Toilet Paper Theft is a Thing

Ever wonder why in the public toilets at shopping malls and offices the toilet paper dispensers are usually these little miniature Fort Knox contraptions only accessible using a key? You probably haven’t given it a lot of thought. But come on, I mean it’s hardly precious gems we’re talking about here, it’s bog roll for god’s sake. 

It’s because toilet paper theft is a thing. Really. 

Yes, people will actually pilfer this stuff, and risk the embarrassment of being caught with a handbag stuffed with cheap ass wipe rather than obtain said ass wipe the legitimate way. Why would people steal this one-ply, sphincter-shredding sandpaper instead of buying scented four-ply woven on crystal looms by the gods’-own handmaidens? I suppose there are a minority who face the unfortunate necessity of deciding whether to spend money on food or toilet paper not both. To them I say, thieve away. Hell, I’d buy a six pack of four-ply for anyone facing this predicament. But the reason, for the most part, is because people are, by and large, cheapskates. 

Think about it. I’ve seen office workers go to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying for parking. I’m talking parking their cars kilometres from where they work, manhandling a bicycle out of the trunk, and pedalling the rest of the way. Or driving around for hours scouring entire neighbourhoods for that one hundred-yard lane where the local council hasn’t yet erected "No Parking" signs or installed parking meters. Seriously, this is not speculation. I have witnessed this. 

What makes this sort of cheap behaviour even more worthy of arrogant ridicule and comedic scorn is that I have then seen these same people not bat an eyelid at the thought of then spending fifty bucks a week on takeaway coffee. And, being the deep thinker I am, I wondered why this was. The psychology behind it. What makes me contemplate this stuff is the same thing that drove me to study a Bachelor of Psychology that now sits useless in a drawer because I’m not a psychologist: human behaviour. But not philosophical nonsense like what drives man to murder fellow man or the intricate complexity of grief. No, no, no. What I wonder about is why the freakin' hell people steal toilet paper rather than buy it. Like I said, you’re dealing with an incredibly deep thinker here.

In order to answer that question you have to figure out why we are cheapskates. 

It’s because we’re hunter-gatherer mammals, not store-for-the-winter insects. We think in the here and now. So the answer is quite simple: periodic payments versus lump sums. The entire credit card and home lending system is based on one simple idea: that people can generally be convinced to part with massive amounts of their hard earned if you convince them to do it in small amounts, regularly, instead of trying to convince them to give you a huge amount right away. It can in fact be very lucrative. There’s a reason the CEOs of banks don’t generally go putt-putting around in 1986 Ford Meteors.

Think about this: if I turned to you one afternoon and asked if you could spot me a dollar to go feed the parking meter you’d probably hand it over. But if I asked you for two hundred dollars to go buy a new pair of shoes you’d probably frown at me until I went away. And if, the following fortnight, I hit you up for another dollar you’d most likely give it to me again. And then next month I ask again. No problem, here you go. If I kept this up over a period of five years, periodically asking you for a dollar, there’s a very good chance I’d end up swindling that two hundred bucks out of you and you’d be none the wiser, never realising that was actually my plan all along. Sure, I’d have to wait for my new pair of Hush Puppies, but the end result is, you’re out two hundred bucks and I’m walking around on comfy insoles you paid for. 

Think about it another way. The phone outlet at the local shopping plaza doesn’t ask you for eight-hundred bucks for a brand new iPhone. They will more likely ask you for something like seven dollars a week over two years. Because psychologically, seven dollars a week sounds like nothing, especially if you’re earning sixty grand a year or more. They will even try cranking in little mind-screws like telling you seven bucks a week is indeed nothing – “hell, mate, you spend more than that on coffee”. The end result is the same: the phone company gets your eight-hundred bucks. The bonus for them is that in two years you’re probably going to buy a new phone anyway and do the same thing all over again, all the while thinking you’re swindling them. A phrase that comes to mind every time I feel tempted by some Deal of the Week is something a used car salesman said to me once: the key to being a successful salesman is “always make the customer feel like he’s ripping you off”. Sales methods differ, but transactions generally don’t. 

Companies pay ‘consultants’ big bucks to dream up new and inventive ways of making you feel like you’re not losing money, you’re ‘saving’ it. It’s a mentality largely unchanged since the dawn of commerce: traders must make consumers part with money, they all do it, it’s just that some do it far more successfully than others. When you make a transaction, whether it’s for a four-bedroom home or a pack of gum, you are by definition not saving anything. If I give someone five bucks when they’ve asked for ten I’m still losing five bucks. The notion that I’ve somehow ‘saved’ five dollars in that transaction is as ridiculous as me saying I saved your life by shooting you in the leg rather than in the head. The only way to truly ‘save’ money is not to spend it at all. 

Obviously this is not practical. We all need to eat. We need roofs over our heads and cars to get the kids to school. Commerce is an essential part of society and economies would collapse if everyone literally saved every penny they earned. We have to buy stuff. 

The thing is, somewhere along the way, traders cottoned onto something – the idea that if they could convince Joe to give them small amounts of cash periodically over a long period, they could also screw a little more out of him while they were at it. Thus the concept of interest was born. Interest is essentially this: that nice altruistic bank is doing you a favour by giving you a home and only making you pay them a small amount every month, so you need to reward them for that kindness. You need to give them something extra and it’s only a small amount per month and the trade-off is you get to own a home. But home ‘ownership’ is a misnomer. What a home loan is essentially is the bank buying the house and leasing it back to you. Miss a few payments and you’ll find out pretty quickly you don’t own much of anything.

