Minor problem with using the cloud as the toxin. “Inhalation isn’t the problem it’s absorbed through the skin,” excerpt taken from a terminal in the clinic in dead money. Then again the lore for DM is screwy Sinclair was flirting with bankruptcy but had 30 solid gold bars somehow?

St

Interesting, Edward's old friend. That is _very_ interesting, actually, and neatly solves a lot of my issues with the overshadowing of Caesar.

There's a villain in a show I like. He's got a variety of stolen super powers, but the most impressive thing he ever does, to me at least, is freeze people in their tracks with the raw malevolence of his presence. It's not one of his stolen powers, nor any trick of magic. The sheer _evil_ of him, his malice and will to dominate all life, holds people in place, to be faced with something so inhumanly awful, the terror of facing someone who could give the Devil a run for his fuckin' money, and snatch it to boot.

Ulysses always makes me think of that effect, with a different tone. The weight of the man, of his life, his experiences. His soul is heavy, and almost seems like a physical thing. His sorrow, his wisdom, his suicidal despair. The weight of his presence acts against him, he's so _deep,_ not like people usually mean, not like a deep thinker or a poet is deep, like an _ocean_ is deep, like the depths of space are deep, his depth sees him mistake his grief and PTSD for some deeper understanding or insight. Because, so much of the time, it's true, he _does_ have a deeper wisdom.

Makes it that much harder for him to realize that he's been so badly hurt that it's messing with his ability to react and make decisions.

This is honestly the biggest, and, well, close to only, problem I have with your series.

Edward Sallow was a petty, vicious, tiny man, who desperately wanted to be big. That makes him dangerous, little men who dream of being big can sink to pretty shocking depths and efforts of will.

But...the Legion was his. It was a truly epic deed, born not of the strength he desperately wished he had, that he built up so much in his mind, like a cosplaying neckbeard of an internet "Rationalist", but of a brilliant mind. Edward Sallow did great things. Terrible, but _great._ The last great warlord, the dying gasp of the apocalypse, jaws spread wide to swallow the rising nation set to bring democracy and hope back to mankind's understanding. With Lanius and Graham by his side, they were a trinity of demi-gods. And he _was_ a demi-god. Daedalus was no grand fighter, but he was still a grand figure.

Edward Sallow was pathetic and loathsome, but I still view him as of the same ilk as the Courier, Ulysses, Graham, the Wanderer. A linguistics major who turned certain death into a nation ready to live and die at his command. That he was such a venal, pathetic little shit is the big tragedy. He _should_ have been a grand hero, Odysseus to Lanius' Achilles, but he was ruled by his inadequacies, and so his frankly implausible brilliance and talent are subsumed by the festering cesspool of shit and maggots that is his soul.

None of this is me saying you're wrong to write this the way you did, it's not really a criticism, because it's just a flat disagreement on a character's place in the setting. I guess the main reason for this particular tangeant is that I mostly like talking about how fucked everything about Sallow was, similar to the mixture of pathetic and grand that made Voldemort such a great villain, and expressing a bit of disappointment _here_ so it's all out of my brain as we move on to see the expanding scope of Calhoun's Legion and Burke's insidious plotting. I'm very excited to see what comes!

I think Jessica could fix Boone...but it wouldn't be her doing it. It'd be her blazing sunlit soul. The power of the Atom. She would need to reach in and undo his trauma, and then make him fall all over again. She could, I truly believe that, and isn't that the scariest fucking thing? Much better to be Narg, the hammer to crack the nail that is the world. Killing is simple, awful, but simple. Being able to tweak and reshape people? That shit is _scary._

My Courier had Solar Powered, Hand-Loader, Efficient Recycler, and most of the base-game implants as of the Sierra Madre. I never play on less than Very HardHardcore mode, so care was still needed, but being able to make the enhanced ammo and recycle better for the Holorifle makes one fuckin' hell of a difference.

Fun fact: Did you know, with Max-Charge and all modifications, it takes four headshots to kill the Legendary Deathclaw?

And further more, did you ever notice how much like a tesseract the projectile looks?

