Chapter 173: Epilogue

Chapter 173: Epilogue

And so The Courier, who cheated death in the cemetery outside Goodsprings, managed to do the impossible one last time, and the Mojave Wasteland was forever changed.The source of this content nov(el)bi((n))

The army of securitrons beneath The Fort was a secret weapon that only Sheason's closest friends saw coming. It caught both Caesar's Legion and the New California Republic completely off guard, driving them both from Hoover Dam and securing the independence of New Vegas. With the aid of both The Kings and the Followers of the Apocalypse, the securitron army was able to maintain order in the city streets following the battle. The citizens of Freeside were already well accustomed to securitron patrols after the defeat of Los Zorroz, so very little seemed to change for most people.

With the reigns handed over to Julie Farkas, New Vegas assumed its position as a powerful independent city-state: a shining beacon of civilization in the wasteland, and a refuge for those who wanted peace from the violence of the outside world. Using the resources of the Lucky 38 and the personality constructs in The Sink, the Followers expanded the infrastructure of the city at an exponential rate. The Council turned into a parliament; a constitution was drafted; the Lucky 38 became the new center of government; and access to The Strip was made free to all.

Word of Sheason's sacrifice at the Dam spread like wildfire in the weeks following the battle. His actions ensured that Mr. House's tyranny was broken, and that neither Caesar's Legion nor the NCR would ever gain control over New Vegas. To honor his memory, Julie Farkas commissioned a statue of The Courier, holding aloft the helmet of his defeated foe, Legate Lanius.

The Courier would always watch over the city he had liberated... the only place he had ever truly called home.

Thousands of slaves suddenly found themselves free of the Legion's oppression. In the days that followed the Legion's defeat at Hoover Dam, the securitron army directed, as ever, by Yes Man provided protection and safety for the many refugees as they made their way from Hoover Dam and into New Vegas. The number of freed slaves was far greater than anyone in the Followers had expected; even Julie Farkas was stunned by the seemingly never-ending trail of misbegotten, outcast souls.

The Followers were overwhelmed at first, but they quickly gained control of the situation thanks to help from Yes Man's securitrons, Jeeves, the personality constructs in The Sink, and countless other citizens in Freeside. While there were some who opposed even letting the refugees in (either out of fear, suspicion, or habit) there were many more who stepped forward out of human decency and compassion to lend aid however they could. In time, many of the freed slaves eventually became Followers themselves, and the new arrivals helped Freeside bloom like never before.

One of those refugees was a little girl. After her brief meeting with Sheason during his ill-fated foray into the Fort, she kept the promise he had made in the back of her mind. That thought kept her going. It kept her from giving up. And it kept her alive. Though she never saw him again, she somehow knew that the army of robots sent to free the slaves was really the Courier making good on his promise...

When his statue was finally finished, Melody would visit it every day, and thank the man who came back for her with an army.

With New Vegas' independence formally declared and, more importantly, the Long 15 made safe again after the deathclaws were cleared out of Quarry Junction Goodsprings thrived. More travelers stopped by Goodsprings on their way to and from the Strip, and the locals grew prosperous from all the traffic. They also enjoyed many perks of belonging to the greater New Vegas city-state, such as securitrons appearing as if from nowhere whenever the town was threatened.

Several weeks after New Vegas' independence was established, the last piece of self-aware code transmitted to the Lucky 38 mainframe finally finished reconstructing itself. Shortly after, dozens of eyebots began to emerge from inside the Lucky 38, one by one, and flew out into the wasteland. They traveled to every corner of the Mojave, determined to do whatever they could to protect their home.

ED-E wasn't going to let a little inconvenience like death stop him, after all. He was far too plucky and stubborn to let that kind of handicap slow him down.

Despite the NCR's pledge to support Primm, they abandoned the town after their humiliating defeat at Hoover Dam. When word of this reached Julie Farkas several weeks later, she sent an envoy down to the town, asking if they wanted to join the fledgling city-state. They politely declined, preferring to keep totally independent; their time under NCR rule had left a bad taste in their collective mouths. It was tough and full of ups and downs, but they thought it was better than the alternative.

In the years following the destruction of Cassidy Caravans, the NCR, Crimson Caravan Co., and the Van Graffs all suffered in various ways. With news of their underhanded sabotage made public back in California, very few people willingly continued to trade with either Crimson Caravan or the Van Graffs. The already struggling supply lines of the NCR, meanwhile, suffered even further. Public opinion seemed to agree that it was the NCR's strict trade laws, unfair tariffs, and corrupt border guards enacting their own "stop tolls" that caused the whole caravan mess in the first place.

