Why is it so important that we can't let the Enclave have the Jefferson Purifier?

[Ciaran Zagami]

We know from our private one-on-one with President Eden that they don't intend to weaponize it, it's just water. Why are we risking the lives of our best assault team, countless brotherhood soldiers and ofc the main character over a radioactive puddle!?

Yes they have everything they need to make it work but they don't know the code, its a 3 digit code with a standared 0-9 number pad that means theres at least 720 possible comibinations (assuming that the enclave knows how many digits are in the code even if they've never seen the purifier set up before) Are they really going to waste almost a battalion's worth of soldiers over A RADIOACTIVE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ PUDDLE!?

This doesn't even scratch the surface of all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in this climax, like how Doctor Li was able to figure out how to make a giant robot she's never seen or heard about before work when almost all of the Brotherhood's scribes on the west cost have been trying for who knows how long. OR how the enclave knew the purifier needed a G.E.C.K or that they could get one at vault 87, or that they knew where the vault was, or that they some how got into it, or that they knew the lone wanderer would be there.


Honestly this whole ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ climax is ridddle with plot holes.

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Zagami:

We know from our private one-on-one with President Eden that they don't intend to weaponize it, it's just water. Why are we risking the lives of our best assault team, countless brotherhood soldiers and ofc the main character over a radioactive puddle!?

Eden specifically said that he does plan on weaponizing it in order to wipe out most life in the Capitol Wasteland. Even if they didn't the Enclave are still insane, tyrannical mass murderers that want to control everything, which the purifier would help them do whether they poisoned it or not. The BoS know this well from their previous encounters so I think it's pretty reasonable that they would want to stop the Enclave from having that much power.

Originally posted by Zagami:

Yes they have everything they need to make it work but they don't know the code, its a 3 digit code with a standared 0-9 number pad that means theres at least 720 possible comibinations (assuming that the enclave knows how many digits are in the code even if they've never seen the purifier set up before) Are they really going to waste almost a battalion's worth of soldiers over A RADIOACTIVE ♥♥♥♥ING PUDDLE!?

The whole point of the pufier is to make it not radioactive. Also the Potomac River is hardly a "puddle", it's the largest body of water in the Capitol Wastes.

Originally posted by Zagami:

This doesn't even scratch the surface of all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t in this climax, like how Doctor Li was able to figure out how to make a giant robot she's never seen or heard about before work when almost all of the Brotherhood's scribes on the west cost have been trying for who knows how long. OR how the enclave knew the purifier needed a G.E.C.K or that they could get one at vault 87, or that they knew where the vault was, or that they some how got into it, or that they knew the lone wanderer would be there.

The BoS had almost got Prime up and running by the time of the game but were just having trouble with power requirements, Dr Li (a very talented scientist in her own right) just helped finish up.

Anna Holt said that she told them they needed a G.E.C.K and considering the Enclave are the U.S government and that they were the ones behind the Vaults in the first place they of course must have records of what vaults got G.E.C.Ks just like the Citadel (Pentagon) did.

The Enclave got into 87 through the main door. They didn't know the LW would be there, they just showed up just after the LW and set a trap for him as he/she was leaving.

[Ciaran Zagami]

The purifier was never intended to clean the whole river. Just the puddle outside the purifier, thus why the river stays radioactive during Broken Steel but the puddle outside is fine.

Eden did intend to posion the water yes, but colonel autumn actively has refused those orders and refuses to allow the lone wanderer to inact Eden's plan, and lets face it the BoS has no way of knowing thats what the Enclave intends to do. They're not psykers they can't possibly know the motives of a group they've thought dead for almost 100 years. They have no information about the FEV, Little if any on the purifer itself, and I seriously doubt they've been keeping tabs on a group they did'nt even know was still alive.