_What the fuck did Elijah do to make that thing?_ Seriously, after doing a playthrough with it as my main gun, I'm 90% convinced it's attacking in four-dimensions. Weirdest and scariest weapon in the whole friggin' Wasteland.

and yes I'm including the alien tech in that assessment

A sudden, horrible thought.

_Is Calhoun the rat bastard who made the Deathclaws?_

It's not bravery, unless you care about your own life. It's not selflessness if you kinda wanted to die anyways. Boone isn't a brave man. Definitionally, he can't be. There's no fear for self left for him to fight.

Poor Boone :(

Never once does it occur to House to just slow things down awhile. He has centuries. There's no rush. Slow down, help the people in need. Don't let human suffering continue because of what might go wrong. Do the right thing, be a _human._ Nations _can_ be built on justice, but people are never patient, never competent enough, never lucky enough.

You have the luck and competence, Robert. All you need is the Heart, but all the Wizard ever gave you was that razored brain of yours.

Is it the stripes or the spots you see? Was it hearts or diamonds, baby, brought you here to me? Darling, you know better than to trust a pack of cards~

For my Courier, the endgame is also the factories, and the collection of Fission Batteries.

And, of course, the quiet transport of a certain vending machine to the Lucky 38.

Fission Batteries and scrap metal. All you need to feed a nation.

Legion is evil. NCR is spoiled and greedy, not ready to expand, can't be allowed to go full imperialist. House...I can't trust him, characters I made, even when I want to, always end up swayed by the man himself to betray.

If you can't trust yourself, though, if you need a banner, if you don't want power, if any of the million million reasons why you don't and shouldn't want it to be _you..._

House is the only good option. NCR won't unfuck itself without a worthy foe who aren't a band of monstrous slavers. House isn't a monster, scary as he is, and bad as his Randian ideology is, he is right when he says he isn't a dictator, and likely will never be one.

House can be trusted to make the best of a bad situation, and make things better tomorrow than they are today, on a broadly-spread average.

It's the dips that worry me so, and it's the dips I hope Jessica will see and account for. He's her North Star, and she can be the cricket on his shoulder. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation (and apologies for how rambly these reviews are, I'm going on two weeks without a good night's sleep, so I probably seem very odd to you, once you end up reading them), but it's pretty heartwarming. I could never see a truly good ending with him, but that's because I'm the sort of person who could only ever be his enemy.

The good ending comes from being a friend.

Hypnotic Tongue, words flowing like liquid sunlight, honey made of solid gold. It's too obvious, when you have that insidious little trick, not always to them, usually until it's too late, but always to you. Is anything real, if with a twist of your tone and the shine of your eyes you can convince the desert nomad he so desperately needs the sand you're holding?

A Child of the Atom, all the beauty of the shining Sun, who could talk Apollo into eternal shadow. Hell of a thing to hold, as a human mind who doesn't want to wrap the world in a snowglobe and hold it tight for you and you alone.

My Courier always falls for Boone, and there is never any sequence I ever see where anything works out there. In the best of endings, Boone is gonna die from stress or violence or sheer world-weariness before he's 50, having more or less found a consistency devoid of searing hate and overwhelming grief. There's no happy ending there, and always my Courier is too young to see it. Maybe at the end, after the Madre, after Elijah and Christine, after the wreck the world made of Ulysses, she'd understand more the sheer gulf between them.

A gulf getting bigger and bigger, as she drifts ever further from humanity, cells clad in iron, starfish-like genes regenerating, the power of the sun changing and invigorating, and a dozen different devices and three machines in place of vital bodily structures...

She killed House in part because he struck her as inhuman. Give her a couple decades, and you'll be asking if she was ever human to begin with.

Jessica is a much better option all around than the vision I have of the Courier, I suppose is the moral of my sleep-deprived meanderings. Her words like liquid sunlike, compassion and a razor mind, influencing and being influenced by an ancient mind, perhaps reminding one so long removed from humanity what it means to have a friend, to have a partner, to have someone admire and believe in you, rather than simply serve you.

Jessica seems well-suited to bring out the best in House, and he well-suited to let her shine as bright as she ever could. He needs a friend, even more than she needs a partner and a vision to hold dear, and she seems like just the right one to make.

In the sense that she's probably the only person in the history of the world who could actually get him to feel like he _has_ a friend, rather than an inferior/employee.