Spoilers for some side gigs in Phantom Liberty
Butch:
Some game talking!
Did a quest and I will be questioning myself for a long time. This was the former soldier who went nuts and killed eight people. I started at the screen forever thinking of what to do, and I still regret it. How'd you end that one?
I also met Mr. Hands. Yeah, he's white. Whoever did the design for his room, with the weird bald cat holos, should get a prize. That was just the right amount of creepy. Rich, eccentric creepy for days. Perfect. I also kind of love he was talking to his kid when you got there.
I also stumbled upon some weirdo who got caught in a braindance and thinks he's a star. You find that? I found it hilarious that the keycard was in something where, if you scanned it, it said "inconspicuous pot." I haven't finished that. They just texted all "Hey! She's here!" This should be interesting.
That quest with the soldier, man.....
Feminina:
I did enjoy the giant sphinx cat theme in Mr. Hands' apartment. That's a weird dude. But well connected.
Yeah, the former soldier...that one was interesting. I sympathized with him...he was just a kid when he signed up, there were presumably few other jobs on offer, it's not as if he had a lot of great options. On the other hand, as V said, even if the choices sucked, he did have a choice. He didn't have to brutally enforce Kurt Hansen's rules for years.
On the 3rd hand, we weren't after him because of his brutal enforcement, we were after him because of the 8 people he murdered just recently, and he apparently didn't even remember that – plausibly it wasn't intentional, he had an episode of cyberpsychosis and he was trying to ensure that didn't happen again by getting rid of all his cyberware. So his actual guilt for the crime we were there to avenge was highly debatable, and he was trying to be better. (And certainly everyone in the area didn't deserve to die for it, but apparently at least the first guy he attacked had tried to cheat him/maybe attacked him first, which is what set him off, so one could even argue the guy we're there to avenge is equally responsible for the deaths of his own companions/neighbors.)
In the end I did kill him, not because I thought he didn't maybe deserve a second chance (as much as any of us murderous criminals ever deserve any mercy), but because I said I would, and maybe his victims' families also deserve to get what they feel is justice, even if I don't personally feel it balances any scales in any significant way.
An interesting situation, though, for sure.
Butch:
Interesting! I called Regina. It was hard because I read the sad note from the kid at the memorial, and sad kid usually means you die. Still, he probably couldn't have helped it, and, shit, V chooses to kill all the time.
Loothound:
I also ended up killing that ex-soldier guy, and for similar reasons as Femmy. Yes, childhood choices, cyberpsychosis, and the rest—but he did do the damage, and I promised those people. He's a victim of circumstance, like we all are, but he made choices, too. Also, it didn't help his case for me that he ended up doing something that benefits scavs. Scavs bad, and killing them=good is one of the few certainties I have in this game.
That's the thing. If some meaner motherfucker manages to get to my V like that, and was all "you've done awful shit and you have to die for it," I'd have a hard time arguing against that too hard. I'm honestly not sure that I'd feel too different from any other poor schmoe that ends up at the end of my gun, other than I could at least be sure that MY intentions were good and I tried my best. Just not sure that's enough to absolve me.
Basically a long way of saying "as much as any of us murderous criminals deserve any mercy."
Finished the Phantom Liberty story last night, or at least one branch of it. Have a hard save from before I made the CONSEQUENTIAL DECISION, so I think I'll play out how the other way would have gone, since I have time.
Feminina:
Doooo iiiiiiiit.
I think calling Regina was a fair choice. I did empathize with the soldier. He was actively trying to do better, in his way, and many people who've done horrible things don't even get that far. (Though as Loothound pointed out, he was helping scavs in the process, and I have extremely limited sympathy for scavs.)
But sometimes trying to do better comes too late, man. Off you go.
What did you tell the murdered guy's mother?
That question for Butch, since I assume those of us who killed him both told her, honestly, that he was dead and here are his dog tags.
I assume there was an option to lie and give her the dog tags anyway...hard to imagine he would have refused to hand them over if it meant saving his life.
Loothound:
I'm pretty sure there was an option to lie on that. This game quite often gives you middle routes on these hard choices, they just usually being even less satisfying than either of the other bad choices that you're given.
Feminina:
I felt bad for someone once on one of the Padre's missions and let them go, saying "just lay low and don't tell anyone you're alive," and as soon as I got out of the building the Padre was calling saying ominously "it's not for you to decide what constitutes justice, you shouldn't just let people walk away" or something like that.
There's no hiding your deeds from the fixers. The Padre knows.
Oh, and I just remembered someone else I let escape...remember 'Tiny Joe' or whoever? Tiny something. You had to rescue him from one of the gangs.
Then while on a mission for that fixer lady with the cars out in the desert, I ran into someone called Big Frank or something, and he turned out to be Tiny's brother. I let him go too, only partly because he had a brother I'd helped, but it certainly doesn't hurt to know someone.
Anyway, right after I left the scene that lady was also calling, saying "well, I really wanted him dead, but I guess you scared him at least."
There's no hiding your deeds from the fixers.
Butch:
I got his dog tags, gave them to her, said "it's over. He suffered." And left it at that. She was ok with that. Felt a little bit like lying, but it wasn't.
Feminina:
Hm. Fair. I mean, he DID suffer, it can't be comfortable having all your cyberware taken out plus he's down one eye, so you're right, it wasn't lying...exactly.
Did Mr. Hands know what you did, or did you manage to hide your deed from the fixer just to be contrary?
Butch:
He strangely didn't mind. Or notice. Maybe I would've gotten more eddies had I killed him. I did get his stash which had a nice gun I sold.
Loothound:
Okay, so this is definitely a theme with fixers. They know EVERYTHING, yet don't meaningfully hold anything they know against you. At the end of the day they don't hold you accountable, despite that most of them talk pretty tough. I know that there's a very valid game reason behind this; you're the PC and you get to do things how you want to and the game still has to be fun. Our brains still try to come up with plausible in-world reasons why things are the way they are, though, and I get to imagining fixers as just any other employer. Their employees may screw things up from time to time, but they're generally good workers, and it's hard to find better people that can do the work and keep you in business.
Which makes me really wish we could see a scene of a bunch of the city's fixers getting together for poker, or something, and griping about V and the other mercs amongst themselves. Kind of like the AIs talk about humans in Altered Carbon. It's kind of fun to imagine V as just a troublesome (if incredibly gifted) employee in the system. Perspective.
Feminina:
Or like the GMs talking about players at the bar in Knights of the Dinner Table! That would be awesome.
And really that makes perfect sense...V gets the job done, even if not as discreetly as hoped, and is (in our case, anyway) very good about accepting and completing pretty much any job, and that must count for a lot.
It's got to be hard to find reliable people for this work...her tendency to wreck cars and murder everyone (or occasionally let someone go and NOT murder them) can be a pain, but really, it's not worth trying to find someone else you can count on to pick up the phone when you call and get a task done. Eventually.
Butch:
Except I did one for Hanako. She wanted me all quiet and when I wasn't she was pissed.
Feminina:
Ah, but Hanako isn't a fixer. She's corpo royalty – obviously she's used to getting everything exactly her way.
Fixers have to work with what's around.
No comments:
Post a Comment