Logically, it would seem far more beneficial for the bank if someone just paid for the house outright, some millionaire shows up with a briefcase full of hundred dollar bills and just hands it over. Deal done. You’d think the bank would prefer this, and why the hell wouldn’t they? It’s because if they sell it to Mr Fancy Briefcase right then and there, they only walk away with three-hundred thousand dollars. If, however, they sell it to Mr and Mrs Joe Mortgage at thirteen percent interest they may potentially end up with double that amount. It’ll take thirty years, but that’s irrelevant. The end result is the same. If I sell fifty items in one day for a thousand dollars each, I’ll paddle away in a pretty nice fishing boat. If I sell fifty items for a thousand dollars each at ten percent interest over thirty years I'll sail away on a yacht. Try paying off a student or car loan early. It seems simple, but they make it complicated, because they don’t really want you to pay it off early. It’s nice to get the money early and to be fair, banks do reward this. But if everyone started doing it, banks’ profit margins would collapse because interest is what gives them a profit margin in the first place. 

I’m not arguing for a collapse of commerce as we know it. What I’d like to see is more transparency. I should be able to quickly see how much that three-hundred thousand dollar home is actually going to cost me over thirty years rather than having to pay an accountant to tell me. I should be able to see it on the real estate website alongside the telephoto-lens pictures of the ‘cosy’ living room and the energy efficient pergola for all the entertaining I’m never going to do. If the end result, bottom-line dollar amount is the same what the hell does it matter? 

It matters because I’m far less likely to keep reading a half-a-million dollar listing for a four-bedroom home if it says that home is actually going to cost me a million dollars. If I can be convinced that that same four bedroom home will only cost me five hundred thousand dollars and I can pay that off at a couple thousand bucks a month over thirty years, I’ll keep clicking on through to “Make an Offer”. My brain won’t immediately jump to the million-dollar conclusion. The human brain is not hard-wired to think in thirty-year blocks of time, our hunter-gatherer instincts still have not evolved beyond hunting the next meal. The meal we’ll need to hunt in thirty years is irrelevant. By the time I really understand that I’m losing money rather than saving it, I’ve signed on the dotted line. 

It’s the same with the phone. In the moment, standing there at the counter, I only see the seven dollars a week. The eight-hundred dollars total is twenty-four months away. The cup of steaming coffee with the little leaf pattern in the chocolate dust on top is only three bucks on a single Tuesday. The ninety dollars it will have cost me over thirty Tuesdays is an abstract concept and the human brain discards abstract concepts because they are not relevant to our day-to-day survival. That’s why people who major in Philosophy don’t generally rocket to the top of the corporate ladder. What matters is what I need now. I need coffee now. I need a roof over my head now. I need to take the kids to school now. What I’ll need in ten, thirty, a hundred, or ten thousand days is a far less tangible concept and thus far harder to quantify in real terms, terms that matter when I’m deciding whether to pull my money out of my wallet or not.

Does that really explain rampant toilet paper thievery? Probably not. It’s probably just as simple as why pay for something when I can just take it? And I’m sure getting that backpack full of one-ply sandpaper home without being caught feels pretty good, makes that cheap son of a bitch feel like he’s approaching downright Mission Impossible-levels of daring and deviance, even. But he’s not the real genius. No sir. Not even close. The real genius is whoever invented those Fort Knox toilet paper dispensers. I’ve seen hotel safes that are less secure than those goddamn things. And that same genius probably then hocked them to shopping malls and office towers on no-money-down instalment plans, no less. And I’d wager he doesn’t putt-putt around in a 1986 Meteor either.

Ruminations on the aftermath of the US election from Far Enough Away

Last night and this morning I watched and read various leaders across Europe, Asia and the Pacific giving their congratulatory and conciliatory speeches welcoming the new President of the US of A to office. 

The one that struck me most was that beacon of European solidarity Angela Merkel, the current Chancellor of Germany. She began with what you would expect, but then, without hesitation and with only barely veiled contempt, urged President-elect Trump to truly mean what he said in his victory speech: bring people together, don’t hammer the wedges in any further than you already have. Merkel has her flaws and is hated by many, but you can’t tell me she doesn’t say exactly what she means and to hell with anyone who tries to silence her. In that respect, I think even she might just understand a man like Donald Trump, whether she likes him or not, which unfortunately doesn’t matter at all. If you missed it, she basically said this: Mr Trump, we can be friends, as long as you stop being such an asshole.

Now, it is a stunning example of the brutal irony of history that in 2016 a German Chancellor should stand at a pulpit and urge an American President to put aside notions of racial discrimination and embrace social harmony. It is a stark reminder that the world has changed a lot since a bigoted, hateful bastard blew his brains out in the shattered remnants of his Thousand Year Reich and the world entered a brave new era of Capitalism At All Costs.

When the dust settles and the new American President, who has never tasted the stale coffee in any governmental office anywhere on Earth, comes to grips with the fact that running a country is a goddamn difficult thing to do, I think for one thing the United States will be just fine, and for another, so will the rest of the world. And by fine, I mean roughly the same as it has been for the last four decades. Contrary to what some are telling me, that the United States has just taken a Giant Leap Backwards into the 1950’s, I actually believe the opposite is true. I believe we are standing poised atop the first rumblings of a massive tidal shift, across the world, socially, economically, militarily, and politically. Donald Trump was not elected President of the United States because he was deemed the best and brightest person for the job, but because the American people, in their wisdom, believe he is a) better than the alternative, and b) he represents something that people have been craving for a long time: change. We saw it in Europe with Brexit, we saw it last night in the United States. We saw it to a lesser extent here in Australia in July 2016 – parties that never would have stood a chance 3, 6 or 9 years ago won far more ‘seats’ (what we call political power here) than ever before. Not because they are better than the alternative, but because they are different. Not because they represented the core values that most who gave them preference do, but because the values the major parties spruiked are so lost in carefully constructed, vetted, political correctness that they have lost all meaning. Political speeches in my country are now the verbal equivalent of boiled cabbage. They have no flavour, no spice, no kick. And that’s a damning statement coming from me, folks, because I have written some of them. I don’t believe Far Right representatives got voted in in Australia because people here are racists. I just believe people were sick and tired of voting for the Same Old Shit time and time again and getting nowhere. 

