WorstUsernameEver
But best title ever!
Award-winning* NMA user Searanox penned a Gamasutra blog devoted to break down Fallout 3's plot and explain why basically it makes no sense whatsoever. Snip:<blockquote>Anyway, so the GECK was created by Dr. Braun, but he doesn't have one, because... no reason. Instead the GECKs were sent out to various Vaults around the country, even though they were very dangerous and probably should have been entrusted to the military or US government and not just random people. The only GECK on the East Coast, apparently, exists in Vault 87, which is an evil cloning lab... thingy for Super Mutants. Who is creating them there? Nobody. Why are they being created? No reason. But more importantly, why would you put the GECK, aka the goddamn GENESIS DEVICE out of Star Trek III, into a Vault that was centered around doing cloning and sick twisted experiments, and which is so heavily irradiated that anyone but mutants are instantly killed when trying to enter? You're telling me that the GECK is a miracle device designed to save everyone, and someone said "hmm, we've only got a few... put it in Vault 101, the control vault where nothing will go wrong? nah, let's put it in the one with insane hostile deadly mutants and radiation everywhere, that's much safer."
Speaking of, let's go locate the GECK. We need to use the computer at the Jefferson Memorial. So let's go to the Jefferson Memorial, so we can use the computer. Wait, I thought they wanted to go to the Jefferson Memorial to restart Project Purity? So which is it? Both? Did father lie to us? Whatever. The Enclave invades and father kills himself for his stupid project so we can't learn anything.
Well, now we're screwed, so what now? Oh, let's escape the Enclave invasion and visit the Brotherhood of Steel! Turns out that they have a computer that tells us where the GECK is. So basically, instead of going to the dangerous Jefferson Memorial and committing suicide, we could have gone to the big fortified Brotherhood of Steel base and just asked them for help instead.
Wait, come to think of it, couldn't we just have gone back to the Jefferson Memorial and killed all the Enclave soldiers? I mean, we already had to mow down several of them in order to reach the Project Purity control room to witness father killing himself. Why don't we just, like, kill the rest of them, make our stand there? If we can kill a few with no trouble, why can't we kill a few more? Why are we leaving? Why are we giving them time to reinforce and fortify the location? Can't we send one person as an envoy to the Brotherhood of Steel while the rest of us hunker down and keep the bad guys out? At the end of the game we have to use a big giant robot to get past the Enclave defenses, which are only set up because we waited too long to kick them out. I guess all those Brotherhood of Steel soldiers who helped us fight to get to Project Purity again died for nothing/because we were all idiots.
In Vault 87, we retrieve the GECK with the help of Fawkes. Yay! But then the Enclave knock us out with a magic stun grenade that does not exist anywhere else in the game, and they kidnap us and steal the GECK. Boo! After this, we never see or hear of the GECK ever again. How does the Enclave use the GECK to activate Project Purity? No idea. How did they know how to use it to save Project Purity? No idea. Did Anna Holt tell them, as she admits to blabbing about Project Purity? Maybe, but why would an understudy/lab assistant know a) exactly how Project Purity works, even though she looks too young to have ever worked on it (and I'm pretty sure her backstory says she never did work on it, only with Dr. Li at Rivet City), and b) how would she know how to use this ancient piece of miracle technology to work with another piece of brand-new miracle technology that she shouldn't understand to begin with? Did anyone at Bethesda proofread this or think more than 1 second about it?
In the Enclave base at Raven Rock, Colonel Autumn interrogates us. If we give him the correct code to Project Purity, we die and lose the game, so we have to lie to him or tell him to piss off. Why does he kill us after helping him? Is he so stupid he concludes that we are no use to him after he got the answer to one question, even though we single-handedly found the GECK, resisted an Enclave attack on the Jefferson Memorial, and did all sorts of other impressive shit? Apparently, yes, he is that stupid.</blockquote>* NMA 2013's "Best User with an Icewind Dale 2 Portrait as Avatar" Silver Medal.
Speaking of, let's go locate the GECK. We need to use the computer at the Jefferson Memorial. So let's go to the Jefferson Memorial, so we can use the computer. Wait, I thought they wanted to go to the Jefferson Memorial to restart Project Purity? So which is it? Both? Did father lie to us? Whatever. The Enclave invades and father kills himself for his stupid project so we can't learn anything.
Well, now we're screwed, so what now? Oh, let's escape the Enclave invasion and visit the Brotherhood of Steel! Turns out that they have a computer that tells us where the GECK is. So basically, instead of going to the dangerous Jefferson Memorial and committing suicide, we could have gone to the big fortified Brotherhood of Steel base and just asked them for help instead.
Wait, come to think of it, couldn't we just have gone back to the Jefferson Memorial and killed all the Enclave soldiers? I mean, we already had to mow down several of them in order to reach the Project Purity control room to witness father killing himself. Why don't we just, like, kill the rest of them, make our stand there? If we can kill a few with no trouble, why can't we kill a few more? Why are we leaving? Why are we giving them time to reinforce and fortify the location? Can't we send one person as an envoy to the Brotherhood of Steel while the rest of us hunker down and keep the bad guys out? At the end of the game we have to use a big giant robot to get past the Enclave defenses, which are only set up because we waited too long to kick them out. I guess all those Brotherhood of Steel soldiers who helped us fight to get to Project Purity again died for nothing/because we were all idiots.
In Vault 87, we retrieve the GECK with the help of Fawkes. Yay! But then the Enclave knock us out with a magic stun grenade that does not exist anywhere else in the game, and they kidnap us and steal the GECK. Boo! After this, we never see or hear of the GECK ever again. How does the Enclave use the GECK to activate Project Purity? No idea. How did they know how to use it to save Project Purity? No idea. Did Anna Holt tell them, as she admits to blabbing about Project Purity? Maybe, but why would an understudy/lab assistant know a) exactly how Project Purity works, even though she looks too young to have ever worked on it (and I'm pretty sure her backstory says she never did work on it, only with Dr. Li at Rivet City), and b) how would she know how to use this ancient piece of miracle technology to work with another piece of brand-new miracle technology that she shouldn't understand to begin with? Did anyone at Bethesda proofread this or think more than 1 second about it?
In the Enclave base at Raven Rock, Colonel Autumn interrogates us. If we give him the correct code to Project Purity, we die and lose the game, so we have to lie to him or tell him to piss off. Why does he kill us after helping him? Is he so stupid he concludes that we are no use to him after he got the answer to one question, even though we single-handedly found the GECK, resisted an Enclave attack on the Jefferson Memorial, and did all sorts of other impressive shit? Apparently, yes, he is that stupid.</blockquote>* NMA 2013's "Best User with an Icewind Dale 2 Portrait as Avatar" Silver Medal.
I never cared to delve that deep in finding the FO3 plot inconsitensies. 