Vault Dweller

The series goes :

1. Vault Dweller (Jolene Hassan) chapter 1 – to Junktown.
2. Vault Dweller (Jolene Hassan) chapter 2 – roamer of the wasteland.
3. Vault Dweller (Jolene Hassan) chapter 3 – against the Master.

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• The story continues to be presented in the most logical order, though the various locations and encounters in the game can be done in practically any sequence.
• Which also means that there are S P O I L E R S, but by the third entry you’re probably aware of all this.
• 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

The augmentations received as an Initiate of the Brotherhood of Steel have noticeably increased the Vault Dweller’s strength, speed, endurance, perceptions, health, etc.. By super-heroic standards this isn’t significant, but by the much more modest standards of the wasteland Jolene is now a superb — if diminutive — specimen of humanity.

She also received additional computer and scientific training from the Brotherhood, plus some close combat training.

The Vault Dweller spent a lot of time at the firing range with laser and plasma training weaponry. Curiously, she doesn’t find those as intuitive as firearms.

Gear

Jolene still packs her .223 handcannon with forearm braces. It is a proven weapon that can kill most everything, and she has a lot of .223 FMJ rounds.

However, her gear goes through two major upgrades :

Power armour

More specifically a full, well-maintained, custom-adjusted suit of T-51b infantry power armour  in female configuration.

Power armour  can handle common firearms and creature attacks without breaking stride. Howbeit there are weak chinks and things can happen – especially when facing exceptional or exceptionally lucky sharpshooters.

Landscape from the Fallout 1 The Story mod .

The Vault Dweller’s suit might be toughest suit of armour in Southern California and beyond. It has been hardened using a special chemical process, making it more robust than the Brotherhood’s T-51bs.

Power armours also :

• Enhance strength.
• Protect against radiation and the elements.
• Have a water recycling system.

Modified Winchester P94 plasma rifle

A large, 14-pound affair – though this is not an issue with the power armour. It has a rapid target acquisition interface plugged into the power armour and an artisanally hotwired plasma formation chamber.

This is not a first-resort weapon since the Vault Dweller is uncertain about how much ammunition she can get for it. But it is invaluable when facing heavy opposition.

History

The Brotherhood of Steel  was on a war footing, mostly due to reports of super-mutants in the North. But political infighting among Elders meant nothing was being done.

The Vault Dweller gained more brownie points by reconnoitering in the Northern desert. This is how was finally located the Mariposa military base . It was indeed guarded by super-mutants looking like those back in Bakersfield  and armed with wartime military weapons.

Their radio security being lamentable, Ms. Hassan tricked some guards into leaving their position and shot them dead. She and Tycho then got away to examine reinforcements. They observed the leader of the reaction force shredding a nearby mutant animal with a minigun.

Shady Sands’ brahmin lot. Landscape from the Fallout 1 The Story mod .

Though their report was welcomed by some leaders of the Brotherhood, the Vault Dweller got the impression that actual action still wasn’t forthcoming. Worse, the military base wasn’t that far from Vault 13 . However, watching the minigun in action gave her cold feet.

Tycho had heard that the Los Angeles Boneyard  had people dealing in energy weaponry. Thus, Jolene decided to check this out to see if better weapons might be obtainable to deal with the super-mutants. She also vaguely hoped that the Brotherhood might reach a decision about Mariposa in the meanwhile.

To live and die in L.A.

Procrastination paid off. Tycho located a community in the Boneyard. It was a walled-off affair called the Adytum , which had a remarkably competent chemist and a similarly skilled engineer.

Defended by a mercenary police force called the Regulators, the Adytum had long been self-sufficient thanks to the hydroponic farms set up by the technical specialists. It also had teams of experienced scavengers scouring the ruins to find resources.

However, when the hydroponic farms broke down, procuring replacement pieces proved impossible. A scavenger did fetch the needed parts from another community, but was killed by monstrous deathclaws. Furthermore, the Regulators were reportedly being harassed by a vicious gang of terrorists called the Blades.

Click for a larger version.

Jolene had already faced a deathclaw and knew that her power armour and weaponry could handle them. Thus, the Vault Dweller agreed to locate the corpse of the scavenger and complete the dead man’s mission.

This and other small services amply paid off – once the underground farms were running again, the two Adytum head technologists made significant improvements to the Vault Dweller’s power armour and plasma rifle.

L.A. stands for lies and ambitions

Having been told horrors by the Adytum’s mayor about the Blades, Jolene decided to confront the gang. As she reconnoitred, she and Tycho were puzzled to see that the Blades didn’t look like a gang at all. For starters, they had very little weaponry.

After approaching, they established that the mayor of the Adytum had been lied to by the Regulators. It was the Regulators who had simulated the Blades’ attacks to wield more power in the Adytum.

