Sole Survivor Headcanons

[Gamer_Auto]

So, while we all wait for mods to update to the latest version, let's talk about various headcanons people have had to explain their PC when playing. Here's a few I've thought up, and you can share yours if you feel like it:

 

 

We know Nate (Male PC) and Nora (Female PC) have some amount of official backstory. Prior to their marriage, Nate was a soldier in the US Military during the resource wars, and Nora was a lawyer. But the specifics are left up to us to Roleplay/Headcanon. I was able to think of a few based on the 4 main story factions.

General Nate could have been a high ranking NCO or a high ranking enlisted soldier with exceptional leadership skills; specifically in the fields of fortification and logistics.

Paladin Nate, obviously, could have been in Power Armor companies; and maybe even worked with/in tandem with Roger Maxon. 

Rail Agent Nate could have been some kind of sneaky unit: recon, infiltration, sniping.

Rail Agent Nora could have been a lawyer in the civil sector, and aligns with the Railroad out of nostalgia for helping unions negotiate better deals (because Desdamona would 100% be the type to strike at the drop of a hat).

Director Nora, while not a scientist herself, could have been on the legal team of scientific organizations, and would know how to properly manage a group like The Institute.

 

And of course, because this is LoversLab, we can't forget the smut!

Now some may ask: "what motivation could the Sole Survivor possibly have to sex their way across the wastes other than because they want to?" And that answer is simple: grief. The Sole Survivor was married to the love of their life, was committed enough to start a family, and was all set up to live happily ever after. And had it all ripped away. The Sole Survivor witnessed the end of their world, was tricked into being a lab rat, saw their son get kidnapped, and saw their beloved spouse get murdered. It would take someone of strong will to not mentally break from the following PTSD. The Sole Survivor could become romantically obsessed with someone, or become a slut for anyone and anything in a vain attempt to fill the emotional void. The utter despair could make them shut down and possibly submit to being a Raider Slave, or it could make them go insane and become a slaver. There's no way of telling how grief will effect someone until it does.

 

If you thought of something I didn't, let me know!

[Stormer]

And you’re asking out of curiosity? To know how other people explain why their character is the way they are? Or for a potential quest mod?

[Gamer_Auto]

4 minutes ago, Stormer said:

And you’re asking out of curiosity? To know how other people explain why their character is the way they are? Or for a potential quest mod?

Just curiosity. Why? Isn't this the general discussion area for Fallout 4?

[ElaboratePseudonym]

Maybe a little too obvious but, The Mad Max Middle.

 

The Survivor is still strong and rational enough to continue day-by-day, but broken and numb enough to not really go out of their way to help anyone. For example, help the Concord group against the raiders and tell them about Sanctuary, but not go back or help them in any other way. This Nate/Nora will oppose evil they directly encounter, but sees no point or purpose in any further attachments to any group or individual. Maybe at best, a sort of post-apocalyptic Lone Ranger or Kwai Chang Kane. Perhaps Severian from "Shadow of the Torturer".

[Z4chary]

My guess is making the most out of every day, since nothing is certain. Shooting groups with bad rep first, then asking questions. Being more open to "new experiences", since you don’t know what day is your last. Cherishing moments you have with those you trust and looking for that one place you are welcome in and can return to at any time. When it comes to helping others... sure, but for a price. In this new world everybody has to survive somehow and nothing is free. Only things that would have any value would be those that help you survive or distract yourself (ammo, shelter, food, sex, drugs, weapons...)

 

When it comes to kindness, it would be exceedingly rare, or it would come with some unforeseen "side intentions".

[Miauzi]

Vor 17 Stunden sagte Gamer_Auto:

Nur Neugier. Warum? Ist das nicht der allgemeine Diskussionsbereich für Fallout 4?

 

After more than 2000 hours of playing, why bother with Nate or Nora... it couldn't get any more boring.

