u/GlowingSeaDiver

Hi folks,

I have watched the first five seasons of SG-1, and so far, I really like the Stargate Universe.

But there is one minor detail that I keep thinking about each time it is mentioned, and that is the cost of the Stargate Program.

It has been repeatedly discussed that the Stargate Program costs the US-Government a ton of money and they keep needing to justify its continued operations.

But let’s look at what the Stargate Program actually needs:

• They need a crew of scientists to operate the Stargate and research the discoveries made by the SG teams.
• They need a secure location to hide the Stargate.
• They need some military forces to guard the Stargate.
• And then they need around 20 small teams of SG-Teams.

And that’s basically it. They don’t have starships, they don’t need to construct new stargates, nothing of the sort.

Actually, the Stargate Program should be a relatively cheap operation. Maybe ten times the cost of a normal military base, and the US military already has around 800 of them anyway.

So, where is all that money going?

I know it sounds strange, but hear me out:

Nick is not actually a robot on second glance.
He is, in some way, a detective from pre-war Boston, who, trough the strange
ways of fate, woke up two hundred years later in a robot body. He is not
a synth with a human personality; he is a human in a synth body.

Not only is Nick actually a human, he is probably the only other person in the Commonwealth, if not in America or in the world, who shares the same unique kind of trauma that the Sole Survivor suffered: Waking up one day in a destroyed world where everyone you ever cared about is long dead.

That is why Nick is by far my favorite Companion. And that’s why I think that there should be a romance option here. Nick and the Sole Survivor, two people who one day woke up in the wrong century, that’s just the perfect match.

Hello my fellow friends of the grimdark future, there are major spoilers ahead for the Dark Imperium trilogy.

I just finished the “Godblight” novel. After having read much of Horus Heresy, I choose to jump straight to the Dark Imperium trilogy, in order to have an experience similar to Guilliman, who, from his perspective, was dealing with the aftermath of the Heresy and then one day woke up in M42.

I love the books. To see one of my favourite characters from the Heresy thrown into this apocalypse that is M42 and then watch him somehow turn things around for Mankind; it’s beautiful.

I particularly liked how the confrontation of Guilliman and Mortarion ended. The way that Mortarion tries to corrupt his brother. The way the Emperor’s mind is portrayed as totally shattered into a million pieces. The way that Nurgle’s influence is not only disease but decay in general, destroying the Armor of Fate in the process. It was perfect.

But at the very end, there is something I find a little strange:

After Mortarion was defeated and his plan failed, the door to Nurgle’s house opens, and Mortarion seems genuinely terrified as he is pulled towards the house. The book comments that with a single, brilliant line:

>Nurgle was displeased.

Of course, Nurgle was displeased. But I was always under the impression that Nurgle genuinely loves his followers. The only problem with that is that his “gifts” are deadly for anyone that doesn’t embrace Nurgle. They call him “Grandfather”. That is normally not a name you give to someone you are terrified of.

Therefore, Nurgle doesn’t seem like a guy that would torture Mortarion for his failure or anything like that. I would expect him to get an earful about his mistakes and then Nurgle would send him back out to spread Grandfather’s gifts. But Mortarion’s reaction tells a different story. Therefore, I wonder what Nurgle did to Mortarion that he was so terrified of.

Hello my fellow friends of the grimdark future of humanity, just something I asked myself recently:

When we see the Imperium perform exterminatus, it is usually defensively. The Imperium destroys an entire imperial planet to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. It is used as a last resort and not chosen lightly.

But, given that the Imperium has the power to do this, I wonder if it was ever used offensively. I could imagine that one of the more strategic imperial leaders, like pre-heresy Horus or Guilliman, once had to deal with a Xenos species that proved a major threat to the Imperium, and instead of investing massive resources in manually driving them into extinction, the Imperium might have decided to just burn the planet from orbit and move on to more pressing matters.

I think it was mentioned in "Flight of the Eisenstein", that the Emperor was very hesitant in using Virus bombs against Xenos, reserving them for only the worst of all Xenos. But this carries the implication that this did in fact happen before.

Is this mentioned anywhere in the lore? An imperial fleet just burining a Xenos world and moving on without deploying Astartes or Guardsmen?

Hello my fellow wastelanders, I have a problem with my primary base on Red Rocket:

I built this old Truck Stop into my main base. I have my crew of companions stationed there, my manufacturing machines, etc.

But every time I fast travel back to my base, either Super Mutants or Rust Devils attack from the North East. Every. Single. Time.

I don't care about the danger to my base. I have build enough turrets to stop a hundred or more raiders without lifting a finger. What I don't like is that my companions keep running off to fight off the attackers. I want everyone to continue their tasks while the guards and turrets obliterate the attack.

Is there some way to stop my companions/settlers from doing this? Or to stop these attacks entirely?

I really like FudgeMuppet’s Disciple, which is essentially an update to the earlier “Assassin” build. I gave this build another update, drawing Inspiration from both former versions. The result is a super powerful stealth melee character that also has almost every perk needed for perfect settlement building. This is the Shadow.