Also Vault Tech was not part of the US Military as far as I know so why a bunch of army brass would have acess to the locations of every single vault is beyond me, thats not to say it's impossible for them to know where the front door to vault 87 is, even the BoS figured that one out. The real issue for me is how did they even GET to that front door, any player who has tried knows that once you reach the door the rad count hits about 3000 rads persecond which is enough to kill you in less time then it takes for the door itself to open. (Also the door itself is impossible to open but I assume thats just for gameplay effect) Which means the Enclave would have to go in through little lamplight a highly secretive place that they don't know exists, then either convince or murder all the children to let them pass, then find murder pass and travel through it. (which would make them a lot slower the the PC and they would undoubtly arive too late to do anything) Considering that no one at Little Lamplight mentions the enclave and the kids aren't all dead, how the ♥♥♥♥ DID the Enclave get to vault 87 in the first place.

Even if we accept all of the above thereby assuming some level of psychic pre-cognition on the part of Elder Lyons and Anna Holt about the FEV and GECK respectively. The Enclave would still have to waste the lives of hundereds of scientists to start the damn purifier, something I have a hard time believing even the Enclave would do.

[Ciaran Zagami]

addendum: As far as I know the majority of Doctor Li's carrier by the time of Fallout 3 was spent working on Project Purity, both in the full scale Jefferson purifier and a smaller version back in Rivet City. Just because she knows how to build a big ♥♥♥♥ off Brita filter doesn't mean she would have any concept of the inner workings of a 40tall top secret military war robot. Just because she's smart does not make her all knowing.

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Zagami:

The purifier was never intended to clean the whole river. Just the puddle outside the purifier, thus why the river stays radioactive during Broken Steel but the puddle outside is fine.

Actually it would have purified the whole river given time. But even the tidel basin alone was millions of gallons of clean water.

Originally posted by Zagami:

Eden did intend to posion the water yes, but colonel autumn actively has refused those orders and refuses to allow the lone wanderer to inact Eden's plan, and lets face it the BoS has no way of knowing thats what the Enclave intends to do. They're not psykers they can't possibly know the motives of a group they've thought dead for almost 100 years. They have no information about the FEV, Little if any on the purifer itself, and I seriously doubt they've been keeping tabs on a group they did'nt even know was still alive.

Eden would have found a way of enacting his plan even without Autumn.

It's been less then 30 years since the Enclave/Brotherhood war not 100 and the Enclave made they're intentions quite clear when they took the puifier by force, killed James and commited mass executions across the wastes. Not to mention attacking BoS soldiers on sight and threatning to "remove" them over the radio. Also as I said the puifier would give the Enclave vast influence over the wastes FEV or not which is something the BoS did know about. (the influnece, not FEV)

Originally posted by Zagami:

Also Vault Tech was not part of the US Military as far as I know so why a bunch of army brass would have acess to the locations of every single vault is beyond me, thats not to say it's impossible for them to know where the front door to vault 87 is, even the BoS figured that one out. The real issue for me is how did they even GET to that front door, any player who has tried knows that once you reach the door the rad count hits about 3000 rads persecond which is enough to kill you in less time then it takes for the door itself to open. (Also the door itself is impossible to open but I assume thats just for gameplay effect) Which means the Enclave would have to go in through little lamplight a highly secretive place that they don't know exists, then either convince or murder all the children to let them pass, then find murder pass and travel through it. (which would make them a lot slower the the PC and they would undoubtly arive too late to do anything) Considering that no one at Little Lamplight mentions the enclave and the kids aren't all dead, how the ♥♥♥♥ DID the Enclave get to vault 87 in the first place.

The Vaults were created as part of a government (Enclave) project called Project: Safehouse and Vault-tec was one of the major corparations the Enclave controlled before the war, of course they would have all the info on each vault and it's location. Also the Enclave wasn't just military brass, it was made up of high ranking military, politicians (including multiple presidents), scientists and corparate executives.

The Enclave are far more advanced then any other faction in the wastes so it's hardly far-fetched that they have tech to protect themselves for the matter of minutes it takes to walk from their vertibird to the vault door, as for the door itself they have all the codes for every vault in the country, they built them after all.

Originally posted by Zagami:

Even if we accept all of the above thereby assuming some level of psychic pre-cognition on the part of Elder Lyons and Anna Holt about the FEV and GECK respectively. The Enclave would still have to waste the lives of hundereds of scientists to start the damn purifier, something I have a hard time believing even the Enclave would do.

