I realized I never actually got around to writing down my various human headcanons of the Think Tank (before they became THE Think Tanks), so here it is! My headcanons are a mix of a little “Word of God” (aka, Chris Avellone), what we see in OWB canon and the environmental clues around Higgs Village and other areas in the DLC, some fun interpretations I’ve seen from others, and finally with a dash of “I like this just because”.
Dr. Klein
Chris Avellone described Klein as being like a “stuffy dean of a college”, so a lot of my headcanon factoids revolve around that strain of elitism and old school snootiness.
Klein likes everything to be high quality and fancy. You can kind of see glimpses of it in his charging station room and at his house in Higgs, with the paintings and Persian rugs. I always imagined him a little frou-frou, but in that classy, old man kind of way. Likes fine wines, good food, expensive whiskies, nice colognes, good quality cigarettes. Will outright refuse anything that he considers cheap or at the very least, will earn you a snarky insult.
As a result, the events and company parties at Big MT are quite nice because of Klein’s high standards. Rest assured, what Big MT lacks in workplace safety and ethics, makes up for excellent catering and party entertainment.
Never dresses down, except in private. But you best believe his pajamas are made of silk. I like to think he wears a nightcap to bed (the ones with the little ball at the end) only because it’s kind of silly looking.
Knows how to speak French fluently. A nod to how French used to be the major Lingua franca for scientific research but also because he loves his French wines.
Alcohol is Klein's biggest vice but he keeps his drinking in check most of the time. The only time his drinking becomes a problem is the rare times he’s sad about something. Depressed Klein just soaks in his bathtub for hours, with a wine bottle in hand.
Very much The Establishment. Old school, conservative way of thinking. A foil to Mobius’s more liberal, free-spirited ways.
Klein is very patriotic. Technically canon with Ulysses’s logs and the big ol’ flag at his house at Higgs, but I like to think out of all of the Think Tank members, he’s the one who really pushed for the military contracts at the start of the war out of a patriotic sense of duty and was a major force in changing the trajectory of Big MT. Gets along very well with Borous in that regard.
Klein’s patriotism stems from being part of a long line of government bureaucrats and military men, so he does genuinely think he’s doing questionable science for the good of his country.
His science specialty is chemistry, leaning more towards organic chemistry. I based it on the fact that you can find his glasses at a chemistry set at the Think Tank, but also because I like to think he’s responsible for the Cloud in Dead Money.
I like to think he was involved in the pharmaceutical industry before working at Big MT because Big Pharma Klein seems…right to me?
Super dry sense of humor. It’s not often when Klein cracks a joke, but when he does, nobody can really tell when he’s actually joking or not. But if you catch just a hint of a smirk, you know he found something humorous.
Used to be a university professor. Did not like teaching at all and was really only there for the research. He was reviled by every one of his students for being incredibly strict and condescending. Probably made a good number of students cry. Never go to his office hours, he’ll chew you out.
Klein is one of the most focused of the group. He can just wake up from bed and get to work right away. He can spend hours at the lab, laser focused on only one task. But he does appreciate winding down at the end of the day with a drink or two to help him relax from all the busy, stressful work. Do not interrupt Klein Wine Time, that time is sacred for him and he will not hesitate to yell at you if you do.
Will hold grudges FOREVER. And can be very petty, even for minor offenses.
Very fond of the color Klein Blue, which Mobius personally takes note of.
Knows how to rub shoulders with important people. His arrogance and self-assured demeanor are an asset when he’s busy trying to convince the military brass and investors with deep pockets that yes, giant insects and Robo-Scorpions are incredibly useful for the war time effort.
I think all members of the Think Tank struggle with their emotions, but Klein is the kind of person to suppress any and all emotion, especially negative ones. Can be very, very cold, even to people that he likes (like Mobius). For Klein, what matters most is the bottom line (winning the war with their inventions and scientific advancement, with some personal pride thrown in).
Klein has no hesitations in cutting corners when it comes to workplace safety so he can save funding for more “important” work. Does not feel sorry at all for any of the employees who die due to cost saving measures.
Also has no hesitation or qualms about the human experimentation at Big MT. Does not feel guilt because he never introspects about the horrors they’re committing. The prisoners at Little Yangtze might as well be things, as unimportant as paper clips, in order to achieve the company’s objectives.
because i have several thoughts i have accrued and they should be released into the world like a bird or perhaps a cazador....
they're all under the cut
i'll go left to right
everyone has autism btw
DALA
- age at tank: 35
- skipped forward several grades in school. got started at college ludicrously early. gotta have time for all those phds
- han chinese, youngest of 3 sisters. sort of an outlier in the family, not really as effeminate as her sisters, but extremely smart.
- has always collected teddy bears. they do NOT play about beanie babies
- i feel like she'd be from california originally
- had pcos as a human, enjoys being a tank due to lessened pain, but still misses the other stuff. eating. blinking. intercourse...