Let’s start with his SPECIAL stats and perks:

The Shadow’s starting S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats are very similar to the Assassin with a small modification. I took the two points from perception and gave them to strength, because we won’t take anything from the Perception skill tree and therefore don’t need these points. Therefore, our starting stats are 4S, 1P, 1E, 1C, 10I, 10A, 1L. We use the trick with alcohol and the special book to bring our intelligence up to 11. Cheating in single player games is a blurry line that everyone sees differently, so if you don’t want to do that, you can just use the special book on strength or luck instead.

As for Perks, we are mostly following the Assassin build here with a few important changes. We do not take locksmith and hacker, because I simply don’t like spending six perk points on them. Locked doors and terminals never block us from anything important, and if there is something we really want to access, we can just hand it to Cait or Nick. We also don’t use pickpocket. The Shadow is a killer, not a thief. If he wants to take something from someone, he takes it off his corpse.

This makes ten perk points that we just freed up. We are getting the charisma bobblehead, as well as four perk points into charisma, giving us six charisma. Two points into local leader open the door for most settlement building. Four of the remaining perk points go into science. This allows you to create stuff like nuclear reactors, industrial water purifiers and heavy laser turrets. The two remaining points go into lone wanderer, since we don’t like companions on a stealth character anyway.

In my experience, you play good Fallout 4 characters way beyond level 50, so from level 50 onwards, you should use your perk point to get most the perks that the Disciple has but the Assassin has not. Especially four-leaf clover and maxed out strength. We already started this with the two points we moved from perception to strength.

Now let’s look at the roleplaying and companions:

While you don’t actually want companions, I recommend maxing out some of their affinities for their perks. Especially Danse, Deacon, MacCready and Preston. Take care to not lock yourself out of any of their perks by accident, because getting these companion perks actually fits with his roleplay.

His fighting as a special forces soldier in China, the loss of his family, the world he knew burning down in nuclear fire, and of course the brutality of the wasteland, all of that took quite a toll on his sanity. The man that emerged from Vault 111 in 2287 is not the same that Nora fell in love with. He is brutal, ambitious, ruthless, and without conscience or empathy. He is out for personal power, playing all the factions against each other to get what he wants from them.

A very important thing right at the start: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT interact with Preston and the Minutemen at the Museum of Freedom in any way! You will break your playthrough if you do! Our super intelligent character trained in stealth combat will see the raiders from a distance and decide not to engage them. He just woke up in a completely different world 210 years later, after what felt like ten minutes to him. He is not the kind of guy that would engage multiple unknown people in a situation like this. Instead, he will wander on the road down south until he meets Carla. She tells him about Diamond City, and that’s where he will go to find his son. The Story goes normally from there.

The Shadow will join both the Railroad and the Brotherhood and as soon as he can, he will go to Nuka World. There, he will basically follow the example of the Disciple build and become the Overboss over the Disciples and the Pack. The Overboss will become a new personality for the Shadow. His way to cope with the loss of everything he cared about is to pretend that he was someone else; a wasteland warlord that would rule with an iron fist.

While the Shadow conquers the Commonwealth with the raiders as a brutal tyrant, under all that violence, he is a broken man. He lost everything he cared about when the bombs fell, and now all he has left is the violence of his former life as a soldier. But the people of the Commonwealth take his broken soul and piece it back together. His friendship with Nick, the only other person in the Commonwealth that shares his trauma of one day waking up in a destroyed world with everyone they loved being dead for two hundred years. Deacon and Danse, who welcomed our lost warrior and gave him something to care about, something to fight for. And, of course, the reunion with his son. As the story progresses, more and more of the Shadow’s humanity returns to him. You can side with whatever faction you want, but the final turning point for the Shadow will be the Blind Betrayal quest. When he faces Danse in that bunker, he finally lets go of the Overboss and once more becomes the good guy he was before the bombs fell. He will not kill his friend for no good reason, nor anyone else ever again. From now on, he will use his incredible power to fight for the future of the Commonwealth.

Now the Shadow finally moves to Concord in order to look for the last survivors of the Minutemen, joins their cause, becomes the General, destroys the raider empire he build before, and rebuilds the Commonwealth.

About his gear:

The Shadow will use the strongest melee weapons he can find. In the early game, this will likely be Pickman’s blade and later the Throatslicer from Nuka World. He will also carry the Deliverer or the Righteous Authority, or both, as a backup weapon in case he can’t reach a target with his blade, like a turret on a roof. If you find a powerful hammer, that might also be fun to carry around.

As the Overboss, you can choose whatever Raider outfit you think is best. After his redemption, you might choose something else. My favorite is the Silver Shroud Outfit with the Hat and a Gasmask with goggles. It makes your Shadow look like a phantom. Like a ghost that was there for one second, stabbed a Super Mutant, and then vanished without a trace.

That’s the Shadow. I hope you like it.