Anna Holt was part of Li's team at the puifier, she was told about the G.E.C.K before the Enclave attack.

Enclave weren't going to just keep letting scientists die, they would have found a away around the code eventually and even if they couldn't it's not a risk Lyons was willing to take.

As I said above knowing about the FEV is irrelevent, the BoS still consider the Enclave to be too dangerous to allow then to have that much power.

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Zagami:

addendum: As far as I know the majority of Doctor Li's carrier by the time of Fallout 3 was spent working on Project Purity, both in the full scale Jefferson purifier and a smaller version back in Rivet City. Just because she knows how to build a big ♥♥♥♥ off Brita filter doesn't mean she would have any concept of the inner workings of a 40tall top secret military war robot. Just because she's smart does not make her all knowing.

She didn't need to know everything about Prime, just about power management and as I said she just helped Rothchild, she didn't just do all his work for him. Also most scientists especially good ones like Li tend to be trained in multiple fields, not just one specific thing like water purification.

[Count Von Count]

Originally posted by Zagami:

The purifier was never intended to clean the whole river. Just the puddle outside the purifier, thus why the river stays radioactive during Broken Steel but the puddle outside is fine.

Eden did intend to posion the water yes, but colonel autumn actively has refused those orders and refuses to allow the lone wanderer to inact Eden's plan, and lets face it the BoS has no way of knowing thats what the Enclave intends to do. They're not psykers they can't possibly know the motives of a group they've thought dead for almost 100 years. They have no information about the FEV, Little if any on the purifer itself, and I seriously doubt they've been keeping tabs on a group they did'nt even know was still alive.

Also Vault Tech was not part of the US Military as far as I know so why a bunch of army brass would have acess to the locations of every single vault is beyond me, thats not to say it's impossible for them to know where the front door to vault 87 is, even the BoS figured that one out. The real issue for me is how did they even GET to that front door, any player who has tried knows that once you reach the door the rad count hits about 3000 rads persecond which is enough to kill you in less time then it takes for the door itself to open. (Also the door itself is impossible to open but I assume thats just for gameplay effect) Which means the Enclave would have to go in through little lamplight a highly secretive place that they don't know exists, then either convince or murder all the children to let them pass, then find murder pass and travel through it. (which would make them a lot slower the the PC and they would undoubtly arive too late to do anything) Considering that no one at Little Lamplight mentions the enclave and the kids aren't all dead, how the ♥♥♥♥ DID the Enclave get to vault 87 in the first place.

Even if we accept all of the above thereby assuming some level of psychic pre-cognition on the part of Elder Lyons and Anna Holt about the FEV and GECK respectively. The Enclave would still have to waste the lives of hundereds of scientists to start the damn purifier, something I have a hard time believing even the Enclave would do.

*Enact

Col. Autumn is perfect living proof of how the Enclave got into Vault 87. When James activated the purifier and sacrificed himself, the Enclave soldiers die, but he pops a little pill and doesn’t die... Rad-X. So the Enclave soldiers could just walk up to the front door of Vault 87.

Why would the Pentagon (an office for the government) have the location of every nearby Vault, but the Enclave (the government) not have the same list?

The terminals in The Citadel make it clear that the BoS only need to reduce the power consumption of Liberty Prime, and then he would be in fine working order. And a fresh mind often brings different ideas, even if Li wasn’t a genius in that area (but since everything needs power, she was probably a fair hand at it)

[Vex Hilarius]

The story of f3 makes very little sense. Why would anyone be willing to turn on purifier that only works for a small area in an enviroment that not only has very little civilization but what there is for civilization has purified water already. The bos/enclave war for the purifier was all for who gets to push a button. Not only that, you need to fetch a GECK which if you know what a GECK is you should know it should be used for anything BUT being put in a purifier. So you go to a vault which has a geck being followed by the enclave even though they probably have better means of getting the GECK than you and a freindly super mutant. The whole story of F3 is just laughable.

You fight with the brotherhood because the enclave are big meanies even though president eden is really the only one wanting to kill the mutants. But wait you get to have a moral dilemma. Use the FEV.....or don't. Talk about gray morality.

