Errand Boy @institutegun-blog - Tumblr Blog

your wife got what she had coming. if she had interest in you, then clearly she deserved everything she got...

“You wanna know what happened to the man that killed my wife? You wanna know exactly how much pain he was in as I ripped him apart before I finally let that son of a bitch die?”

“Say one more fucking word about her and you’ll find out first hand.”

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You ever thought maybe ya shoulda just killed both the parents? The way they ended up going about everything... The resentment of their kid that led to him unleashing them on you... REally. They were better off dead anyway.

“Would have lost the best employer I’ve ever had if I did that..”

“So the kid doesn’t like me… I’ll live. Lived before I met him… He’s got one parent still alive which is more than most out here can say..”

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You became everything he expected... Everything you did... Just another part of the wasteland, exactly what your father expected. Maybe he should have tried harder to kill you and your mother.

“… I don’t know who the fuck you think you are…”

“But I’m nothin’ like what my old man expected. He didn’t think anythin’ of me or mom. He thought I’d be trash. Nothing. Dead in a gutter by twenty.. But I made somethin’ of myself and now I’m workin’ with the best payin’, most notorious names in the world. I’m infamous… I’m more than Dad ever was.”

And if he could he’d bring that fucker back and make him pay for ever laying a hand on him or his mom.

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Sarah would understand what you've done. Of course she would- you don't live in this world that long and not know what it comes down to... life or death... Mary would have ended up the same way.

“Yeah… You’re probably right.”

“I would’ve taught her how to hold a gun soon as she was strong enough to use it on her own. I never would have let her be a doormat like the folks out here. She would’ve been a tough girl. Like her mama. I could tell even back then… But she never got the chance. No sense wastin sleep on ‘what if’s…”

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Is there anything that could make Kellogg TRY to be a better man, more moral or just doing more of the 'right' thing in the long run? Or would it just be manipulation?

With the way his life is right now?… Hard to say. He’s 108 years old. He’s been through a lot of shit. He sees his time to put anything good in the world as long since over and is just kind of… Waiting to die. And he’s oddly okay with that?

Maybe if, by some miracle, he found somebody he deemed worth this time and had someone important in his life again.Someone worth giving something to, someone worth making the world a better place for.

But he doesn’t see that as possible for himself any more. And he sure as hell doesn’t think he deserves a second chance at a family.

The closest thing to development in any positive direction has come from interactions with @fromlandtosea formerly on @lastofthepast-archive (seriously. I reread these threads with these two a lot because they get into some deep stuff) but I wouldn’t consider their ‘relationship’ healthy the way it is and despite what feelings he may or may not have formed towards her, they are no where near getting along. They’re the perfect example of “toxic” and I love it.

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Headcanon: Since fine jewelry is hard to come by in this day and age, he and Sarah never had wedding rings. Otherwise he would have taken hers with him after she passed. They didn’t have many material possessions to speak of but to remember them both he does have a little baby shoe that he carries with him on his travels. He tied it to a string and he sometimes wears it around his neck. It’s terribly worn out over all these years but he will never get rid of it. He kept all of her clothes for a while too but he ended up giving them to another kid who needed them more…

Anyone who touches it is at serious risk of losing their fingers. Some poor fucker lost the shoestring and got his hand broken.

seems like every time I want to be active on this muse... life goes to shit or just gets really busy and makes a liar out of me.

#ooc

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((Random Headcanon:

When Kellogg and Synth Shaun were living in Diamond City he never told anyone he was the kid’s father but everyone just kept assuming he was. Just to keep up appearances, he signed Shaun up for classes at the local school and the teacher and the robot always referred to Kellogg as his “father” and his “dad”. He never argued it because he didn’t want to seem suspicious but he also never confirmed it. And Shaun only ever called him “Mr. Kellogg”. But of course things were strange whenever he’d go to grab the kid from school and the teacher would tell him how well “His boy” was doing and that he should be proud.

Of course it was always awkward when people asked him where Shaun’s Mother was…

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Obviously he's tied to the Institute, but how does he feel about the other factions? Has he at all taken on missions in handling certain ops against the railroad that you imagine?

Bunch of losers

Heheh. I’m joking, but only barely.

Conrad is a very cynical man disguised as a realist. He sees the world in all its greys but doesn’t see that grey area as a good thing. He views the world as an evil out to constantly fuck you over and you have to take care of yourself because no one else will.

Because of this he thinks the factions that take care of others are a joke. The Minutemen and the Railroad specifically. The railroad sacrifices dozens of human lives in this crusade to help maybe a handful of synths lead peaceful lives. They wipe memories and end up putting those synths in even more danger than they would be if they were allowed to know what they are forever. What happens when people start to realize that the new guy in the settlement doesn’t age? What happens when the new gal meets a fella and she can’t remember her life when he asks her about it? They take the synth’s personality and reprogram them to think whatever they want. And somehow they don’t see how that’s a bad thing that will really fuck them over down the line.

And the minutemen are the commonwealth’s babysitters, taking care of folks who can’t take care of themselves. Building houses and agriculture for people when the resources to do so were around them all along and they could have taken care of their damn selves if they bothered. They take the “protecting the commonwealth” thing and over blow it into “spoon-feeding the commonwealth”.

The only ones he’s a little on board with are the Brotherhood. They have cool toys, they don’t take any shit and they get the job done. They’re similar to the institute in a lot of ways with the whole “saving the world from itself” thing. Not that Kellogg’s a big fan of the institute. He thinks they’re all hypocrites and assholes. Making themselves feel better saying they’re “helping” people but in reality they’re all thieves and murderers.

He might be also, but at least he’s honest about it.

