used her access to the computers to trigger both a level 4 biohazard alert and an inspection drill. This put the troops in complete disarray as she raided the base. As she saw it, this was training and a rehearsal before attacking the offshore base.

Brother Alessandra-Maria (almost)

During her raid, Alessandra found extensive technical information about the vertibirds, the gunship/transport airplanes used by the Enclave. These gave the Enclave the bulk of its military superiority over the Brotherhood, but the BoS could now work on counter-measures.

As her reward, Alessandra-Maria was given full access to the discreet Brotherhood bunker in San Francisco. She did not technically receive a membership, though.

Like her grandmother, Ms. Hassan underwent a lengthy series of surgeries for advanced cybernetic enhancements, as part of her general ramp-up toward taking on the Enclave. She also went through intelligence reports indicating that the Enclave likely was the inheritor faction of the wartime Federal government.

(For more about the Enclave, see our Frank Horrigan profile.)

However, while she was recuperating from a cybersurgery at the wu kwan, the Brotherhood outpost was briefly raided by the Enclave. There were but three soldiers, but one of them was a 12-feet tall colossus in a custom, advanced power armour. This giant ignored the Brother’s plasma fire and tore him in two with his bare hands.

Shortly after that, Alessa saw a report about a large Enclave strike at Vault 13. That one presumably was to eliminate the loose end that the enhanced deathclaws represented.

Be sure to wear flowers in your hair

In San Francisco, Alessa and K-9 determined where exactly the Enclave off-shore facility was. A renegade ship captain who had deserted the Enclave also helped them come up with a plan to sail a decrepit tanker there. The tanker could then be used to board the pre-War oil extraction platform that the Enclave used as an HQ.

At this point the Shi were both an important ally, and an important obstacle. Their core leadership had kept certain of the weapon system of their wrecked sub active to maintain control of the bay. Though Alessandra-Maria had the resources to board the Enclave’s oil rig, she needed to sail past the Shi’s undersea sentinel. The Shi also held the fuel reserves necessary for the tanker to operate.

The entrance of the tanker in the San Francisco Bay. Click for a larger version, because tankers are large.

The Chosen One decided to take on a predatory, brainwashing cult  that had been operating in San Francisco. The cult had become a thorn in the Shi’s side. This and other missions gave her a much better access to the Shi’s computer infrastructure, including “the Emperor” (actually their mainframe).

Some deft hacking led to Alessa being added to the list of technicians authorised to board the wrecked sub, and to stealing the fuel.

After K-9 insisted, Hassan also saved the lives of two of the vagrants living on the tanker. This involved venturing into the belly of the hulk to face packs of mutant monsters such as centaurs and wanamingoes.

The good deed convinced the ex-Enclave ship captain to further help the Chosen One. The appreciative vagrants also agreed to peacefully leave the tanker to find a new home. Hearing Hassan take on monster hordes in close quarters with a modified flamethrower and advanced power armour, Space Hulk-style , may also have encouraged them to agree with anything she said.

Let me sail, let me sail, let me crash upon your shore

Everything worked smoothly. The tanker was still fully automated to board the oil platform, which was fully automated to service the tanker. After boarding, Alessa left K-9 behind near a freshly hacked terminal with a vocal interface. From there, the dog could continuously prevent a general alarm. She then went in with an arsenal.

The Shi’s ancestral nuclear submarine, since cool people have ancestral nuclear submarines. Click for a larger version.

As she invaded the Enclave headquarters, Alessandra located about two dozen survivors from her tribe and Vault 13. The rest had been killed off in ghastly experiments. Seeing that they were now among people in Vault 13 garb, the tribals had briefly thought they had gone in Heaven, but it had soon become clear that it was that other thing.

The Chosen One destroyed everything. For more about the genocidal plans that she thus thwarted, see our Frank Horrigan profile.

