Aqua Vitae FAQ

Alright, I'm going to be adding these to the end of every fallout story. At least all the big ones. I find it helps me to think, and of course it answers questions I've been asked through the course of the story.

What did you do to Point Lookout? It wasn't like that in-game!

The Point Lookout DLC is my favorite of the bunch. I'd take it over Broken Steel if I had to. Whenever I played it, I always felt that something much bigger was going on in the background. That place was FUBAR. No location could be that desolate, that depressing, and that…evil, without there being some driving force behind it all. I simply took what was there, and followed it through to what seemed like a logical conclusion.

Every time the Duchess Gambit pulls up at the dock, I get a giant proverbial stiffy. So I had to write about it. Point Lookout, I mean. :/

Anyway main source of inspiration was H.P. Lovecraft (my favorite Horror author).

For the descriptions of the swamp itself, I also took elements from Tolkien's descriptions of The Dead Marshes.

That entire Point Lookout sequence was extremely overwritten. Put down the thesaurus.

It was also paying homage to Lovecraft. Be thankful I wasn't describing the exact dimensions of every single location and enemy in feet and inches. Ever read At the Mountains of Madness? Because he does that. A lot.

As for the thesaurus, writing is like carpentry in that you have to have the right tools for the job. If you don't, there's no reason not to go out and find the right tool. A thesaurus, when used properly, can help you find exactly the right word. I was not just trying to expand my toolbox, but also to imitate and pay homage to the very best in horror fiction. I may not have succeeded, but if you're reading my use of long words as some attempt to make myself seem artificially smarter, or a better writer than I am, you're reading (haha) it wrong.

"It's sad that the great Fallout universe don't have any fics that could do it some justice. Instead it gets trash like this. Sad."

This doesn't really belong in the FAQ section, but I have nowhere else to post it.

If you don't like my writing, or feel in any way disappointed, please at least act like the Anon who tore apart chapter 20, and explain why. It might actually help. Otherwise, don't bother posting. Believe it or not, we're all on the same team here: people who like Fallout enough to write/read its fanfiction. There's bound to be those of you who don't like this story. And that's just fine. But if you're going to criticize, please keep it constructive. I'm not going to say any more on the subject.

How did the timing work between the two story threads?

Seeing as it takes two months to travel to and from Point Lookout, pacing the storylines was difficult. Sarah's is several days long, Jason's is several months. In actuality Sarah's hellish experiences end at around the time that Jason meets Jackrum in the Muddy Rudder bar. She is boarding the ship the morning that Jackrum has lined up the recruits on Rivet City's drawbridge in chapter 9.

I know this isn't expressed very clearly, but for almost all of Jason's story, Sarah is on her way back to the capital wasteland. She arrives at Point Lookout around when Jason was being confronted by the Regulators in Chapter 6. I stretched her storyline out so that the climaxes would line up and various other little scenes would tie together, but the timing is different.

Will we be seeing Point Lookout again?

Probably not. I think I did all I can and all I wanted to with it.

Is Gallows dead? Will we be seeing him again?

…I love those dear hearts, and gentle people…

What did you do to Sarah? She wasn't like that in-game.

I've addressed this before, but I'll do it again. Sarah Lyons has many different interpretations. Personally I prefer to tone down the soldier side. That way through her I get to ask questions and examine things about the Fallout world. It's nothing personal and I have no intention of character defamation. She is my own eyes and ears, and because of that, some of my own personality gets imprinted on her, unfortunately. ( I may have just insulted myself…)

On top of that, one rule I started out with was that NOONE can handle Point Lookout. Not the way I've done it up. It breaks everybody! (except Gallows because he's just that awesome) Even Jason is supposed to be "Superman" and it's implied that even he only just managed to escape it with his life, and at that point, it hadn't even gone ape-shit yet. In the dinner scene at the beginning of the novel, he's still shown to be scared by the memories of it.

Sarah and the expedition are outgunned and being hunted like rats. She's only human. Point Lookout isn't. Sooner or later, it breaks everybody. And given what she goes through there; seeing her entire squad get slaughtered, the fucked-up punga plant, the swampfolk, seeing all the Brotherhood rules break down until it's basically every man for himself...