In terms of has he dealt with them on missions? Hell yeah. But mostly the Railroad. The Minutemen aren’t really a threat to the institute and the Brotherhood wasn’t in town until just before the institute gets defeated so they weren’t always a problem. But he was something the Railroad feared for a long time. Just as feared as a courser except he had years of experience that you couldn’t program into a machine. He had instincts and could understand humans better than a synth could. He was more deadly on a human level.

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I said this a long time ago but:

I like to think Kellogg was living in Diamond city with Synth Shaun for several months. Long enough to need to enroll him in the school so it wouldn’t seem suspicious. He would do “normal” stuff with the kid so people wouldn’t start asking questions. Get food together, walking Shaun to school, play catch if Kellogg was in an exceptionally good mood and Shaun asked enough times.

So, naturally, when people inevitably talked to the boy they referred to Kellogg as his “dad”. Like when he’d show up to grab Shaun from school his teacher would say “Your dad’s here to take you home.” or something along the lines.

Kellogg never corrected them but he never said he was either. He just avoided the topic all together.

couriers-mile

Alternate Kellogg Story Arc

Maybe I should just write a fic one day. But for now, here’s what I came up with over the course of three or four cigarettes for how I’d have liked to see Kellogg’s story play out. IT’S FULL OF TROPES AND I’M NOT SORRY.

● Extending Kellogg’s direct involvement in the main quest before Fort Hagen.

● Kellogg turning up at crucial moments in main quests or even side quests until you go to Fort Hagen to deal with him directly (like What’s His Nuts stealing your dragon souls in the Dragonborn DLC). He’s trying and kill you, first by sabotaging you (disabling an elevator, putting a group of enemies on alert), then by ambushing you with synths, and finally by opening fire on you himself as he grows a little desperate.

● Because he doesn’t initially think of you as TOO much of a threat, but he’s a pragmatist and he doesn’t take chances. Especially remembering what HE did to the people who took HIS kid from him.

● Encounters with him in the “opening fire on you himself” stage force you to temporarily abandon your objective and flee the zone, because he’s too powerful for you to even think about taking on.

● If you start getting tough enough or brave enough to fire back he rolls a fucking Nat 20 in escape artist and slips right through your fingers.

● All this and some choice taunts he drops in the encounters adds up to you actually having a very personal grudge by the time you get to Fort Hagen. He’s legitimately your arch nemesis.

● Nick turning up informants who can shovel over a few key details about Kellogg’s past prior to Fort Hagen so you go in knowing already that you and Arch Nemesis Kellogg are two sides of a coin. Worse, that Kellogg may be the spectre of Sole’s future self if they allow the Wasteland and the fate of their family to poison them with bitterness and misanthropy.

● Dialogue happens when Kellogg is hanging onto the last thread of his life. He can’t fight anymore and he’s telling you to get it over with. He understands what you need to do. Just do it.

● A hard dialogue check to take him alive, you playing the ruthless pragmatist (“you’re going to come with me, and you’re going to answer some questions, even if I have to drag you out of here using those bullet holes as handholds”) and subtly playing to his survivalist nature by letting him think that if he gives up for now he can plot his escape later when he’s not bleeding so much.

● An even harder check to appeal to what’s left of his humanity, which wouldn’t have worked at all if you’d met him years ago, before playing surrogate dad to Shaun and watching your determined struggle to save your child awakened old pains and memories that have begun to soften him just a little, just enough that some part of him wishes it weren’t too late to change.

● Bonus dialogue from companions, particularly those who are on their own redemption quests, adding their thoughts on whether it’s not too late for Kellogg to give it a shot or they think you should just shoot him already.

● If you fail the check he uses the last of his strength to begin shooting at you again, either to force your hand and make you end him or to try and end you while you’re distracted with the whole hero shtick. You’ll never know. You have to kill him at this point.

● If you take him alive he’s a snarky prisoner. You can make it clear that you’re punishing him. All he has left to be proud of at this point in his life is his skill and his undefeated status, and now not only have you defeated him, not only are you more skilled with him, he has to live with that.

● He’s pretty reticent about Institute intel, but he will reveal a little of what he knows that is relevant to your current main quest when you talk to him.

● If we hAD A KARMA SYSTEM, your karma gradually affects his attitude toward you.

● Bad karma makes him respect you early on, commenting that you’re a tough mother fucker and if he had to be outfoxed and outgunned eventually, at least it’s you. But in the long run you’re just another wasteland asshole. Near the end of the main quest you return to find he’s made good on his escape and is already long gone (and he stole some of your supplies on the way out, sucka.)

● With good karma he picks on you like all the time early on because he thinks you’re some dumb shit, naive wide eyed idealist. Maybe you had enough grit in you to best him, but you’re in over your head. Sooner or later the harsh reality of the Wasteland is gonna break you, and you’ll either give up, die, or become him. But you don’t, and he starts to respect you. Just a bit.

● Then he starts to sorta like you. He’s rooting for you. And that’s so weird to him.

● Near the end of the main quest his sentence is up. He tells you that he’s had a lot of time to think about things while he’s been stuck with you. He’s had time to think about his many regrets, and the fact that just REGRETTING them doesn’t mean shit. It’s past time for him to do something worthwhile with his life, like you have. It’s past time for him to make amends for doing to you what was done to him. And maybe he can’t in a million years make that up to you. But he’s going to try. He’s going to go out into the Wasteland and be a better man, and make amends by doing good.

● You get another hard speech check to tell him you’re willing to give him a shot at redemption by fighting at your side. If you succeed he becomes available as a companion for the last several main quests. After that – or if you fail – he leaves for good to go try and turn his life around.

● If you feel like being contrary you can just shoot him in the back on his way out the door.

● “Like I’d ever forgive you for Nate/Nora, dickwad.”