President Richardson’s apocalyptic plans to reclaim the Earth for “pure” humans ended in the nuclear detonation of the Enclave oil rig. The prisoners had been evacuated to the tanker, who left in time despite Horrigan’s opposition.

Once upon a time in Mexico

Alessandra-Maria Hassan, K-9 and their car vanished shortly after the tanker returned to San Francisco.

A local overheard K-9 explaining basic Spanish grammar to Alessandra and saw the Highwayman drive South. But their projects in Mexico  remain a mystery to this day.

Consequences

A traditional feature of Fallout games is a montage after the main quest ends. It shows the impact of the decisions taken during the playthrough. So, for tradition’s sake, the end montage for our sample playthrough :

• The Vault 13 dwellers and their Arroyo descendants formed a thriving community, thanks to the G.E.C.K.. For years it was led by the Elder of Arroyo, until she passed away from extreme old age. Santiago Hassan became the new Chosen One, but it was now chiefly a symbolic, protocolary position.
• Modoc prospered thanks to their new ties with the underground survivors. They became an agricultural powerhouse once the drought subsided.
• Casino owner Rebecca Dyers took over the Den after the Chosen One eliminated the slavers, making it much more pleasant as a community.
• The NCR continued its growth, starting with absorbing the grateful Vault 15 squatters.

Part of the service station near Navarro, under which an Enclave base was hidden. Click for a larger version with more wasteland isometric landscape goodness.

• Vault City stagnated. Though they were the ones who profited from Redding joining their sphere of influence, VC was eventually absorbed by the NCR.
• New Reno recovered from the gang war thanks to Marcus’ deal with the Wrights. The Wrights’ rivals faded from memory.
• On the other hand, Marcus being busy in New Reno led to the collapse of Broken Hills in race wars. The mine was once again sabotaged, and the burg disappeared.
• This and New Reno being stable led to Marcus leaving Eastward, resuming his search for other survivors of the Master’s army.
• Cassidy married an unspecified tribal woman in Nevada. They had a daughter, but he eventually left to travel Eastward alone despite his advanced age.
• The Shi developed a strand of vine capable of draining radioactivity from the environment. As this vine spread, they slowly grew into a highly advanced empire in San Francisco and beyond. Skynet reportedly fused with the Emperor mainframe, but whether it continued to exist as a sapient AI is unclear.
• Gecko remained stable. The tree on the strange ghoul Harold ’s head continued to grow, reportedly producing fruits whose seed could grow in the direst milieux.

Description

Alessandra-Maria would likely decorate her power armour a bit. Probably some painted-on so-called “tribal” patterns.

Personality

Losing the shaman Hakunin was a shock for Alessandra. He was the only person with whom she ever had a rapport, as she was fascinated by his magic and knowledge of spirits. While in absolute terms the strength of this attachment was on the level of having a favourite pencil, for Alessa it was her only emotional bond.

K-9 fills this gap. Ms. Hassan discovers that she’s able to establish a small rapport with a pet dog, which would be highly unlikely with a human. This is — somewhat — reminiscent of how certain autistic patients grow attached to service dogs.

Alessa in her T51b power armour with a submachinegun, and nearby Skynet in a Robobrain™ chassis.

This meshes well with K-9’s programming to care for and protect a master. K-9 enjoys his job to make his new mistress happy through his companionship. At the same time, he realises that he has a responsibility to protect the world from this deadly mutant super-predator – by replacing the shaman as her trusted advisor.

Hakunin had drilled in Alessandra from infanthood the necessity of accepting the structure and guidance he represented. Apparently, his “magic” had warned him ahead of time of the danger she would represent. K-9 adroitly wiggles into this niche after the shaman’s death.

K-9 builds upon the conditioning Hakunin wove into Alessa so she would be on the right side of a strange line between heroine and monster. He also leverages Alessandra-Maria’s good image of pet dogs — which are quite rare — stemming from her little cousin Nagor’s friendly mutt Smoke .