Luckily, there is the possibility of putting together something completely different using an “alternative start”:

a) my character is a refugee synth

b) this synth bears the memories and appearance of a Korean woman - a citizen of the USA - who died in 2078

c) she died as a result of the interrogation torture inflicted by counterintelligence agents

d) her memories aka her personality were stored in the same way as police officer Nick Valentine

e) the institute brought her back to life - because her unofficial job description from before the war was too tempting for some sex-addicted scientists -> Dominatrix in the best SM club in Boston (the "Dollhaus")

f) Her name is "Zao Seungeum" and she is actually a top infiltrator of Chinese foreign espionage

 

You can find out more about their adventures here:

 

[sen4mi]

My "Nora" typically engages in sex reluctantly, and (hypothetically speaking) goes out of the way to avoid it.

 

The game is not set up to be a decent otome/dating simulator/relationship simulator). It has some room for flirting and relationship building (along the lines of bioware games), but it  can also be plausible for (hopefully unrealistic) non-consensual interactions, absurd situations and oddball fetishes (some of which I especially dislike, but I can uninstall those particular mods).

 

Edit: I also usually play alternate starts.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by sen4mi
acknowledge NickNozownik's issue

[NickNozownik]

I usually play as a loner trying to live a decent life or a Gunner. Gunner is pretty much the same as a loner except she decided that joining a group like this is better than being alone. The reason for that is she doesn't like having a normal job or living in Diamond City, just not her thing.

I use alternate start mod and I don't care that much about the main big factions.

 

I have too many kinks to be impressed by most sex mods so I keep them pretty much disabled, they trigger under very specific conditions or only on demand. I keep them for two reasons:

1. Rape is a simple death alternative, more interesting than just quick load

2. I can impale enemies if I catch them off guard

 

If I would play as Nora then doing all of that wouldn't make sense from her perspective. She's would be too obsessed with finding her child or at least knowing whether he's alive and well or not. Judging by the dialogue she clearly cares about her son so "getting prepared" by collecting junk, doing random quests and modifying guns is very unlikely to happen. She would probably be sleep deprived and starving while desperately trying to find her kid. Also she's a lawyer and wouldn't stand a chance against a raider who was born and raised in the wasteland.

[IBAGadget]

Nora is a Lawyer, yes.

 

In my setup though, she was part of the JAG, and a Marine first, which would explain her proficiency with firearms and power armor.

She's also a bit of a Dominatrix

 

why does she help the different factions in the Commonwealth?

 

Intel. 

 

As a good Marine and a lawyer, she's used to gathering information in order to prepare the best offense or defense that she can - this is a strange new land she's wound up in, and running off half-cocked is a sure way to get dead. 

 

As a swinger, she's also no stranger to sex with various partners, and has developed a fairly thick skin - in this strange new world it is sometimes better to surrender her body if it means her survival. She'll get her vengeance later when she is better prepared.

[Miauzi]

The game comes from the USA - a country with the highest level of armament among the civilian population in the world... and then the lawyer Nora shouldn't be able to handle various firearms?

Sorry - this version of the USA has been in a conventional war with China for 10 years ... now even the very last factories are being converted to weapons production - see the fate of the producers of the "Buttercup" horse.

In such warlike societies, the differences between "soldier" and "civilian" become blurred - this also applies to the ability to handle weapons.

There is also a "tradition" of more than 300 years with armed militias and home guards - so that the Vanilla Nora can even have more than just basic military training.

(the colonists' militia units took part in the war against France BEFORE 1776 - the final worldwide nuclear strike took place in 2077)

The game comes from the USA - a country with the highest level of armament among the civilian population in the world... and then the lawyer Nora shouldn't be able to handle various firearms?

The only thing that was absolutely suspicious to me about the plot of Fallout 4 -> everyone - but also absolutely every NPC could handle and use power armor (functional and turned off) ... complete break with the lore of the Fallout universe.

(but why am I surprised... in StarField even a simple miner can fly a spaceship "from a standing start"... it's as easy as driving a car)

 

[IBAGadget]

On 12/12/2023 at 1:58 AM, Miauzi said:

The only thing that was absolutely suspicious to me about the plot of Fallout 4 -> everyone - but also absolutely every NPC could handle and use power armor (functional and turned off) ... complete break with the lore of the Fallout universe.

