The one thing i didn't particularly like about the lonesome road dlc is that it establishes this entire backstory for your character where the mystery of who you were before never felt all that compelling to me because being shot in the head was a "fresh start" to be whoever you want to be. I understand for the lore of the game and story though why its established and how it doesn't really impact what decisions you make from then on unless you want it to. But building a whole as trading route mever ever felt like what my chem-addicted, gun nut, psycho shooter courier was capable of even without a brain injury. 😂
[Alt Dead Money Version] **Courier looks in his Pip-Boy inventory, seeing how little he has to work with.** **The gates to the Sierra Madre creak in the howling wind.** **The Courier desperately fiddles with a radio, trying the turn it off before his collar explodes. He then punches it three times, causing it to break.** **The Madre vault's terminal begins to flicker, before Elijah appears on screen.** It's Elijah!!!! It's Elijah!!!! **The Courier is holding a knife spear, standing over a broken radio when he turns to see Elijah on the screen.** *_What???_* **Elijah smirks, thinking that he'll finally steal the treasure of the Sierra Madre.** Alright, Courier, you have two options here. You can let go, or you can be greedy. Those are your two choices. Choose wisely. So, what's it going to be, huh, huh? Let go? (Lego) Or be greedy? (Bee grid) **The vault terminal turns off.** **The Courier, with a sack of 37 gold bars over his shoulder, activates a Stealth Boy and vanishes.** **Elijah is seen walking into the vault and the door closes behind him.** **The Courier dances in the center of the villa. Dean, Christine, and Dog look on in confusion.** **The Courier continues dancing as he stands in front of the Sink Central Intelligence Unit, selling every last gold bar and letting go of poverty.** **Two ghost people look at the Courier in confusion.** **The Courier stands there, holding two sacks of caps in either hand.** **The end slide is a collage of pictures, including a ghost person, Elijah wearing a dunce cap, a gold bar, and an image of a piece of graffiti saying "I left my heart in the Sierra Madre".** _And that's the tale of the Sierra Madre Sucker..._
I have my own interpretation of this video, but I might be reading into it way too much. The main idea seems to be about technology and what it allows us to create together, specifically in regards to the internet with touches of meme culture throughout. The overlaid imagery and trance music in the beginning evokes a feeling of overwhelming information density, while still being somehow rhythmic and managable. The sequence with the winding, twisting, multicolor corridor with the door at the end leading out to characters as they "load up cyberspace" feels like the screen is acting as a window into cyberspace/the internet. The next sequence is the soundboard of memes making music, little bits of popular videos cut up and turned into something new. It ends with the sudden tragedy of the rabbit being shot, a shock to those not expecting it. We sleep soundly after our initial shock and surprise at the event, and the test run is over (now to go for the olympic gold). Immediately the next sequence is intense and overwhelming, with a bit of an unsettling horror element before it switches to a melancholic spooky tone. The images during this spooky section evoke a feeling of liminality and/or a disaster having occurred, potentially alluding to a general unease in the world that technology has facilitated. Think along the lines of mass production, resource drain, increased emissions, etc. We switch to a person (or persons?) taking still shots of their shadow in the same position in different locations, a large number of them stitched together into a video. Much like the 'photo every day' videos that used to be popular, this evokes a certain worldly aspect of humanity that is seldom expressed today. There is just something unique about videos like that; many images strung together over a large period of days or locations, all different but with the overall theme of "I am **here**. I am doing **this**," it is very human. I honestly don't know what the spongebit with biblical text in the background means, maybe something to do with hubris (or 'god' in an archetypal sense), but the mouse inhaling then screaming in the next shot is the same mouse from earlier sleeping soundly after the scene with the rabbit. I believe this is an allegory for us humans experiencing a small danger with our technology, but we ignore it, and before we know it we've built it up and rely upon it, but because we did not address the initial danger we now must deal with the consequences, thus the increasing intensity in the video. The 'spooked ya' sequence is meant to be unsettling, a really slow build up to pretty much seemingly nothing, then right after the joke is sprung the audio and visuals go ballistic. Then it's a lot of colors, inverted and regular, alternating visuals, and aggressive sounds. Towards the end of this sequence the music and images shift back and forth aburptly a few times as an entity appears at first far away in an image then moves closer before finally finishing in the normally intense way. The screen is hit by a kid with a bat and the video ends (or does it?). There is a little stark-white man in the static at the end. He's *inside* the screen, *behind* the static. He's trying to get our attention, but he cannot. He reaches out, and the video ends. Is this where our technology has lead us? The creation of little men stuck behind screens, trapped, yet trying to reach out and touch our world? Should we reach back? Allow them to touch us, our world? Have we, through ignorance or through pride, stumbled onto a technology that is truly beyond us? What level of technological intensity will follow this lull? I shudder to think of the consequences of our actions. I'm probably way (WAY) off base, but it's fun to think about. Great video regardless, can't believe it has less than 400 views.
I hate Lonesome Road. It completely undermines the idea of the courier as a blank slate for the player to imagine. Now you're someone who did important things in the past, things you have no say in when you start the game. It's similar to the problem of Fallout 4's protagonist being either a former soldier or his lawyer wife.
They were a courier before they got shot in the head. They just delivered some shit. Now one guys mad that they delivered some shit in the past. I've heard this blank slate thing in the past, but the courier was someone before they got their brains rearranged: A courier.
Literally the most it says is that the Courier traveled around a lot in New California, that's it. There's nothing in Lonesome Road that isn't already implied from dialogue in the base game and other DLC. I don't see why delivering the package from Navarro to the Divide was any different than just another job, the significance Ulysses gives it is just his way to cope with what was an accident. It's not like the Courier set off the nukes in the Divide themselves, the dipshit NCR did long after our character had left. When Ulysses starts calling the Divide your home, the only response your character can give is confusion because he's wrong. It's not like the Courier doesn't remember their past, Ulysses is just crazy.
"you gotta pick one or the other, you can't shut down what's been started" "what if i want to nuke both" "i just told you, y-... what. What did you just say" "why don't you sit this one out bud, let me show you how it's done"