The Blades had no intention of attacking anybody. In fact they were desperate as they were almost unarmed and caught between the deathclaws to the East and the Regulators in Adytum to the South. Having already crossed the deathclaw turf, the Vault Dweller offered to serve as an emissary with the Gun Runners  further East.

The Gun Runners were the Boneyard faction Tycho had heard of. They were weapons engineers whose ordnance was almost as good as the Brotherhood’s. The Vault Dweller intended to visit them anyway to barter for fusion cells for her newly-improved plasma rifle.

Out of the Boneyard

As it turned out, the Runners were willing to help the Blades and offer Jolene a rebate if she took out the deathclaws once and for all. The Gun Runners had the ordnance to do so but were engineers, not soldiers.

The Vault Dweller exterminated the deathclaws over several days, using careful tactics. The suits of power armour she and Tycho were wearing were way stronger than normal protections, but deathclaws are redoubtable. She also kept applying the advice from Harold the ghoul and his friends – aim for the eyes.

Landscape from the Fallout 1 The Story mod .

After she confirmed the destruction of the deathclaws nest, the Vault Dweller was encouraged to visit the nearby library. It had been set up by a philosophical organisation called the Followers of the Apocalypse .

Hassan she did so out of politeness and introduced herself to their leader Nicole. But Jolene was afraid that her reluctance to deal with the base at Mariposa would have dire consequences. She now wanted to leave the Boneyard and return North ASAP.

Now you remember what the draftsman said (part 1)

The Gun Runners apparently had an excellent relationship with the Blades before the deathclaws cut them off. Thus, they loaned combat armour and laser rifles to equip a squad of Blades to eliminate the Regulators. The Vault Dweller attempted to negotiate with the mayor of the Adytum by showing him how he had been manipulated, but the Regulators killed the old man.

However, the mercenaries were soon caught between the Vault Dweller and Tycho, the Blades squad storming the entrance, and the incensed civilians of the Adytum. In the end, the Regulators were eliminated. Some hours later the Dweller left the grateful liberated town for the long Northward trek to Mariposa.

The assault on the base was a narrowly-won thing. The score of super-mutants staffing the base was very heavily armed, but thankfully none too smart. One important exception was their lieutenant, though he was eventually killed in a huge firefight. The Vault Dweller’s initial plan to spy on any officer… did not work.

In the fray a self-destruct mechanism was somehow triggered. Hassan and Tycho had to run like hell to avoid being caught in the explosion.

From what could be glanced by the scientifically-minded Jolene, the base held some sort of mutation vats turning humans into super-mutants. With these gone, the threat of the super-mutants was presumably over. Jolene had read Brotherhood scientific research whilst procrastinating, which demonstrated that the mutants were sterile.

Now you remember what the draftsman said (part 2)

However, something seemed off. While it was quite possible that the lieutenant was the master mentioned by Set  back in Bakersfield, the Vault Dweller felt that something was missing. She eventually realised what it was. During the firefight with the lieutenant a person in deep purple robes had been present, and killed in the fray.

The general design of his robes was the same as those worn by two cultists encountered in Bakersfield. These men professed to be healers, which had seemed weird to Jolene in an area solely populated by ghouls.

Landscape from the Fallout 1 The Story mod .

This in turn reminded her of warnings from Nicole, the head of the Followers. She had advised caution about this cult – the Children of the Cathedral . The Vault Dweller had not really listened to Nicole as she wanted to leave the Boneyard. But now she wanted to hear more.

As to Tycho, he thought that the Mariposa base had been remotely detonated. The lieutenant there had not hit any button, and Tycho hadn’t seen a dead man’s switch whilst rapidly inspecting the body.

After mooching off again at the Brotherhood under the pretext of receiving some detox after an accidental radiation hot spot exposure, the Vault Dweller decided to return to the Boneyard and the Followers for information about the Children.

Hidden masters, part 1

Among the various accusations the Followers made about the Children, one stood out. Super-mutants of the Nightkin unit  had been repeatedly glimpsed entering and leaving the cathedral of the Children.

Emboldened by the successful Mariposa raids, the Dweller decided to raid the inner sanctum of the Cathedral. She would attack along with Tycho and several scouts from the Followers – that turbo plasma rifle of hers was working real good. The general plan was to shoot first and ask questions later.

Nicole had Jolene contact Laura, an infiltrator of the Followers among the Children. With her help, the Dweller and her team gained access to the closed off part of the building and invaded. They indiscriminately killed various super-mutants and Children of the Cathedral officials – including Morpheus, the leader of the organisation.

The raid then stormed underground installations. It continued with clearing room-to-room until Hassan came across a familiar sight. The Cathedral was actually built over a Vault, presumably one of several under Los Angeles.

The conditions inside were awful. The place was full of grotesquely deformed mutants and splattered with nauseating, pulsating biological goo that seemed alive. The sickened raiders torched everything they could. But they took casualties from the well-armed cultists and mutants, as their tactics broke down due to the horrors they were encountering.