The Gun Runners, on the other hand, continued to thrive, being one of the few California-based organizations still allowed to trade freely in New Vegas territory. When questioned about their alleged involvement in the "massacre in the east," spokesmen for the Gun Runners flatly denied any such involvement, claiming that they would have no public motivation for such an attack.

Though Novac was a low-priority target for Legion forces already west of the Colorado in the days following the battle at Hoover Dam, it was still a target. Things were starting to look very grim for the people living in the shadow of Dinky the Dinosaur, when suddenly in a highly improbable turn of events Jason Bright and the other members of the Bright Brotherhood returned to Novac from their Great Journey. By the time Yes Man was able to divert securitrons to aid in the defense, the town had already been saved, in a fashion nearly too absurd to be believed.

During the NCR's hasty withdrawal from the Mojave, Craig Boone made a decision: he would remain in New Vegas. He never wanted for work, as his skills with a rifle were already legend, and he was always eager to jump to the city's defense whenever he was needed. While there was a part of him that might have preferred rejoining his old unit and going back to California, Boone couldn't bring himself to abandon the city where he'd met his wife.

Veronica Santangelo and Christine Royce, after years of being kept apart, finally found happiness in each others arms once again. Completely severing any and all ties to their former lives in the Brotherhood, they were able to live the lesson learned in the Sierra Madre, truly letting the past go, so they could begin again... together.

And what a new life they began! Veronica, Christine, and April eventually decided to create that band they all kept talking about. They called it The Apunkalypse, with Veronica on guitar, Christine on bass and vocals, and April on drums. They spread the music of Rock and Roll all throughout the wasteland, taking their unique sound on tour every chance they got.

Three Dog ended up becoming a big fan, playing recordings of their music on Galaxy News Radio whenever he got the chance.

The Brotherhood of Steel chapter operating out of the Lost Hills Bunker Complex made plans to leave the Mojave in secret, as Elder McNamara wanted to set out east to link up with the Capitol Wasteland Brotherhood as soon as possible. Not everyone agreed with the decision to leave, however, and a not insubstantial faction led by Head Paladin Hardin elected to stay behind, refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of Arthur Maxson.

Every few months or so, they would launch a raid for supplies to fill their ever dwindling stores. However, the more aggressive they became on the surface, the more losses they incurred. After two and a half years, the raids stopped altogether, and the Lost Hills Bunker Complex became silent.

After a long and arduous journey that took nearly a year, McNamara, and all who followed him, arrived at The Citadel... sadly, long after Owyn Lyons succumbed to illness. Arthur Maxson who had grown a penance beard in the interim informed McNamara that the Brotherhood was in the planning stages to invade the Commonwealth, and he needed everyone ready for war. Institute Synths had murdered Sarah Lyons during a scouting mission several months previous, and Maxson would have his vengeance.

McNamara wondered if, perhaps, he had made the wrong decision yet again.

The Book Chute, completely oblivious to the goings-on in New Vegas, continued to devour all seditious materials it could find until it nearly choked on a paperclip. It adamantly maintained it was a Chinese paperclip, and the whole thing had been an elaborately orchestrated assassination attempt. Whatever the reason, it slowed down for a while, carefully appraising each document and clipboard that came to it.

The two light switches continued to bicker and flicker. Eventually, however, they were offered a rather intriguing opportunity: Veronica's band The Apunkalypse was looking to add some color and flash to their shows. Would they like to help? Of course they did, and they soon learned that when they put aside their differences, they actually worked quite well together. They even made holograms for themselves, so they could join the band properly, one of them on the synthesizer and the other on rhythm guitar. After all, they didn't want that one tawdry love affair with a hologram in the Lightwave Dynamics Plant to go to waste, now, did they?

Blind Diode Jefferson, with the sounds Sheason had brought him, created a symphonic counter-frequency that saved Big MT from the Sonic Invasion of 2910. Oh, you didn't hear about it? Good. It was rumored by the other personalities that he had a brief fling with the light switches. Both of them. At once. He forgot their names once too often, however, and was soon left in the dark as punishment.

Jocelyn, The Sink in The Sink, continued to ruthlessly scrub any particulate matter that came near her stainless steel frame. Things went smoothly for Jo in the days that followed... even though she was accidentally given access to the Magnetohydraulics Plant one time, and nearly flooded all the Big Empty in an attempt to scrub the crater clean. Thanks to the Followers and their continuing efforts to build more vaporators, however, Jocelyn found new purpose in life: to bring clean, drinkable water to every corner of the wasteland. She was extremely insistent that this was not simply a way to get away from Barry's painfully awful chat-up lines.

The Toaster continued its psychotic spree, reducing all appliances in range to scrap electronics and spare parts. After one of its more psychotic episodes, however, the other Sink personalities decided enough was enough, and dumped the toaster in a bathtub. Sparking and hissing, the Toaster swore its enemies would rue the day when they had bread... and no way to toast it.