Sufficiently advanced

By this stage of her development, Ms. Hassan has ample scientific knowledge. Yet she retains the animistic framework Hakunin taught her.

She is able to reframe the shaman as a psionic  mutant. But that doesn’t change his teachings. She understands that the “scorpion spirits within her” are a different explanatory framework for her neurological mutations. But that doesn’t change how the magic man trained her to approach these “spirits”.

The surviving Arroyo prisoners at the Enclave HQ (the robed one is the Elder). Click for a larger version, you know the drill by now.

Likewise she entirely understands how K-9 uses a spare human brain as a CPU. But she also sees him as a totem animal and a good spirit. The two views coexist.

K-9 never speaks about magic. Yet his consideration about ethics are as opaque for Alessandra as Hakunin’s animistic parables and metaphors. To her, it’s all just “spirit wisdom” to be accepted, as has been drilled into her since she was a baby.

Since Alessandra trusts K-9, he manages to gently steer her away from situations where the deadly mutant would cause devastation. The rest of the time he’s simply her pet and friend.

K-9 accepts that, occasionally, something awful will happen at Alessa’s hands and he will not be able to prevent it. He prefers to focus on the many, many lives the Chosen One saves by predating upon predators. And to a dog, that Alessandra-Maria lacks some key human traits isn’t that important.

Quotes

(Alessa stares at K-9)
Dr. Schreber: “Well, it’s a cyberdog. Upgraded MkII model.”
(Stays silent for a bit as she strains to remember something from her childhood. Then, she happily points at K-9, in a sing-song voice) “How much for the doggy in the ween-doh ? ^(video)  The one with with the wa-guh-lee tail ?”
K-9 (sighs): “Oh yes. Because nobody ever made that joke before. And it’s ‘waggly’.”
Alessa: “Want dog.”
Schreber: “What ?!? Sergeant, under no circumstances do you have the authority to requisition…”
Alessa: “You said this room is soundproofed, yes ? For your experiments ?”
Schreber: “Yes, but that’s not the…” (the Chosen One practically decapitates him with a power armour-backed knife swing. She expertly dodges the spray of blood as the body crashes onto a desk.)
Alessa: “Want dog.”
K-9: “Oh dear.”

Alessa (points at the Brotherhood mainframe): “Want cybernetic human enhancement programs Shuffle, Inimical and Cargo.”
Matthew: “What ?! How do you even… Oh. Your grandmother. She told you our procedures.”
K-9: “Wait. You *haven’t* changed your code names since the time of her *grandmother* ? My good man, when they say ‘counter-intelligence measures’ they don’t mean it *that* way.”
Matthew (to Alessa): “Your dog’s always like that ?”
Alessa (cheerfully): “He’s funny !”
K-9 (to Matthew): “Trust me good fellow, keeping her happy is by far the best approach. Word to the wise.”

K-9: “And do we have a plan about the 12-feet tall behemoth ? Especially if there are… several of them ?”
Alessa: “Gonna use rocket science.”
K-9: “Beg your pardon ?”
(Hassan gets a rocket launcher out of her car’s trunk)
K-9: “Heavens to Murgatroyd… Hmm, Alessandra, as we will shortly face certain death together, allow me one last request. Leave the jokes to me.”

K-9: “So I laid the story down nice and thick.”
Alessa: “How thick ?”
K-9: “I told them you were the most beguiling Mexican I’d ever seen.”
(‘lessa jokingly pretends to kick K-9, who jumps out of the way with a weird chuckle.)

K-9: “Alessandra, please don’t kill them. That would make me very sad and upset. I’m sure we can find a… better solution. If we put our brains together over a good meal.”
Alessa (shrugs): “Okay.” (flicks the safety back on her weapon) “What kind of meal ? Want beans.”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Fallout 2 (1998 video game).

Helper(s): Darci.

Writeup completed on the 13^th of February, 2017.