Fallout New Vegas - Old World Blues Analysis Pt.1

Behind Big Mountain

Big Mountain was a private defense contractor before the War. It was a facility within a literal big mountain until an "accident" reduced Big Mountain into a big crater in the ground. Big Mountain was built with the intention to develop and invent the technology of tomorrow without any restraints. It employed the most brilliant minds of the day from all fields of study.

Even when the world was scoured by atomic fire, research in Big Mountain continued unabated without much care. At some point, the six chief scientists shed their bodies and became the Think Tank so that research can go on indefinitely. They shed more than their physical bodies as they took on new names and "reprogrammed" themselves as well. The Think Tank's research became more depraved as the years went on and eventually, all the other human researchers either escaped or were killed by rogue experiments.

At some point, Dr.Mobius realized that the experiments of the Think Tank had gone too far. He erected a radar fence around the crater to prevent the Think Tank from escaping and "experimenting" with the world beyond. Furthermore, Mobius hacked into his colleagues and reprogrammed them to lose all sense of time and history and trapped them in a loop. Mobius also waged a campaign of fear and terror to deter the Think Tank from escaping. It was so successful in fact,  that the Think Tank  believed that the world outside didn't exist at all. Mobius regularly played a broadcast to threaten the Think Tank and used his robo-scorpions, which could allegedly "steal a person's intelligence", to keep the Think Tank penned in. Ever since then, Big Mountain descended to a state of chaos and insanity as the power struggle between the Think Tank and Mobius raged on while the various experiments, lobotomites and haywire robots ran rampant around the facility.

Outsiders avoided Big Mountain for the most part since the large crater made it appear like the site of a nuclear bomb explosion. Ironically, many thought that Big Mountain, a facility dedicated to future technologies and wonders, had nothing of value in it hence they named it the "Big Empty". Those few foolish enough to wander close were either captured by robots and experimented on or killed outright by the various experiments if they were lucky.

When the courier was captured, his head wound activated a different protocol for the auto-doc which revealed to the Think Tank a way to escape. They would transplant their brains into bodies and walk out of Big Mountain. Dr.Mobius saw this and raided the Think Tank to take the Courier's brain before they could work on it.

A Little Twist

The story had a nice little twist. When you first meet the Think Tank, Mobius was doing his little broadcast of terror on them and it seemed like he was a mad scientist who needed to be stopped. As it turns out, Mobius kind of has a point. Even if the Think Tank are "funny" and have "wacky" personalities, they're pretty dangerous if you look at all the stuff they've been up to. In fact, Mobius had a pretty well thought out plan to keep them in check had it not been for several visitors from the outside world. 

 

After you beat his giant robot scorpion and meet Mobius, he doesn't even appear threatening. He seems more like a senile old man happily offering a child some candy (mentats) and constantly misuses words and phrases. Mobius seems the nonviolent type too since he needs a dose of "psycho" to get him worked up to sound only mildly threatening. The tables turn and it is the Think Tank and their ambition that is arguably the greater villain in the story. This is true since the Think Tank do attempt to betray you in the end, as futile as the attempt was.

What Has Science Done!?

One thing I like about OWB is that it's far from the "hilarious", oh-so-random humor that you might have expected. The dialogue and situations are indeed funny and entertaining but if you take that all away and look at everything seriously, OWB is pretty messed up. Many of the goings on are not just little experiments gone wrong but could qualify as full blown human atrocities. Let's go over them shall we?

1. The cazadors, the worst enemies in the game, were created in Big Mountain.
2. The nightstalkers were created in Big Mountain as well.
3. The toxic "cloud" surrounding the Sierra Madre was an experiment made by Big Mountain.
4. The experimental hazmat suits that produced the "ghost people" was also a follow-up experiment to the cloud.
4. Big Mountain operated and maintained a concentration camp full of Chinese POWs complete with slave collars that exploded if any prisoner escaped.
5. The Think Tank captures and lobotomizes people like it's nothing.
6. The spore carriers in the facility imply the toxins from Vault 22 came from Big Mountain.
7. Probably developed countless weapons and robots for war.
8. Vaporized the entire mountain and killed off much of the original staff.

I could go on but my point here is that Big Mountain produced more harm than good. Sure, they created useful stuff like the replicators and auto-docs but if only that was all they did.

The humor in OWB is certainly dark. It fits the universe of Fallout very well. Next time, I'll go over a major recurring theme in Fallout that is cranked up in OWB.