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect massive changes immediately, in the United States, the Middle East, or anywhere else. But I do believe we are seeing the first blows landed from a growing and powerful movement across the world. We are seeing the increasing inability of what the Elites would call the Masses to just sit by and do nothing while the gap between the Uber Rich and the Super Poor grows, and grows, and grows. We are seeing, for the first time in the United States, the reality that the millions of people who have lost jobs while the CEOs of the companies that took those jobs and rolled them overseas take home salary packages of hundreds of millions of dollars are slowly but surely waking up to: that they outnumber them, and that Democracy, when its true power and essence is harboured, does indeed work. These people realised, rightly or wrongly, accurately or not, that under another President Clinton things would have stayed the same, and that just isn’t good enough anymore. They don’t want things to stay the same. They have to start getting better.

So yes my Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull gave the speech I expected him to give, and his congratulatory phone call to Donald Trump was probably obsequious drivel that would have had to be mopped from the floor beneath his chair when he was done, but I don’t blame the guy. Australia needs the United States far more than the United States needs us, and that won’t be changing any time soon. So Foreign Minister Bishop will suck it up and go along to get along.

The likely 45th President of the United States said last night that it was time to put aside the wounds of division and come together as one united people. What I would ask of my American friends is this: hold him to that. Don’t let him get away with saying one thing on the outside of the Oval Office looking in and doing another thing when he's sitting behind that desk. If he doesn’t deliver on that promise, in four years, punish him, make him rue the day he woke up and decided he wanted to lead your nation into the future. He says he wants to Make America Great Again. Make him mean it.

No Man’s Sky first impressions (or How I learned to stop worrying about my inventory and enjoy playing No Man’s Sky)

No Man's Sky is a survival adventure space exploration game published by Hello Games, released worldwide on 10 August 2016.

When I was a kid, I used to love and hate looking at the night sky. I used to stand under it and stare up into its vastness and feel fascinated by all the twinkling stars, the promises of galaxies and stars and suns and planets and the possibility of alien life out there. But I would also feel painfully small and insignificant and sad that I’d never see any of it firsthand. I’d start to feel overwhelmed by that same vastness that had just moments earlier held me transfixed with awe. 

It might seem an odd comparison, but the game I most liken No Man’s Sky to is UbiSoft Montreal’s 2008 sand box shooter, Far Cry 2. Why? Because Far Cry 2 was a game that was way ahead of its time, and thus it was a game that could only really be enjoyed if you began by throwing away your preconceptions of how games are supposed to be played.

If you tried to rush through Far Cry 2 running and gunning your way across its vast open world jumping from objective to objective ticking missions off a to-do list and completing the game in record time so you could brag about it on internet forums, you were in for a really hard time and a thoroughly un-enjoyable experience. Far Cry 2 rewarded patience, calculation, and a thoughtful approach. If you went in guns blazing the (much criticized but incredibly intuitive and in that respect to this day, unmatched) enemy AI would surround and obliterate you. On harder difficulties, playing the game this way was actually impossible.

And here is a point which is key: as with any wildly ambitious game, Far Cry 2’s reach far exceeded its grasp. The developers wanted the game to be a far deeper experience than the finished product ended up being. But what they delivered was a game that was as memorable for its flaws as for what it got right. And what it got right, it got fantastically right. 

I feel the exact same way about No Man’s Sky. 

After about three hours in the game I came to the conclusion that I would have to take the Far Cry 2 approach, but to ridiculous extremes. To truly enjoy No Man’s Sky, you need to immediately throw away all preconceived notions of how you play games. Bin them. Don’t even try to apply them to this game.

And if you’re the type of gamer who needs objectives blinking at you, a sense of being led through a world (even an open one) by constantly needing to hit the next mission and complete it and scratch it off the to-do list (and I want to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with playing games this way), you will hate No Man’s Sky. 

This is my little corner of the universe...and I think someone PEED in it

I began No Man’s Sky by attempting to rush through the first few objectives. I figured hey, it’s a tutorial on how to craft stuff to fix my ship and get off this godforsaken rock I’m stuck on. I needed something called heridium so I could fix my ship’s engine and take off. I had an objective, hoorah fucker, let’s get to it. 

So, I got a bit zap-happy with my mining laser and its charge ran out. You need the same stuff (carbon) to charge it as you use to charge your life support, so I made a snap choice, I'd use my carbon for life support and just smash stuff with my mining gun to harvest the materials. It was slower, yes, but I’m an incredibly patient person (I don’t read magazines or play with my phone while waiting in a doctor’s office, I just sit there and immerse myself in my own thoughts…my girlfriend says this is really unnerving), so I was happy hammering away at small rocks for iron and bashing little red teardrop-shaped flowers for carbon. 

Then I found a massive deposit of heridium and decided it was time to spend a little carbon on my laser so I could get this damn objective over with and get the space exploration show on the road. I stacked my meagre inventory with enough heridium to fix my ship, and just enough carbon and iron to keep my exosuit A-okay for the short walk back to my ship. I set off, and found that what looked like a canyon was blocking my way. No problem, I’ll just use my trusty jet-pack to jump over it and voila, I’ll be on my way. Cue a Homer-Simpson-jumping-the-canyon-moment as halfway across my jetpack fizzled out of fuel and down I went. It was only at the very bottom, staring up at a pinprick of light, that I realised I wasn’t in a canyon. I was in a hole. A very, very deep and decidedly un-metaphorical hole. Attempts to scale the walls using my jetpack failed as each time I came within arm’s reach of the top and the damn jetpack charge ran out. After a few attempts I realised I was screwed so I sat there as my suit very kindly gave me frequent updates that I was slowly dying, and then true to its word, I was dead. I respawned at my damaged ship only to be informed that in order to retrieve my hard-gained heridium I’d need to trek back to my ‘grave’, and there my inventory would be given back to me. No sweat, right? But the problem was my 'grave' was at the bottom of that fucking hole. At this point I became convinced the game was just screwing with me. (Note: I’m still pretty sure it is because even now, hours into the game, it still keeps the ‘grave’ icon there on that first planet, as if taunting me with that rabbit-hole filled with precious, precious heridium). 