Liberty Prime is probably the best thing to come out of the ending. Sure it makes zero sense but having him blow up so called "americans" while shouting anti-communist remarks is always hilarious to me.

The more you dive into the mess that is F3's main story the more you hate the game. My advice is to focus more on what made this game better. Well, nothing is really done well in this game but there is moments.

[Count Von Count]

Originally posted by Two Bears High-Fiving:

The story of f3 makes very little sense. Why would anyone be willing to turn on purifier that only works for a small area in an enviroment that not only has very little civilization but what there is for civilization has purified water already. The bos/enclave war for the purifier was all for who gets to push a button. Not only that, you need to fetch a GECK which if you know what a GECK is you should know it should be used for anything BUT being put in a purifier. So you go to a vault which has a geck being followed by the enclave even though they probably have better means of getting the GECK than you and a freindly super mutant. The whole story of F3 is just laughable.

You fight with the brotherhood because the enclave are big meanies even though president eden is really the only one wanting to kill the mutants. But wait you get to have a moral dilemma. Use the FEV.....or don't. Talk about gray morality.

Liberty Prime is probably the best thing to come out of the ending. Sure it makes zero sense but having him blow up so called "americans" while shouting anti-communist remarks is always hilarious to me.

The more you dive into the mess that is F3's main story the more you hate the game. My advice is to focus more on what made this game better. Well, nothing is really done well in this game but there is moments.

Do you realise how hard it is to obtain purified water? Hard. As soon as the purifier is turned on it becomes far easier.

The different is who gets to push a button plus what happens after that button is pushed. If the FEV is used, then basically everyone in the Wasteland would die, with the exception of the Enclave (perhaps some BoS) and Vault 101 members.

Clearly you and a friendly super mutant are capable enough of getting the GECK, and the Enclave don’t follow you, they are merely behind you and then decide to ambush you.

President Eden wants all non-mutants to die (that includes small mutations found in people exposed to radiation over a long period, ie the entire wasteland).

Liberty Prime is cool, and he was programmed to believe the Enclave to be Communist.

The more we dive into the mess that is your comment, the more we realise you took no notice of the entire story.

[Ciaran Zagami]

I know I'm going to keep harping on about this but

How exactly did the Enclave follow you? as far as we know (despite the massive strings of christmas lights and really thin plywood walls) little lamplight is (in the lore) not only a very secretive location it's also well defended. If we go back there after the ambush we find no evidence of an Enclave attack, no evidence of forced entry anywhere else. This only leaves the front door which is again, covered by the thickest layer of radiation in the history of Fallout. Yes maybe they could have used Autum's magic anti-radiation pen but he still passed out when he used it, so I don't think having an entire team of power armoured soldiers just taking a nap in the literal heart of the supermutant's territory is a good idea.


Also I retract my point about Doctor Li. (I forgot she was in Fallout 4 and they explain that her field is mechanics for some reason, personally I consider it the writers covering their asses with both hands but w/e)


I also agree with Two Bears, Fallout 3's karma choices are (with one or two execptions) stupidly black and white.


As for the FEV. No one in the BoS knew the Enclave HAD such a bioweapon, and since the player is the only person who has access to the FEV is the PC if anyone needs to be stopped from entering project purity it's YOU. Even if the Enclave decided "Hey lets waste a whole battalion of soldiers just mushing random buttons to activate this purifier gizmo" It's just water and given how absolutely over powered Liberty Prime is theres really nothing the Enclave could have done to stop him.

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Zagami:

I know I'm going to keep harping on about this but

How exactly did the Enclave follow you? as far as we know (despite the massive strings of christmas lights and really thin plywood walls) little lamplight is (in the lore) not only a very secretive location it's also well defended. If we go back there after the ambush we find no evidence of an Enclave attack, no evidence of forced entry anywhere else. This only leaves the front door which is again, covered by the thickest layer of radiation in the history of Fallout. Yes maybe they could have used Autum's magic anti-radiation pen but he still passed out when he used it, so I don't think having an entire team of power armoured soldiers just taking a nap in the literal heart of the supermutant's territory is a good idea.