- she/they, definitely. very experimental about gender and such. dresses how she pleases. slings a mean strap
- very sociable, probably the most out of the tank, rivaled by mobius. went outside of big MT/higgs the most, until that was no longer an option.
- not very animated. doesnt move a lot, doesnt blink a lot. very enthusiastic abt things she likes, but her intensity is very still....not a lot of moving around. it doesnt rly occur to her that she "should" move. takes things at her own pace. stares.
- liked traveling, couldn't do it often.
- the other execs rarely ever viewed her as a "woman," really...and that suited her fine. she/they, you know. but she was never one to just disregard an ignorant comment whenever one would come their way.
- was treated quite well by their fellow execs, really. any mistreatment was from other employees or board members and was swiftly dealt with, either by virtue of her variety of achievements and accolades, or the respect of her colleagues, or....you know. one or two pockets of highly allergenic mold spores found under the offending party's desk. academia is a jungle and brother sometimes you gotta bring out the neurotoxins
0
- age at tank: 31. the youngest of the tank.
- i feel like he's a white latino for some reason but i don't know why
- only child. raised by his mom, i feel like his dad was absent a lot, but he's a real momma's boy. was told he was more special than other people as a child and never forgot it
- one year borous's junior. he went to a different school district until high school
- he had friends as a kid but nobody close. kind of in the background, not really popular but not an outcast. midcard classmate
- has hated mr. house since forever. would rant and plot and collect information about him just to hate on him more. sometimes, as a form of entertainment, other think tank members will ask him "oh, did you hear about what robco-" and yes he DID hear about robco and he will rant passionately about it for the next few hours
- has that kind of autism thats like....almost overly sarcastic. its sooo close to being normie speech but he just gets the little stuff wrong, hes too sassy abt it, just slightly too exaggerated..."this is how normal people talk, right?"
KLEIN
- age at tank: 59
- polish heritage, definitely
- also from california.
- i feel like he'd come from a military family, something with government connections. a very serious environment. i feel like he'd have gotten his position at big MT through some form of nepotism. that's not to say that he's incompetent, i'm sure he was perfectly competent at logistics and idea-ology.
- he worked his way up to head researcher through hard work and a pushy personality that resonated with the board of director's political leanings
- gaaaaaaaayyyyy but so deep in the closet he's found narnia
- abrasive, better people skills when tipsy. he and mobius had a good cop/bad cop sort of thing when talking to investors. he always saw himself as the good cop
- old man autism type A. hes just bitter and repressed abt everything. seems the most "normal" at first glance. kinda hates himself and thinks way too highly of himself at the same time. when u talk to him a little more that social weirdness starts leaking through the cracks...but one might not notice it if theyre not looking for it. hed be just a little weird to them, and they wouldnt know why. inverse of mobius.
8
-age at tank: 44
- mormon. older sibling out of many siblings. big family.
- from utah, kind of closer to colorado and wyoming. raised in a rural area. probably developed his interest in radio signals due to the relative isolation
- professional erotic arts connoisseur. oh baby
- strangely high charisma. normally he might come off as unsociable or even slightly creepy, but when he turns on the charm, it's hard to resist. not even other tank members know how he does it. it's not an invention or anything, either, he can just naturally set people at ease. but he doesn't often have a need for it, so it's rare he utilizes it.
- they call him doctor 8 inches
- big audiophile. pretty much canon but i can see him REALLY being a stickler about sound systems. if he had a car it'd be ridiculously tricked out. a home theater constructed by him would go hard. post-tank he'd probably work with movie theaters around new vegas to help with their sound...probably created synthesizers
- would go antiquing for rare records, tapes, what have you
- quiet autism. just kind of a mild guy. he likes what he likes and dedicates his time to that. when one goes out of their way to engage w him on his level he will reciprocate
BOROUS
*cracks knuckles*
- age at tank: 32. looks older than he is.
- ukrainian heritage, mother's side. father worked for the government.
- one year 0's senior. 0 was his only friend throughout high school.
- while betsy and richie were his primary bullies, he'd get bullied by a lot of other kids. with how uptight and zealous he was, he was an easy target.
- gabe was a gift, the only nice thing his father ever did for him. one day his parents came home with a dog from the shelter, said "this is gabe, he's your responsibility now"
- without borous around gabe was severely neglected. borous would go to a science camp for a few days, come back, gabe would have barely been fed, dehydrated, etc. gabe was the most important responsibility in borous's life.