Suffice it to say I found another heridium deposit, fixed my ship, and got underway. And by the way, that first blast off into space was a serious goosebumps moment. It’s one of those gaming moments that will stay with me forever. 

Suddenly gettin' the urge to sing Moon over Rygell 7. 
Seriously, space geeks will find a lot to like in No Man's Sky.

Anyway, after another couple hours of objective-chasing to build a hyperdrive I started to realise a different approach was needed. I’m a single-player gamer through-and-through because I almost exclusively play open-world games and I play them agonisingly slowly. I say agonising because that’s what it would be like to watch me play. I can spend hours doing very little and enjoy every moment of it. I knew that in order to really enjoy No Man’s Sky, I was going to have to slow down even further. This is far beyond an open-world game. It’s an open universe. So I threw away the notion of completing objectives and finding the centre of the universe and decided that I don’t care if I ever finish this game. As in life, and in this game more than any other I have ever encountered the old cliche applies: it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. 

Since that decision, my experience with No Man’s Sky has gone from a borderline-frustrating on-the-verge-of-quitting-want-to-love-it-but-can’t-because-it’s-such-a-grind, to a sublime, almost transcendentally-meditative experience. I’ve seen a lot of complaints online about the inventory management being almost impossible. In my first three hours with No Man’s Sky I would have thoroughly agreed with that. Now, my inventory is never full. Never. Because I sit in my little red ship and make a list of exactly what I need and in what quantities, then I go get that stuff using my ship as a base-of-operations, then I craft my upgrade, then I head on up to a space station, sell an inventory slot’s worth of whatever valuable material I found while foraging for my actual supplies, then I just head out to the hanger and hang out (pun intended) for a while, watching the ships come and go, wondering what their pilots are doing and where they are all headed next. 

We ain't in Mos Eisley anymore, R2...

In a lot of ways this game is like some of the esoteric science fiction it’s inspired by. Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey most obviously comes to mind. You don’t have to make sense of it. In fact, it’s more enjoyable if you don’t try to. 

I’m ten hours in and I’ve only discovered two planets: the one I started on, and the one I flew to next. Those two worlds and a space station are the only things I’ve seen so far. But you know what? The planet Earth has about 510 million square kilometres of surface area. So assuming the two worlds are roughly the same size as Earth, that’s over a billion more square kilometres than I’ve visited in any other game I have ever played. That alone is pretty damned impressive. 

I’ve upgraded my laser and my exosuit. I’ve upgraded to a new kick-ass scanner that has more range. I have built my hyperdrive, it’s fuelled and ready to go. But I’m in no hurry to go anywhere. I might go back down to the planet and talk to that alien again, or I might just get in my ship and fly around for a while. I love that this game will let me do that, that I’m not force-fed objectives and punished if I don’t complete them in time.

This guy occasionally stops playing Pokemon Go long enough to talk to you.

This is a game I have been waiting to play without knowing I was waiting to play it. I feel something akin to what Richard Burton felt the first time he set out on his first expedition in Africa. The vast continent was at that time unmapped and unexplored by any Westerner. He wrote in his journal that he was both excited and saddened by the fact that because of its vastness he would never see it all in his brief lifetime. 

I’ll never see all of No Man’s Sky and that doesn’t bother me one bit. Who knows how I’ll feel 30, 50, 100 hours in. But for now I’m amazed and transfixed by this game and the possibilities that lay ahead. Will I just be an explorer, a spacefaring Charles Darwin, cataloguing strange creatures on distant worlds, or will the lure of space-piracy become too much – the urge to become a Han Solo, threading my way through trade routes and conducting shady deals in space station hangers? Who knows? Who cares? It’s going to be one hell of a ride and so far I’m enjoying every damn second of it. 

Letters from the Wasteland - Part 6 - (Fallout 4 fan fiction)

Fallout 4 is the smash hit RPG video game by Bethesda. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. https://www.fallout4.com/ (all screenshots used under creative commons licence or used with permission via PS4 share) 

Go to Part One
Go to Part Two
Go to Part Three
Go to Part Four
Go to Part Five

The only surviving photograph of the Wanderer.

Month unknown, 2288

Dearest Lucy,

This will be the last letter from me for a while. I hope it reaches you safely and gives you some comfort that I am alive and I am okay. There is something I need to tell you, big sister. But bear with me. There’s other things you need to hear first.

There was a world that existed here long before you and I were little girls chasing kittens around the gangplanks above Diamond City. A world where some of the trees stayed green all year round and you could walk from one side of the Commonwealth to the other without carrying a gun and fearing for your life. That world is gone. It was destroyed not by a great god falling through the earth but by us, Luce. Humankind. The fire that consumed the world was lit by our hatred and by our malice and the scars it tore in the earth are now the lands we walk upon.

The day the bombs fell.

Marius took me to the Institute. I can barely describe what I saw there but I will try. With the help of a member of the Minutemen named Sturges, Marius had built a teleportation device that allows access to the Institute. That’s all it was, the Institute being able to spirit people away. Not shadows and magic. Just technology. 

Inside, it was stark, and cold, and clean. Synths everywhere, some of them indistinguishable from you or me. A great glass greenhouse where they grow plants greener than anything I’ve ever seen. Food and water from things they call ‘faucets’ that is so clear it sparkles like crystal. 