You certainly seem to like beating her up. Like… a lot…

Her section was primarily a horror novel. And a Lovecraft shout-out. The human vulnerabilities; physical, spiritual, and emotional, are what the entire horror genre thrives on. If she were invincible, this book wouldn't work. If she could simply bounce back from everything, this book wouldn't work. She is Point lookout's chew toy, and she needed to break. Otherwise Point Lookout wouldn't be scary.

Do you dislike the Brotherhood?

For this one I'm actually going to pull a quote from another reader named dyslecksec, which he posted at the end of Modus Operandi. He summed up my feelings on the Brotherhood perfectly…

"In Fallout 2 in particular I looked up to [The Brotherhood] and eagerly joined them once I could. But in that game, and in Fallout 3 as well, I came to realize you leave them behind. You go places and do things they simply can't handle. It's not a matter of knocking them, or belittling them, it's just a matter of out-growing them."

My version of the Brotherhood is based simply on what I saw in-game. What I saw was an organization with extremely thinned ranks. I saw bodies lying everywhere. Especially in the mall and at Galaxy News. I saw beleaguered little stranded groups which grew fewer in number every time I visited them, but no patrols or reinforcements. I saw no attempts to correct the smaller problems of the wasteland. I never saw a BH attack on a mutant outpost or raiders or anything like that.

Add to that Artemis' soliloquy, Lyons' logs, and other bits of information. One really does get the impression that they aren't nearly as well-off as they pretend to be. I very much doubt a single (regular) knight could make it from Girdershade to the Republic of Dave. They simply aren't well-enough equipped.

The Lone Wanderer, at the point when these stories take place, is THE most powerful thing in the capital wasteland. He/she can do far more than any other group. The way Jason Howlett treats the Brotherhood is exactly the way he sees every other set of friendly humans in the capital wasteland: people who need help to tie their own shoes, which speaks as much to his own character flaws than it does to their actual abilities. Yet given all he's done (i.e. all the in-game quests), it's a justifiable opinion, which I find interesting as a character issue.

I don't hate the Brotherhood, but they're only human. And in order to keep up with a Lone Wanderer, that's not good enough. This is his story, not theirs.

Your Wanderer is over-powered

Yes he is. Intentionally. By the end of any Fallout game I've played, the main character is no longer human. He/she has been upgraded with perks and machinery and mutations to the point where they can do far more and take far more than any other character in the game. Remember the end of Broken Steel? Your Wanderer single-handedly took down the land crawler, and ALL enclave personnel therein. Only the Lone Wanderer could accomplish that. No one and nothing else in the wasteland could.

He is over-powered in-game. And I generally try to put what's in-game into the story.

What is Jason's character build?

I don't like doing this, but it's been requested a few times, and I do have a "Jason Howlett" research character. I don't really work off stats and numbers, I work off gameplay. Quite a bit is lost, and quite a bit more is gained from his transferring from game to written story. A few different people have requested the character build, in one case so they could try playing as him, which I found to be a great compliment. These are not Jason's stats, but they're the closest I have.

His face:

http:/ img528. imageshack. us/

(tell me if the link doesn't work. You have to delete the spaces.)

His S.P.E.C.I.A.L.:

Strength-7

Perception- 10(+)

Endurance- 9

Charisma- 6

Intelligence- 8

Agility- 8

Luck- 6

His Stats:

Barter- 39

Big Guns-70

Energy Weapons-74

Explosives-74

Lock-pick-100

Medicine-90

Meelee-Weapons-75

Repair-100

Science-100

Small Guns-100

Sneak-100

Speech-100

Unarmed-50

I'm not going to list all his perks unless you REALLY want to know. It's extremely time-consuming, and I'd rather spend it writing.

Who was this 'Fletcher' guy?

I was surprised by how much this one popped up. I'm going to have to take a very careful look at the first few chapters of Aqua Vitae. Jason Howlett IS Fletcher. It's his undercover name. he joined the Talon company in the hopes of finding out who master-minded the sabotage.

It doesn't especially matter anyway. This story has two protagonists. Their names are Sarah Lyons and Jonathon "Jackrum" Rumsfeld.

Gallows gets a special mention.