- adding to that, he would absolutely sic gabe on small woodland creatures. tearing apart roadrunners and squirrels and especially any invasive species
- borous would definitely have kept animal parts in jars. periodically his parents would find them. his mom would throw them away, his dad would beat him and then throw them away. he always found ways to replenish them though. had a library of different animal parts in big MT, just not kept in his house. he'd often harvest new entries to the library in his basement, though. the grind never stops
- we're getting a little dark here but i think he'd work with the local wildlife services to hunt down and kill stray/feral cats. i feel like his passion for biology and ecology and his disposition would bring him to this conclusion. cats are an invasive species to the mojave, they disrupt the balance of the ecosystem, much like COMMIES invade our DEMOCRACY...they should be hunted down and killed and he funded part of his college this way. selling cat intestines to string instrument makers and such. that's my guy!!!!
- THEATRICAL autism. learned human interaction from movies. big, broad movements. theres a theater kid in there somewhere
- liked the narrators of movies, especially sci-fi shows and movies, because they were omniscient. far away from conflict, knowing everything, confident and essential, and nobody could beat them up or give them wedgies. modeled his speech patterns after them because of this.
- had sizable comic book collection
- i have a lot more but i want this list to have a semblance of balance lol. my special guy
MOBIUS
- age at tank: 59
- italian heritage. raised catholic, has the healthiest relationship to religion out of the tank
- pennsylvanian because i said so. would send letters to his mother from time to time.
- bisexual absolutely. very free-spirited, klein would call him a hippie on occasion.
- also like hippies, very experimental with substances. knows just how much of a dose to take of anything for every occasion.
- the most well-adjusted out of the tank. the good cop in his and klein's good cop/bad cop routine
- his morals, instead of deteriorating over time, only grew stronger. i imagine he was slightly more ignorant of ethics at the beginning of his employment, then sort of became more aware as time went on...culminating in his brain-zapping of everyone.
- not to say he wasn't dubious! he's quite dubious. you don't invent roboscorpions without being dubious
- old man autism type B. just a quirky guy. quirkiness is immediately noticed, but he doesnt rly hate himself for it so its just a part of his charm. odd guy. however, he almost seems the most "normal" past that. he is who he is and he accepts this. inverse of klein
GENERAL
- shortest to tallest: dala<mobius<klein=0<borous<8
- as time went on, they all grew closer. they became a sort of scientific hydra, at their most cooperative. company trips, they'd all go together. they were all neighbors in higgs, they were subject to a lot of gossip amongst the employees
- mostly isolated from the broader employee population, out of touch from their needs. made them perfect candidates for becoming tanks.
- becoming tanks wasn't completely their decision, it was mostly up to the shareholders, to keep the innovation (profits) flowing even after the world ended. it's not like they had anywhere else to go, anyway. keep making us money! get in the tank shinji
- i feel like they became tanks shortly after the great war...then employees either, fled the facility or died...i bet a few of them joined the enclave
- if you disabled their weapons, and took them far away from big MT....i don't think they'd be that dangerous. they'd need supervising, of course, but really...i think they'd be okay. i don't think they'd cause another apocalypse scenario without their laboratory. especially not with proper guidance about what the world is like now. they probably didn't have a good idea of what it was like even before they became tanks...i think they deserve to learn how to be human again. beats sitting in a crater for the rest of time
anyway those are my thoughts LOL you can kind of see some of these reflected in the fics ive written....mmm if i think of any more ill add them later yesh......
Full honesty? With no hostility towards you, Anon (because this is just one of those topics that gets me hot under the collar instantly): I think they're a group of antisocial, unfuckable, egotist losers who are all an unimaginable level of war criminal to boot. Nightmare blunt rotation, nightmare polycule, nightmare DND group. Nightmare everything. I would dread each and every second of interaction with any one of them like I would dread passing a kidney stone. Each of them, in their own unique way, is a textbook example of letting one's intellect or ambition trump their humanity.
Come the end of Old World Blues, I typically let Mobius live, as he's not much risk to anyone anymore, and he's already being punished quite a bit by living in squalor with a decaying body. He also appears to feel some modicum of guilt over the history of Big MT, a quality you don't see in the rest of the Think Tank. Sometimes I give him the Old Yeller, because he's just as culpable as the rest of them at the end of the day, but it doesn't feel good, because he's so feeble, and all he remembers is what he doesn't remember. He made some effort to fix things, to stop his friends from inflicting themselves on the world, but that can't take back the things he's already done.
When it comes to the others, however, I often can't resist the urge to straight-up clean house. They're a danger to the entire world as long as they continue to live. You cannot instill the kind of morality these people lack, and they often don't even have to try to hurt people. Their innate curiosity quite literally kills.
They need to pay for their crimes, if you ask me. The entirety of Big MT is strewn with the corpses and disembodied brains of those caught up in their whims, their personal insecurities.
In terms of the sort of takes people usually come to this blog for, Dr. 0 and Dr. 8 have mild potential, as I do like wormy patheticalness and isolating perversion in their own ways. I guess Dala could have a certain appeal to the "stab me and play in my guts", "gouge out my eye and literally skullfuck me" crowd. The whole gorecore thing isn't really my jam, though, so I'll leave that to the experts.