 

This aspect also bugged me. One of the things that I liked about Fallout 3 and New Vegas was that you had to get training before you could use PA and its availability was scarce. It was also tough.

 

FO4's PA is ubiquitous, every 4th raider has a set, and it can be defeated with .38 calibre pipe pistols. And not just defeated, but broken, requiring extensive repair of the armor plating. Even intact Pre-war suits are fairly wimpy when it comes to the actual protection.

[Miauzi]

Vor 1 Stunde sagte IBAGadget:

 

Dieser Aspekt hat mich auch genervt. Eines der Dinge, die mir an Fallout 3 und New Vegas gefallen haben, war, dass man eine Schulung absolvieren musste, bevor man PA nutzen konnte, und dass die Verfügbarkeit knapp war. Es war auch hart.

 

Die PA von FO4 ist allgegenwärtig, jeder vierte Raider hat ein Set und sie kann mit Rohrpistolen im Kaliber .38 besiegt werden. Und nicht nur besiegt, sondern auch kaputt, was eine umfangreiche Reparatur der Panzerung erforderte. Sogar intakte Vorkriegsanzüge sind ziemlich dürftig, wenn es um den tatsächlichen Schutz geht.

 

Even if this leads away from the topic of Nora/Nate... but a few more lines from me on the topic of power armor and Fallout lore

I've been playing this series from part 1 and in the first two parts the power armor was clearly superior to all the others.

And as a player you learned that the drive core - which has something to do with "Cold Fussion" - supplies such armor with energy for around 100 years!

In Fallout 3 and NV, power armor was barely better than other conventional armor - so a game path where you could get the necessary training didn't make much sense. I actually never used them - especially since there were mods over time - some of which brought significantly superior armor into the game.

But at least the long service life with the fusion core was retained.

In Fallout 4, the original superiority of this armor (Fallout 1 and 2) was returned - but the "cores" only last a few in-game days.

And then you find "replacement" cores in power generators - which have been in operation for decades... the engineering department of my mind just screams!

The plan behind such development decisions is of course the goal - to attract new "target groups" ... and these have little connection to the original games and the associated world construction (aka lore) ... and probably less technical background knowledge - so that such breaks in logic are not noticed negatively by them.

[jaqiue96]

Nora wasn't exactly a lawyer. She's got a bach degree in law, maybe completed 1-4 years of additional education at law school at best. But in America one also has to pass the state bar exam, pass the character & fitness review, take a legally binding oath, get your law license. Beyond that there's no evidence for the other steps that I've seen. For all I know, she could have had a troubled history, for example, she was an orphan and was raised in the foster care system, so she never had the best start. And after she left home at 18, she had a series of short-lived relationships and jobs. Eventually, Nora ended up settling down for a grunt who made WW3 into reality.

[oblivioner]

On 12/24/2023 at 6:10 AM, jaqiue96 said:

Nora wasn't exactly a lawyer. She's got a bach degree in law, maybe completed 1-4 years of additional education at law school at best. But in America one also has to pass the state bar exam, pass the character & fitness review, take a legally binding oath, get your law license. Beyond that there's no evidence for the other steps that I've seen. For all I know, she could have had a troubled history, for example, she was an orphan and was raised in the foster care system, so she never had the best start. And after she left home at 18, she had a series of short-lived relationships and jobs. Eventually, Nora ended up settling down for a grunt who made WW3 into reality.

She had her "Juris Doctor" and the in-game lore says she was working as an attorney, so assuming all of the other things are still required, she probably did all those things.

 

On the Power Cores:
I see those generators not as using the cores, but recharging them.

Anyways:
Nate:

Usually play him as a career soldier who was really into repairing his guns and armor, and may have been responsible for maintaining them in his unit. 

• Falling to a raider via Minutemen > Brotherhood > Nukaworld Raider(post Danse+Main Quest)
• Mostly interested in power. 
• Uses the raiders under his command as a proto-military ruling class.
• Saw past his previous marriage and saw the potential of building an empire in his name, eventually didn't care about pre-war ethics or attachments.