As I keep telling you the Enclave went through the vault door, not Lamplight, If you noclip through the door Autumn arrives through you will find the vault entrance chamber. They just landed a vertibird directly outside the door, did whatever they did to protect themselves from the rads and then just walked in, simple.

Originally posted by Zagami:

Also I retract my point about Doctor Li. (I forgot she was in Fallout 4 and they explain that her field is mechanics for some reason, personally I consider it the writers covering their asses with both hands but w/e)

Her field was always mechanics, water purifiers are machines after all.

Originally posted by Zagami:

As for the FEV. No one in the BoS knew the Enclave HAD such a bioweapon, and since the player is the only person who has access to the FEV is the PC if anyone needs to be stopped from entering project purity it's YOU. Even if the Enclave decided "Hey lets waste a whole battalion of soldiers just mushing random buttons to activate this purifier gizmo" It's just water and given how absolutely over powered Liberty Prime is theres really nothing the Enclave could have done to stop him.

Yes the BoS didn't know about the FEV but they still consider the Encalve a major threat and rival so the FEV is irrelevent here.

If the Enclave did manage to activate the puifier they would have near total control over the capitol wastes, FEV or no, and even if they couldn't without the code they would still be preventing the BoS from activating it instead. Lyons had three choices:

1)Let the Encalve win.

2)Allow the people to keep suffering without water.

3)Take the purifier by force.

I think he made the right choice.

And the Enclave did stop Prime, remember? They blew him up.

https://img00.deviantart.net/9b7f/i/2012/006/d/e/liberty_prime_by_darkspysrival-d4lia16.jpg

[Ciaran Zagami]

Your bringing in lore from the future that people at the time couldn't possibly know to justify them making out of character and rash decisions for the sake of an exciting climax.


Also as I said unconsciousness is an unfotunate side effect of whatever magic potion Autum used to survive project purity so they couldn't have used that. And Scribe Rothchild outright says that even being fully sealed in power armour is not enough to make it through to vault 87's front door.

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Zagami:

Your bringing in lore from the future that people at the time couldn't possibly know to justify them making out of character and rash decisions for the sake of an exciting climax.

Not sure what your refering to here, explain?

Originally posted by Zagami:

Also as I said unconsciousness is an unfotunate side effect of whatever magic potion Autum used to survive project purity so they couldn't have used that. And Scribe Rothchild outright says that even being fully sealed in power armour is not enough to make it through to vault 87's front door.

We don't know how exactly they got through the rads, but they did, and considering how advanced they are that's hardly a stretch. It's a crazy sci-fi world, not everything needs to be explained in agonizing technical detail for a story to be enjoyable.

[Ciaran Zagami]

"We don't know how exactly they got through the rads, but they did, and considering how advanced they are that's hardly a stretch. It's a crazy sci-fi world, not everything needs to be explained in agonizing technical detail for a story to be enjoyable." You also can't just declare plot armour and let a character do whatever they want for the sake of plot, considering this is an RPG I would expect at least a token explanation of the Enclaves magical ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Even if it's just technobable that has no real world functionality, it would still be better than the litteral nothing we got.

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Zagami:

"We don't know how exactly they got through the rads, but they did, and considering how advanced they are that's hardly a stretch. It's a crazy sci-fi world, not everything needs to be explained in agonizing technical detail for a story to be enjoyable." You also can't just declare plot armour and let a character do whatever they want for the sake of plot, considering this is an RPG I would expect at least a token explanation of the Enclaves magical ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Even if it's just technobable that has no real world functionality, it would still be better than the litteral nothing we got.

But it's irrelevent information that adds nothing to the plot, most people are content with just assuming they used some advanced sci-fi tech and just leaving it at that. Yes it's nice to have fluff text that explains little things but it's hardly a plot hole to not have it, it's optional.

For example, we don't need to know exactly how the Empire boarded Leia's ship in Star Wars, all we need to know is that they did.

If the Encalve got through the rads by riding magical unicorns from Equestria or something like that then you'd have a point, but it's pretty obvious they just whipped up some kind of super rad-x and used that instead, the specifics are unnessery.

There is a difference between being curious about background details and just declaring that it doesn't make sense just because it doesn't explain every single little detail.