We remained there for a few weeks. I stayed in Marius’ room and he let me use the shower. Hot running water from a nozzle and it’s never-ending. The first time, I stood under the warm spray for so long, my eyes closed, just letting it wash the grime from my skin and massage my scalp. It was incredible. 

As I sat on the bed wrapped in a towel, my skin still warm from the shower, Marius told me everything. He lived before the Great War that destroyed the world, with his wife and baby boy. That’s where the old photographs came from. He lived in Sanctuary Hills and was there the day the bombs fell. 

It sounds so crazy, Luce, and I’m sorry. You probably have a million questions but until I understand it all myself I cannot answer them. When I see you again I will tell you everything. But until then, just know that everything we heard about the Institute growing up was a lie, and the truth, well, it’s not much better.

A rare photograph from inside the Institute

On our last day there, Marius said that he made the decisions he made because he thought that somehow the Institute might be able to make the world the way it was. He looked around at all the clean and bright and shiny things and said he had hoped they could bring everything they’ve learned and done here to the surface and let everyone prosper from it.
     ‘That could still happen,’ I told him. ‘Maybe not in our lifetimes but it could be done.’
     ‘I was so wrong, Daphne. They just wanted control like everyone else does. And the Brotherhood? They’ll never understand any of this. They just want to destroy it and everyone who doesn’t agree with their vision for the Commonwealth. They won’t stop fighting. They won’t stop killing. They won’t stop any of it. Nothing ever changes.’
     ‘Some things do,’ I reached for his hand and I was about to tell him but his Pip-Boy buzzed and he looked at it.
     ‘Croup Manor is under attack again,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘Daphne, you can stay here. You’ll be safe. Nothing can reach you here, nothing from out there in the wasteland. Clean water, food, and a safe roof over your head. You once told me that’s all a girl could ask for, right?’
     I wanted to say shutting me away to keep me safe won't change what happened to her. But instead I said ‘This is not my home.’

We were just past Cambridge, making our way along another cracked road through a maze of old houses when the lasers started firing. We barely heard the vertibird descending before the mounted minigun opened fire and we were ambushed in a laneway by two Brotherhood knights. Marius and I opened fire and of course Dogmeat leapt at the first Knight and latched onto his power armor. Marius called to him to let go and he did, and then he turned to me and shouted ‘Run!’ and we did. 

I’ve never run that fast in my life. A bolt from one of the laser rifles whipped past my ear and I could smell burning hair. We were able to keep ahead of the cumbersome knights, and Marius kept fire on the vertibird as we made our escape. Eventually we were able to slow down and we took refuge just outside a settlement called The Slog. The sun was going down, casting angry fire against the dying day.

As we sat there catching our breaths Marius removed his armoured chest piece and I saw the blood. He looked up at me and simply said ‘I’m sorry.’
     He collapsed, and Dogmeat fell to his haunches beside him and started whimpering. I knelt beside him and even through his leathers I could see it was bad.
     ‘I took a few rounds from that goddamn minigun,’ he said, and tried to laugh but just coughed up a mouthful of blood.
     ‘We’ll get you back to the manor,’ I said, ‘You’ll be okay.’
     He grabbed hold of my hand as Dogmeat started licking the blood from his face.
     ‘I’m done, Daphne,’ he said. ‘You have to leave me here and get back to the settlement.’
     I shook my head and said I wouldn’t leave him.
     ‘It’s going to be okay,’ he said. ‘This is the only way it could end for me. I know that now.’
     ‘What are you talking about?’
     ‘I’ve killed so many,’ he said. ‘I saw my wife murdered and I watched my son die, and seeing all that changed me in ways I didn’t know and couldn’t realise. It made me do things I regret. It made me do things in service of a greater good that doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not made for this world. The world I belong to died a long time ago. This world is yours, Daph, and I don’t belong in it.’
     ‘Maybe you didn’t save millions of lives, maybe nothing will change,’ I said. ‘But you saved me, Marius. And there is a child within me who will be born into this world, our world, because of that. You don’t have to save the whole world. You’ve done enough. More than anyone could have asked for.’
     He struggled to speak again but could not, and those deep grey eyes of his filled with swirls of blood like paint poured into water. 
     ‘Go,’ he managed finally. ‘They’ll be tracking us. You have to get out of here.’
     I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t want to die. It’s a choice I’ve never had to make before, and one I hope I never have to make again. I could already hear the whirr of the vertibird in the distance.
     ‘Take him with you,’ Marius choked, taking Dogmeat by the collar and gently tousling the fur by his ear.
     I stroked Dogmeat’s fur. ‘I’ll use my last stimpak on him if I have to.’
     ‘I know you will,’ Marius coughed blood again and the pain shut his eyes, but he struggled them open and placed his hand on my belly. ‘He’ll be good around kids too, I know he will.’
     The vertibird shrieked closer, just over the hill to the northeast. My Wanderer looked at me a last time and then his eyes closed and he was gone.
     I stood to leave but Dogmeat paused over his body, sniffing at his master one last time before sitting back on his haunches and howling at the darkening sky. For a moment I thought he would not leave the Wanderer’s side, but soon enough he started following me. He knew the score. It was time to go.