Muggy mellowed out considerably after establishing himself permanently on the other side of the teleporter. Whenever The Apunkalypse went on tour, he jumped at the opportunity to join them. Part of that was their continued love of coffee, leading to a great many coffee cups that needed to be cleaned... but mostly it was so he could spend time with April. It was an unrequited crush, and he knew that, but he didn't care. He just liked spending time with her.

Auto-Doc, always gentle and methodical, quickly established himself as an extremely popular physician in one of the new hospitals the Followers built a few months after the battle at Hoover Dam. He was glad to finally have purpose again, but always kept an eye on the goings-on in the crater of Big MT. In time, the Auto-Doc found a way to deactivate the Y-17 Trauma Harnesses, releasing the corpses they had held prisoner for over 200 years.

When Sheason ran through the X-8 facility, the computers analyzed the test subject's movements. Rather than performing a superficial observation, they realized the subject barely knew what Communism was or even what a high school was. This confused the computers for a time, until the facility came to an overwhelming conclusion: the research against Communism had... succeeded! So the X-8 computers let its cyberdogs out into the wastes to help protect small communities from physical aggression, rather than Communist propaganda.

The infiltration program in X-13 felt spent, having repeatedly upgraded Susan the Stealth Suit until it could upgrade her no more. It felt warm, fulfilled, and a bit sluggish. At first, the program thought the two of them had a good thing going... and then, not long after, it realized that Susan had left without so much as a note on the nightstand. It felt so used! The nerve! She could have at least called!

Dr. Klein and the other members of the Think Tank remained alive, most of them blissfully unaware of the world outside. They looped through their daily routine, none the wiser about the world beyond... although perhaps "wiser" was the wrong word.

The only one who seemed to notice Sheason's absence was Dala. Eventually, curiosity (and loneliness) got the better of her. In secret, she hatched a plan to go look for him without leaving the security of the Think Tank. She used the data collected from her many vigorous and thorough research sessions with him to construct several remote-controlled avatars: bodies grown from cyberflesh.

While she used her "girls" to explore the wasteland, she also used them to explore parts of her personality that she never even knew existed. For the first time in 200 years, Dala felt truly alive. She walked barefoot through the desert. She felt the sun on her face and the wind in her hair. She tasted foods, catalogued smells, learned to dance, discovered what being drunk felt like, read books with her eyes rather than scanning them with cameras...

And boy, oh boy, did she get laid.

Hopeville burned lightless in the night, invisible fires of radiation scorching it from within and without. It is said a man still walks its streets to this day... a man with a tattered jacket and an Old World flag etched on his back. He remained there, perhaps as punishment for the scars he left on the wastes or a reminder of a history he could not, would not, forget.

For Ulysses... his journey was over. The Courier had been the end of his road.

Exactly as Ulysses predicted, the tunnelers did eventually start moving beyond the confines of The Divide. However, Ulysses was wrong about one thing: they did not find the world outside The Divide quite as easy prey as he thought they would. Ever since the first meeting of the Council when Sheason had presented everyone with the tunneler carcass, the tunnelers became a known, established threat. Countermeasures were developed, and contingency plans were put in place. The people of the Mojave prepared for their arrival and the tunnelers ravenous beasts, but not stupid realized quite quickly that they would find no easy prey here. So instead of migrating, the tunnelers all decided to stay in The Divide and go back to hunting deathclaws. Those were much easier prey.

EL-13/N, the ZAX 6.3 mainframe underneath the Big Empty continued to test, content that she did not have to deal with the outside world. The only change in her daily routine running the Perpetual Testing Initiative beneath the Big MT crater came nearly six years after Sheason's accidental foray into the underground facility. One day, and completely without warning, the flow of test subjects from The Institute stopped.

But that's a story for another time.

With the Enclave's Lunar Base destroyed, the Mega-Patriot defeated, their super soldier secret weapon blown in half by Christopher's BFG 9000, and President Eden finally brought low by his hubris once and for all, the Enclave were dealt a conclusive, grievous blow. However, many soldiers and scientists managed to evacuate before the complete destruction of the base, and there were still Enclave facilities planetside that Chris and Fawkes had overlooked in their travels. While power armored fascists seem to have been soundly defeated, it wouldn't be the first time the Enclave has come back from the dead after having its entire command structure thoroughly gutted.

Only time will tell if the Enclave is truly finished for good...

In the new world of the Mojave Wasteland, fighting continued, blood was spilled, and many lived and died - just as they had in the Old World.

It's said that war never changes. Men and women do, through the roads they walk.

And this road?

This road has reached its end.