Who is Jackrum? Where did he come from?

Jackrum is a Talon Company mercenary. The name, and basic character template came from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Sam Vimes and Sergeant Jackrum, in particular. ( Look up there, it's Captain Obvious!)

He was a way for me to explore the Talon Company, who weren't explained or explored at all in-game. They ended up being bullet fodder for the LW. Besides, I like the idea of a simple, honorable man who's doing the best he can at a job which isn't all that honorable.
I think the trick to writing good OC's is to write them so that they were there all along, and the player character just never met them until the story takes place. That means setting up the little details, like his friend Joey in Rivet City security, or his ongoing battle with Tammy Hargrave. And don't make them or their actions seem all that important or out of place. I tried to make it feel like Jackrum did not come out of nowhere. He was simply another nameless mercenary until he got singled out.

I was in the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets for quite a while. All the group dynamics, the "bro codes" and the ideas about what was honorable behavior for a squad leader came from that. He is based on the best traits from my Petty Officers, and my own experiences as a Petty Officer and a Leading Cadet, mentoring the New Entries, and watching them grow. I simply applied those collected experiences and gave them a character.

He was actually supposed to die at the end of the book, but he turned out to be a favorite character of mine. Possibly my best creation as a writer. I had waaaaay too much fun writing him, and I'm pondering doing a separate miniseries on him. Tell me if you'd approve.

Will we be seeing more of him?

Yes. He'll have a large part to play in the sequel, and probably in any other post- Aqua Vitae fic regarding the Capital Wasteland.

Did you say Sequel?

Yep. Mutatis Mutandis is coming. Not for a little while. I want to work on some other things including my Saboteur novelization, and Disclosure, both of which got severely neglected. I poured all I had into Modus Operandi… and then I did Aqua Vitae. I gotta recharge. But keep a weather eye out. If you want, add me to your Author Alert so you can catch the first chapter when it comes.

Is Amata going to appear in it?

Yes.

Are we going to see the Courier any time soon?

After Mutatis Mutandis comes the Cross-over. She'll be there. If you're itching in the meantime, there's always Pro Posterus to keep you company. (shameless plug)

I'll add more answers as people ask more questions.

Recommendations:

I ran across an extremely talented writer (*certainly* better than me) by the name of Six String Bard. Go check him out. I'm pretty sure he's writing THE definitive Fallout 3 novelization.

Also, if you like Point Lookout, there are two novelizations out there. One by Death's Whisper, and the other by Fenrir666. Both of them are called "Point Lookout" Check them out if you're interested. Fenrir's in particular has the most over-the-top sadistically evil Lone Wanderer I've ever read. His Wanderer makes the swampfolk look good in comparison.

I'd like to thank Krow Blood. He co-authored this and gets half the credit. It wouldn't have been done without him. He's responsible for all the best plot ideas, and keeps me on the straight and narrow. He decided that he got bored being the completely silent partner, so here's a message from him to you:

"Good news everyone! I decided that being a "Silent" partner was kind of boring, so at least this once, I'll write a li'l note for you guys and gals and everything in between.

My handle is Krow blood. You won't find any stories on my profile, for I have written nothing. I've got...Issues...with writing. I've got a Fuckton ideas (Just ask CC), but no way to properly put them in any creative medium. Except Minecraft.

I tend to help CC with various Ideas, some character development, concept tennis (You know, hurling someone a concept, then he modifies it a hurls it back, then I Re-modify it and so forth until we get a wonderful idea), new plot-points, hell, even a new original story we are thinking up. I also am the source of most info on fallout 1, 2, VB and new vegas on this team. I'm kind of a nerd. Most of what Mr. House says in Pro Posterus comes from my many idle thoughts about keeping a post-apocalyptic city running and even growing.

I may be crazy, the shrinks haven't gotten around to answering me yet.

I'll be watching all of your reviews Mwaaahahhahahaha"

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. My apologies for taking so damned long. I didn't plan for it to take more than a month. Two at most. A little optimistic on my part… But I'm happy with the result, and I hope you're looking forward to the sequel as much as I am. Thank you for all of your reviews and support. Hopefully we'll have plenty more good times to come.

Anyway, keep on chooglin'.

CC out.