Nora:

Either as

A Chinese Spy who had hooked up with Nate as cover, was working as a lawyer on robot rights to destabilize the US.

• Worked with Minutemen and Railroad.
• Eliminated the Atom sub base, Helped the synths.
• liberated Nuka World, more trade is good.
• Maintains a network of colonies where they were all equals and communistic, doesn't have shops.

As a foreign (Canadian) spec ops who was found out by Nate and he blackmailed her into marriage, was still nevertheless working as a lawyer on destabilizing the US to free Canada.

• Worked with Minutemen and Institute, sided with the pro-Synths, used the Brotherhood to wipe out the Railroad, as they actively hindered the safety of the commonwealth.  Secured Vertibird technology from the Brotherhood, built her own squad of them.  Then wiped out the Brotherhood after they had played out their usefulness to her.
• Wiped out the Nuka World Raiders, didn't bother fixing it up.
• Uses the Mechanist base to produce robotic colonies that manage supply lines and farming for her human colonists.
• Main goal was securing the required stability for the Institute to work on their power base and infrastructure so that she could get away from the commonwealth back to her home country. 
• Ended game with Far Harbour, building that up as a personal base along with securing anti-radiation tech from the Synths and working on passage further north.

A Synth replacement of Nora (between when Nate was killed and she "woke up" in the vault.) - Current playthrough.

• Was an experiment by Justin Ayo's predecessor and his cronies in the institute to make a human-passing Courser, have something to watch fuck everything, as well as stabilize the commonwealth into something they could control.
• Doesn't particularly like the Brotherhood.
• She might go rogue and become the Nuka World Raider boss.

[mircislav]

On 12/10/2023 at 5:19 AM, Gamer_Auto said:

let's talk about various headcanons

What this has to do with fucks? This is LL forum not Bethesda...

[piperdonough]

My hobby is to make stories and characters. Every Vault Dweller, Sole survivor or Courier is a unique character with their own back story. Mods allow for a more in-depth roleplaying these characters, for example if a Sole Survivor just can't fight or is too scared to fight, there's prostitution mods etc.

 

I played a Chinese spy "Nora" once, before adding any mods, and for example there was Jax, a former leader of the Institute who got trapped inside the cryo pod while trying to spy on his own employees, and then took revenge. Shaun was his clone (that storyline was linked to a more scifi themed novel about a scientist who became immortal by endlessly cloning herself). Jax himself had a synth body, a prototype that allowed him to live through 210 years without aging a day. He's a narcissist and very short tempered, but a genius. His starting SPECIAL, clothes and armor and fighting style reflected this. I have something started where the SoSu is actually the guy who was self medicating with pie (Sanctuary dealer terminal entry) and his entire family survived but "Nora" died of illness contracted by a molerat bite, and the poor guy had to raise Shaun by himself in a hostile wasteland, and he certainly didn't know how to use a firearm.

 

My current Sole Survivor is a weakling called Jared. He starts as a drug addict and is unable to get free of his addiction. He was forced into a fake marriage with Nora (he needed his paycheck to pay for his habit and Nora was the mayor's rebellious daughter, her conservative parents wanted to prevent her marriage with a stage actor and there was this convenient former soldier in suitable age in a nearby neighborhood). Shaun was her and her real boyfriend's baby. Jared himself was in a relationship with an older man, something that the prewar homophobic society didn't accept. Jared is traumatized by the loss of his lover and all the death he sees after fleeing the Vault, and ends up in a toxic relationship with a raider. I'm really happy I found mods that allow this kind of roleplay. I will probably make a femboy Sole Survivor next if I can scrounge up a proper body/manage to make one myself.

 

There's countless of these, every player character is a different story, different stats etc. I struggle writing in English, so the stories aren't that good. Also constantly having a writer's block... 😬 But at least I can still play the game in so many ways. I just ignore the vanilla story or twist it to my own purposes in storytelling. 🤷‍♂️