#fallout harkness

[distractedrighter]

Butch’s slur list he keeps for Harkness

[cyprith]

If that Harkness is the Harkness I think it is, New Vegas is about to pop off.

Wild (spoilers? Future psychic spoilers?) theorizing below the cut:

Story-wise (and I am about to take a huge leap so bear with me) I want to place my bets now:

If that Harkness is A3-21/the former head of RivetCity Security, then we might just know which Fallout 4 ending just became canon.

I think we're seeing the result of the Brotherhood siding with the Railroad against the Institute and evolving into a chapter that is okay with/protective of/run by synths. That's why the Brotherhood in the show is so frusterated by the Commonwealth Brotherhood appearing to not play ball with them; they're protecting their synth members that the older faction of the Brotherhood would feel inclined to contain/destroy.

Hank McClain is making Yes-Man.

He keeps failing with the chips, over and over. The CHIPS themselves clearly work but flesh is too fragile to contain it. He needs something more durable... like a securitron. Especially if he wants to come for House, he is going to need a means to break into his system like Benny did. (And what is more Vault Tech coded than a Yes Man who can't say no to management?)

But securitrons are simple. They can't really problem solve on the fly. They only follow programming. Fallout New Vegas was never super explicit but I always had a theory that Yes Man and Victor are so different from the other securitrons because they have android chips (like the kind you loot from dead synths) instead of the standard securitron software. That's why it's so worrying at the end of an independant New Vegas run when Yes Man tells you he is updating his programming to be more assertive. He is downloading free will. (a thing androids demonstrably can obtain but standard securitrons don't have or even really have the capability to want).

I think this is also the reason why we don't see the face on the securitron in the opening. We are meant to assume it's Victor because he is so symbolic of the franchise, but I think someday soon we're gonna see my boy 🥹

That's why Harkness was such a deliberate choice. He's an android from an older installment of the franchise so not everyone would instantly recognize him as a synth. But at the same time, the existence of androids = the existance of android chips = the ability to make a securitron that can hack the Lucky 38.

Hank McClain is about to become the Courier.

[proserpinewrites]

Six+ Sentences Not-Sunday

Tagged by @its-a-humanriot, sorry that I took so long to respond. 

Tagging @ellietheewriter, @fuzzydreamin, and @mentatsandsunshine, but only if you have something you’d like to share.

---

One day I may finish this, which has the working title of Harkness’ No Good, Bad, Terrible Time in the Mojave. Set in the same universe as you who wish to conquer pain, after Harkness heads west away from the Institute’s reach once Zimmer is sent away from Rivet City.

---

The drink must have been drugged, that was his only logical conclusion in the aftermath. Getting tipsy took serious effort with the way he was built, and getting blackout drunk? Hell, he would have had to drink the whole saloon dry and then some. A Courser might have to mingle a little amongst the wastelanders to gather information for a search, so certain allowances were made in their programming and construction to make them blend in. He could get tipsy, but not properly drunk. Most chems and poisons moved through his body like water. He ate and drank like any human, he slept, but could go without all three of those things far longer than any human being in a pinch. After all, it wouldn’t do for the hunter to be hindered by simple physical needs whilst in pursuit of a rogue synth. In testing, Zimmer had found that removing the capacity for pain and the relief of said pain with medication made for a sub-par Courser with an unfortunate tendency to go mad. Med-X worked on his kind, but he had a terrifying tolerance for it.

That jackass in the checkered coat had probably dosed his drink expecting that it would be enough to kill his target. The shooting? Well, that was slapdash and spur of the moment. The move of a man trying to save face and the operation he was running in one fell swoop. At the very least, he was still drugged enough that the wounds he received barely hurt once he crawled out of that shallow grave. His memory went blank for a few blessed days after that. There were very few kindnesses offered to a synth by their maker. This must have been one of those. The elderly wasteland doctor probably expected more gratitude from someone he nursed back from the brink. Instead he got a suspicious glare, one word answers to all of his questions, and Harkness walking out the door with what few possessions that checkered jackass had left him after dumping him in the earth. This man had dug a bullet out of his brain, there was no telling just what he might have seen lurking in the shadows of the Institute’s handiwork. Harkness didn’t intend to find out either. He wasn’t actively bleeding, most of his faculties were intact, and he had a job to do. Well, two jobs now that someone had stolen his damned package.