Hidden masters, part 2

It was even necessary to execute the deranged researchers and some human prisoners mutated beyond viability, in a ghastly reenactment of the mutiny at Mariposa during the War. Jolene and Tycho soon located the Master. Jolene being intimately familiar with the layout of Vaults, it was possible to bypass much of the defences.

The Master  was a sort of large pile of biological waste that merged the voices and psyches of several people in a jumbled mess. Though the Vault Dweller was ready for a huge fight, it soon became obvious that the Master was more pathetically sick than a grandiose villain. His grand plan had obvious problems he was too incoherent to admit.

Landscape from the Fallout 1 The Story mod .

The Master’s ranted about replacing humans with “perfect” super-mutants. And Hassan was reminded of several important points in an autopsy report from the Brotherhood of Steel.

Though she had mostly requested a copy and read to ingratiate herself with the Brotherhood’s head researcher, sucking up paid off. She clearly remembered super-mutants being sterile, and why.

Albeit not a biologist, her general scientific culture was solid enough to argue with the psychologically ravaged Master. She made him realise that his fantasies, which had killed so many persons already, were unworkable.

The Master started ranting about suicide. When Jolene saw him hit a button in the power management section of his control panel, she correctly assumed it was a self-destruction system similar to the one at Mariposa. Within minutes the Vault and the Cathedral were engulfed in an explosion, though Tycho and Jolene got out in time.

You can never go home again

Jolene returned to the Vault to report about the destruction of the Master and its power base. As she had been half-expecting ever since she left, the Overseer didn’t let her back in.

He considered that she would upset the Vault 13 society. Hassan would be a living example that it was possible to live on the outside rather than remain in the Vault.

Though she had acquired numerous allies in the Southern California wasteland, the Vault Dweller knew that she didn’t really belong with any of those. She just stuck to the general Vault 13 area, with Tycho leaving to continue his travels.

The Vault Dweller provided some help to her allies :

• The ghouls of Necropolis who rebuilt their technological knowledge now that they could again access Vault 12.
• The Brotherhood of Steel as they started sharing a bit more of their knowledge.
• Shady Sands as it slowly developed into a political power thanks to the leadership Aradesh  and his daughter Tandi.

From within the mountain

Meanwhile, upheaval took place in Vault 13. A number of vault dwellers decided to leave and live outside. Hassan spotted them and realised that they had no chance of surviving the wasteland. This left her with little choice but to organise the rebels into a wasteland tribes.

Landscape from the Fallout 1 The Story mod .

Fed by a trickle of people leaving Vault 13, this community eventually formed the tribal village of Arroyo .

Reportedly the Vault Dweller married and had children. It is also said that she was eventually persuaded to write her memoirs – though the location of Vault 13 was never revealed. In 2208, shortly after her 70^th birthday, Jolene Hassan simply left Arroyo and was never seen again.

In 2241 Arroyo was suffering from severe problems, which the Vault Dweller’s granddaughter, Alessandra-Maria Hassan, would solve in her distinctive way.

Description

The rigours of her adventures and the harsh wasteland sun have further weathered Jolene. Her friend Doctor Lorri has given her skin care products to stop the damage, though.

Hassan ended up shaving off her hair. It’s significantly more comfortable when wearing a power armour helmet. She also decided after the fact that it was a sufficiently modest haircut to be halal  and give up on the head covering quandary. No hair to cover, right ? Right.

Personality

By the time she leaves the Adytum, the Vault Dweller is increasingly violent and bitter due to the exposure to the brutal, treacherous and petty wasteland.

On one hand, she does a superb job defending viable communities from predators and conmen. On the other, none of them feel like home. Furthermore, she doesn’t really have something in common with these people, who were born and grew up on the surface.

She slowly goes from wanting to ingratiate herself with anybody who looks important, to feeling that practically everyone is a pain in the neck likely to drag her into the problems they got themselves in.

Retirement

After her exile, she resents the vault dwellers fleeing Vault 13. She doesn’t want to help these fools who look up to her, but she can’t leave them to die off either. Hassan thus ends up dragging this community like a ball and chain.

Shady Sands. Landscape from the Fallout 1 The Story mod .

Jolene greatly encourages travellers to join the Arroyo village so they can teach the vault dwellers and she’s no longer needed. A small party of animist preachers will take her up on her offer and play an important role in setting up what will become Arroyo’s tribal culture.

Later on, Jolene develops an interest in Sufism . She gradually becomes a mystic, bartering for the handful of books about Sufism recovered by the Followers of the Apocalypse. She then reconstructs the tradition solely for her personal practice.

This is a far cry after decades of very, very lax religious orthodoxy.

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Fallout (1997 video game).

Helper(s): Dr. Peter Piispanen, Roy Cowan, Darci, Pawsplay.