I arrived back at the settlement and the Island had been destroyed and there were laser rifle burns in the fences. Once I got inside the walls I saw there were two graves beneath the stone structure at the centre of the compound. Elise was sitting on the steps of the manor house with her head in her hands. Eliza was at the corn rows, her back turned, going through the motions rather than actually tending the plants. Gerald stood at my post, a pipe pistol in his hand, his white t-shirt stained with blood. He came down the stairs when he saw me and Dogmeat enter the compound. 
     ‘Hey Daph,’ he said.
     ‘Are you okay?’ I asked him.
     He looked down at himself. ‘It’s not my blood.’ He gestured to the graves, marked with small white crosses. ‘Miranda,’ he said of the one on the left. ‘And Skull.’
     I looked at the graves and felt my chest tighten. ‘What happened?’
     ‘Super Mutants,’ Gerald shrugged. ‘I don’t know how many. They came in the middle of the night.’
     ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,’ I could only stare at my own boots.
     ‘We didn’t stand a chance, Daph,’ Gerald said. ‘If you’d been here you’d be in the ground too.’
     He looked at the graves again. ‘We’re alive because of them… Skull was holding them off at the west gate, and Miranda got us all inside the house. She took three grenades from the workshop and headed outside. That was the last time we saw her alive. She took down three of them. The others were too wounded to do much. They retreated back to the mainland.’
     I looked around the compound. Only one turret was unscathed, the others were shattered piles of junk. There was blood everywhere.
     ‘Where are the others?’ I asked.
     Gerald just shrugged. ‘They took off. Said they didn’t feel safe here anymore. Frankly, I don’t blame them.’
     ‘What do you mean?’
     ‘We’re leaving,’ he said. ‘Me and the twins. Gathering what food we can carry and getting the hell out of here. We’ll strike southwest and head for Diamond City.’ He looked down at Dogmeat. ‘The Wanderer?’
     I looked up at him but couldn’t speak. He saw the look in my eyes and knew.
     ‘All the more reason to leave,’ he said. ‘It won’t be long before those big green bastards regroup and hit us again. You should come with us.’
     I stroked Dogmeat’s head and he nuzzled my hand. ‘I’m going to stay here awhile. You should get going though.’
     ‘We’ll wait for you to gather your things,’ Gerald offered. 
     ‘It’s okay,’ I touched his shoulder. ‘Maybe I’ll see you sometime and finally play a game of chess with you.’
     ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

I furiously started writing as Gerald and the twins gathered corn, mutfruit, potatoes and all the water they could carry, slung the packs over their shoulders, and we said our goodbyes. The only thing I asked of Gerald was that he take this letter with him. 

The bomb fell somewhere to the south, so I’m going to head north, up the coast to avoid the roads. I look down now at the wonderful shepherd sitting at my feet, patiently waiting for me. I know he will never leave my side. And I’ll never leave his.  

"Dogmeat ready to follow wherever I lead him."

Someday I’ll come to Diamond, Luce, I promise. But not yet. It’s too much a reminder of the world left behind. Maybe Marius was right, that a relic from the past and a protector of the excess that destroyed it does not belong in a future forged by those who survived to make a new world.

I never knew the world Marius spoke of yet somehow it is a past I feel compelled to forget. If I don’t, then how can I build a life for my child that is not tainted by want of a golden future that was burned to ashes and now can never be? The life I give to my son or my daughter is one I must seek out and find and build on my own. I owe that to them. And I owe that to the sacrifice a man made for us for no reason other than wanting a better world for us all. 

The view north from the settlement, Daphne would have headed this way to avoid the roads.

So I’m going to strike out and find a new little corner of the world to call my own and do my best to make it better. That’s all that can be asked of anyone, I guess.

I love you.

Your little sister, Daph.

------------Note from the Wasteland: It's not clear if Daphne ever made it north or found her new corner of the world there. These letters are all that remains of her, her friends at Croup Manor, and the Wanderer. She included a few extra photographs with her last letter to her sister. I've included them below with her captions.----------------

Miranda, vigilant as always.

Skull showing off his new toy.
I will never forget the sacrifice he and Miranda made to save the others.

The twins Elise and Eliza, watching over our food as we watched over them.

Me posing with my favourite turret. I'll miss this place,
but I hold hope that I'll find a new home out there somewhere. 

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Letters from the Wasteland - Part 5 - (Fallout 4 fan fiction)

Fallout 4 is the smash hit RPG video game by Bethesda. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. https://www.fallout4.com/ (all screenshots used under creative commons licence or used with permission via PS4 share) 

Go to Part One
Go to Part Two
Go to Part Three
Go to Part Four

August, 2288

Dear Lucy,

It’s getting colder. The leaves don’t turn anymore because there are no leaves to turn. Do you remember when we were little girls and there was still some colour left in the world? I recall it now only as I recall dreams, fading like rocks dropped into ponds.

A morning last week, I woke to a sound I thought I’d never hear again. At first I didn’t trust my ears and thought it was some leftover echo from my dreams, so I walked outside but there it was, in the clear skies. A Brotherhood of Steel dropship. Its fusion engines hummed as it made its way across the sky, the docking clamps clunking, pistons firing as the vertibirds clicked off the sides like strange beetles. Four of them descended from the belly of the giant floating black whale and whirred off in different directions, out over the peninsula, to the north and west, and one eventually disappearing to the south, down over Nahant Wharf toward the airport. 

I thought they were gone. I thought the war for the Commonwealth was over and that I was on the winning side. I know you said you’d heard whispers of them. But a show of force like this? I’m worried, Luce. 

A Brotherhood of Steel 'vertibird'

Gerald and Skull play chess downstairs now during their down time. Last week Marius showed up as promised with the gifts from Diamond City. Thank you for explaining the game to me. I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever play, but Gerald has enjoyed carving pieces and teaching us all how to play. 

Daphne's chess playing friend in the compound, Gerald

Miranda got her eight ball. I don’t know what it means to her, but she held it in her palm when he gave it to her, hefted its weight, and wordlessly thanked him. He gave Eliza a dog-eared Grognak the Barbarian comic book and then brought out the real treats: a huge chunk of radstag meat and two bottles of whiskey. That night we had a feast, sis, more food than I have eaten in months, and I loved every mouthful. Elise stewed the radstag in its juices with carrots and potatoes and we sat around a fire and ate huge bowls of the stuff. After that we passed around the whiskey. I had never had it before and it made me dizzy but I liked it.

One of the last photographs taken of Miranda. Despite their sometime-animosity,
Daphne cared very deeply about her outspoken companion on the compound watchtowers.