He needed ammo and other supplies before he headed further into the desert, and someone had helpfully emptied his pockets of caps. So he was going to have to barter, because it was highly unlikely that anyone in this tiny shit-hole of a town had any work worth doing. Supplies, then info if he could get it, and most likely he was going to have to go without basic human amenities for a while. Not for the first time, he cursed Zimmer’s insistence on realism in his prototypes. Older coursers didn’t feel hunger, thirst, or exhaustion. He did, but at Father’s insistence none of those things would actually kill him. Fucking scientists. The general store owner stared wide eyed at him from the moment he stepped in the door, like a radstag caught short by a flashlight beam. This was precisely why he hated small towns. Anything and everything was news, spread around like Brahmin shit on a farm within minutes. That had to be it. Regardless, he didn’t have time for trifling bullshit.

“I need microfusion cells and 5.56 mm rounds.” He said, fishing through his pack for something worth trading. Not stimpacks, he’d need those. Someone had put some Med-X in with his things, probably the doctor who had patched him up. The shopkeeper hadn’t replied in a solid minute, so Harkness looked up at him with a frown.

“You’re the dead guy.” The man said, eyes wide as saucers.

“Do I look dead to you?”

The younger man looked, if anything, even more unsettled than he had before.

“You crawled out of a grave.” He pointed out, blinking owlishly.

Harkness sighed.

Jason Harkness was not a man inclined towards thievery or willful criminal activity. There had been a a time when he had had a deep well of patience to draw from when dealing with humans. That time was so far in his past now that it felt like those past life memories that religious folk and chem addicts babbled about. It would be simpler to pull a gun on the man to get what he needed, faster too. His fellows back at the Institute with their black leather trench coats and curtailed freedom would have chosen that route immediately. Hell, half the human population would too in a pinch. But something in him felt painfully wrong when he transgressed from the brand of morality that he had built for himself, like an alarm ringing directly in his ear for hours or days on end. A twinge in a soul he wasn’t sure that he even had, given his origins. So instead, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes for half a heartbeat like a friend had taught him to do years before. When the irritation passed, he opened them again.

“Listen, I just need to buy some ammo. I’ve gotta check in with my bosses in Primm, figure out who shot me. Can we trade or not?”

Five boxes of unneeded 10mm ammo and one of his few bandannas later, he had enough ammo to feel comfortable heading to Primm. Well, reasonably comfortable. He had a migraine the size of New California and had spent ten minutes nursing a nosebleed as Chet the shop-keep tallied up their trade, but he wasn’t dead yet. You had to take what victories you could in this life, after all.

[harveybwabbit92]

[ Branwen and Charon are escorted to the Rivet City holding cells by Harkness. There they find Butch sitting alone; playing card flip, he sees them and smiles sheepishly.]

Branwen: What did you do?

Butch: Okay, I'll tell ya, but ya can't get mad at me.

Branwen: What. Did. You. Do.

Butch: Well first, I was just minding my own business-

Charon & Branwen: Bullshit!

Butch: I was!

[kaybrandchaos]

hi! really enjoyed the danse sketch you did before, can I request Harkness (FO3) in the moth wings palette? thank you!

Turns out, I’ve always been a synth simp XD

[artistsoftheapocalypse]

Hi all! Very excited to see so many artists this week and a very fun start to Halloween month and really enjoying all the art so far 😃

Can I request a mysterious Harkness in Snow Queen? Thank you!

[ Sketched by @fanthings , colored by @bexatomarama ]

If anyone asks, he lost a bet.

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

May I please ask for: Couple: Deacon and Harkness; “My dear, my darling, love of my life….” – “What do you want?”; Romantic/(un)Professional mix (AU where Harkness joined the Railroad after Rivet City was destroyed); they're also both poly-involved with my OC Nate Charles, who is also a Railroad agent and who knew the human Harkness pre-War in the Army, from whom synth Harkness's memories were sourced. Thank you!

Why is Deacon on the floor?

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

I would like to please request Harkness (Fo3) with A3-21's plasma rifle (Fo3), both findable with picture references on the wiki. Thank you for your consideration.

Picking off ferals from the other side of the bridge... well, there are worse ways to wile away an afternoon on watch.