The Wanderer spent the night again, sis, and I spent the night with him. There, I said it. Skull and Miranda were on night watch so I was sitting by my turret when he came and sat by me. He didn’t say anything, we just watched the stars for a while, and then he reached over and tucked a strand of my hair back behind my ear and kissed me. 

Later we lay together on one of the beds on the upper floor and for a long time we didn’t speak he just held me. Finally I said that I thought he liked Miranda more than he liked me.
     ‘Miranda’s a warrior, but she’s reckless,’ he said ‘She’d see a group of Super Mutants and she’d wade in without a second thought.’
     ‘And you wouldn’t?’
     ‘You have to pick your battles out here. I don’t start battles I can’t win.’
     ‘And Miranda?’
     ‘She doesn’t pick her battles, she just wants to win them all. That’s why she’s up on that tower.’
     ‘And why am I up there on mine?’
     ‘You have a good eye. You’re watchful, cautious. You spotted that guy with the missile launcher before he had a chance to use it. I don’t think anyone else here would have done that. I noticed that about you right away, when you wandered in here, you started looking for exits, weak spots. I do the same thing. You’re a survivor.’
     ‘It was you, in the basement of the Old North Church. The massacre that Miranda told me about.’
     ‘Yeah. It was me. How did you know?’
     ‘The Railroad coat. And I heard you talking to Dogmeat. Why did you do it?’
     ‘When I was in the army, a long time ago, I heard a lot of shit about the ‘greater good’. How one death, or even a lot more than one, can ultimately save millions of lives.’
     ‘So that’s why?’
     ‘Yeah, that’s why. But out here, I’m not so sure that’s true. I don’t feel like I’ve saved anyone.’
     ‘You saved us.’

A Brotherhood 'Knight'. It is unlikely Daphne took this photograph; she never got
very close to the Brotherhood, by this time they were sworn enemies of the Wanderer.

We were interrupted then by the whirr of a vertibird, and we got dressed, grabbed our rifles and headed out onto the balcony. It circled high overhead a few times, just patrolling, before it headed out over the peninsula and dropped off a knight, a scribe and an officer. We tracked them for a while through our scopes before they went out of sight and then we heard the familiar sound of laser rifles, plasma grenades and the crack of return fire from automatic weapons.

Marius slung his rifle and ushered me back inside. We sat on the bed and he took my hand.
     ‘I can never come back here,’ he told me. ‘I’m putting all of you in danger.’
     I asked him what he meant, and couldn’t help a small part of me thinking his timing was terrible.
     ‘I made a choice,’ he said. ‘And that choice turned the Brotherhood against me forever. I wasn’t just there at the Old North Church. I was at the battle of Liberty Prime. Siding with the Institute had consequences. I can’t explain them all right now. But if the Brotherhood find me here they will kill me and everyone they find here with me. So I have to go.’
     ‘So, that’s it,’ I said. ‘You have to go. I understand.’ I looked out onto the balcony and yet again wished I could be that turret out there, with no other want or desire than to mindlessly kill anything that threatened me.
     Marius looked at me for a long time, and then squeezed my hand tighter. 
     ‘I want to show you something,’ he said. ‘I’m going to need you to abandon that post of yours for a while. Just for a while.’
     ‘What do you want to show me?’
     He handed me a bunch of old photos. A place called Sanctuary, but in the photos it looked nothing like any city, town, settlement or ruin I’ve ever seen, Luce. It looked beautiful. 
     ‘That’s where we’ll need to go, for me to show you,’ Marius said. ‘I want to show you the reason I made the choices I made. I want to show you the Institute.’

So I write this on the road, sis. We just passed Cambridge and so far the journey has been mercifully uneventful. What I will find in Sanctuary and beyond is still unclear to me, but I’ll write again as soon as I can. 

Until then I remain as always, your mischievous little sister. Daph. 

One of the pre-war photographs of Sanctuary Hills that amazed Daphne.

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Letters from the Wasteland - Part 4 - (Fallout 4 fan fiction)

Fallout 4 is the smash hit RPG video game by Bethesda. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. https://www.fallout4.com/ (all screenshots used under creative commons licence or used with permission via PS4 share) 

Go to Part One
Go to Part Two
Go to Part Three

Dusk, looking west from Miranda's post.

June, 2288

Dear Luce,

I don’t know what to make of your last letter. Whispers of the Brotherhood planning to take back the Commonwealth? Have people not had enough of the killing by now? Maybe Miranda was right…maybe there will never be peace in the wasteland.

The settlement was attacked last night. We’re all okay, but it was terrifying. A band of Raiders tried to storm the compound. 

I was at my post when the Wanderer showed up at dusk. I noticed he had a new weapon – a combat shotgun. After the recon patrol out on the peninsula, I didn’t want to ask him how he happened by it. He went about his usual duties upon arrival, checking the turrets, tinkering at the workshop.

The clear night over the manor.

Later, he came over to me, up the stairs, and stood by me for a while, silent, staring out into the darkness.
     ‘Clear night,’ I said. 
     He looked up at the deep sky sparkling with stars, and then back out over the peninsula. ‘Almost makes you forget, doesn’t it?’
     I nodded. ‘Yeah, it does.’
     He reached into his pack and took out a recon scope. ‘Let me see that rifle of yours, I can attach this to it if you’d like.’
     I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. He started to return the smile but looked away quickly. I unslung my rifle and handed it over. ‘That would be great. A recon scope would be perfect out here.’
     He nodded and took my rifle, handing me a long double-barrelled shotgun with a reflex sight. ‘Take this while I attach the scope. Can’t leave you empty-handed up here. This has been with me since Concord after I left the Vault.’
     ‘The Vault? You were in a Vault?’ I asked.
     He looked away again. ‘Yeah. I’ll be right back.’
     He headed for the weapons bench and I heard him start attaching the scope. I realised I’d come to like the sound of him tinkering away back there.

And then all hell broke loose.
They came up along the west road, and through the trees to the south. A dozen Raiders. They had waited until nightfall. I was still at my post so the first thing I knew was when the west turrets open up (we have two guarding the western road into the compound). I then heard the newcomer (I still don’t know his name, I just call him Skull because of his bandanna) open fire and call out from the Island. He didn’t fall back to the compound, he held his ground and took two of them down before they even reached the walls. 

The west road - this is the road the Raiders used to attempt to
storm the settlement. 'The Island' can be seen at the bottom of the photo.

The turrets kept thumping away, Miranda opened up with her laser rifle and Marius headed past my post with his shotgun drawn. 
     ‘Stay up there,’ he told me. ‘They might try and come in from the east too. Here,’ he tossed me my rifle with the new scope. ‘Tag any that try and come through the trees on that side and call them out. And keep one eye on the compound. If any make it inside the walls you know what to do.’
     I took the rifle and did a quick scan of the woods to the east. Nothing. Marius headed out through the gate next to Miranda’s post, Dogmeat following close behind, and the booming shotgun joined the rest of the cacophony of gunfire out there. I wanted to be a part of it, but I held my post. 

The guns kept banging away and then I saw him – a lone Raider with a missile launcher, coming through the trees at the foot of the embankment to the east. 
     ‘Missile to the east,’ I called out and took aim with the scope, saying a quick prayer of thanks to my Wanderer as the scope lit the Raider up, bright as day. 
     ‘Fuck you,’ I said under my breath before I held it and put a .308 through his head. He dropped to the ground and rolled down the embankment, the launcher clattering to the ground beside his body.

View from Daphne's post. She spotted the Raider coming through this grove of trees.

It was all over as quickly as it had begun. Did I just write ‘my Wanderer’? Huh. Luce, I think your little sister may have developed a crush.

Anyway, everyone gradually drifted back inside, but Marius and Skull set about looting the Raiders, Dogmeat sniffing around their ankles as they went from body to body. I saw Marius wander over to the east side and retrieve the missile launcher then he came back up into the compound and gathered everyone by the bell. He gave the missile launcher and a few rockets to Skull.
     ‘You held your ground out there,’ he said. ‘You saved lives tonight.’
     I waited for him to say something to me, but he didn’t. Instead he turned to Miranda and told her she had handled herself well tonight. I could have screamed.
     ‘Everyone did well,’ Marius said, but still didn’t look at me. ‘I think this calls for a celebration. Next time I’m in Diamond, I’ll pick up something for each of you. Let me know what. Don’t think something you need. Think something you want.’

Everyone became excited like little kids. Miranda of course went first, said she used to have a lucky eight ball. Gerald said he missed playing chess, and that if he could get hold of a board he could start carving some pieces. I have no idea what the hell ‘chess’ is so I made a note to ask him sometime. Eliza said all she wanted was a Grognak the Barbarian comic book, and Elise thought about it for a moment and requested a nice big chunk of radstag meat so she could cook us a stew. 
     ‘Would go real nice with all them carrots we been growing here,’ she said, nodding and licking her lips.
     Marius laughed at this and suggested some whiskey to wash it down with, to which everyone nodded eagerly. 
     ‘I’m going to sleep here tonight,’ he said, ‘just in case those guys decide to regroup and try a second time. I want guards back at their posts. Everyone else, get some sleep.’

Daphne's letters did not contain any photographs of Raiders she encountered,
living or otherwise, but they would have looked something like this.

I waited until everyone had gone inside and settled in, and then headed up onto the balcony to sit by my turret. I wouldn’t normally have done that, abandoned my post, but the turret overlooks the east side of the hill anyway, and I needed, tonight more than ever, to hear that comforting rattling. My hands were still shaking. 
     ‘You did good tonight.’
     Marius' voice took me by surprise and I almost dropped my rifle. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ll head back to my post.’
     ‘It’s okay.’ He sat beside me. He looked at the turret, dutifully, mindlessly rattling back and forth, a sleepless sentinel of the wastes. ‘How can you stand that thing?’
     I laughed. ‘I find it soothing.’
     He laughed back. ‘If you say so.’
     I looked down the east hill to the Raider I had killed. I was glad that at this distance and in the darkness I could not see the blood. ‘I thought you hadn’t noticed.’
     Marius followed my gaze and was silent for what seemed like a long time. 
     ‘I’m hard on you because I…’ he stopped. ‘Because I need to be. Like I said, I need to know you can handle yourself.’
     ‘Who was she?’ I asked him.
     He seemed taken aback. ‘Who?’
     ‘The woman I remind you of.’
     He sighed and shuffled a little, then caught himself and sat steady, fixing me with those steel-grey eyes. ‘You remind me of my wife,’ he said. ‘I’m hard on you because I don’t want you to get hurt, like she did.’
     The way he said hurt I knew he meant killed, and I wanted to ask what happened to her, but something in his eyes told me not to.
     ‘I better get back to my post.’ I stood.
     ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m going to head off. I have something I need to do.’ He stood, heading for the stairs. ‘Hey, you never said what you wanted from Diamond City.’
     I shrugged. ‘Just my letters.’
     ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you want?’
     ‘Like I said, I got food and a roof over my head. That’s all I need for now.’
     He nodded. ‘Okay.’
     As we parted ways he said, ‘You know, a friend of mine keeps giving me advice, it’s always real simple: Don’t let your guard down.’
     I looked back at him, ‘I never do.’ 

Well that’s it for tonight sis, I’m so damn tired my eyes are closing as I write this. No one has said it, but I know we all feel proud of what we did here. We might not have much, but we’ll fight for what is ours.


Love always, your little sister, 
Daph x

PS - This is my rifle with the new recon scope. I think it saved my life.

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