The following is a tale from much earlier on in my Fallout journey, I am now 200 hours older and wiser than the naive babe who stumbled upon this sentry bot, and since many a mole rat, robot and raider have been buried by my gauss rifle. Even so, I hope you enjoy the following ancedote.
Another sweltering day in the Commonwealth as Dogmeat and I traversed our way past camps of scavengers and molerat dens in the search for food to provide for our blossoming colony. Pipe rifle in hand and leather harness strapped across my chest, I carefully crept up to a scrapyard and listened to Dogmeat’s whines of excitements as he sniffed out one military crate of cigarettes, some RadAway, and additional goods, eager to bring his findings back to me. As the dog attended to his own search, I scoured the scrapyard for clues as to its intended purpose and nature in the world before the bombs fell.
Reading a recorded interaction between former scrapyard employees “Dillan” and “Mike” I learned this mechanical graveyard was once home to fully functional military grade sentry bots. As I hadn’t seen any wandering the grounds, I assumed most of the robots had long since wandered on or gone fully defunct. Then I saw an interesting command. A prompt to activate a Combat Sentry Prototype that appeared, at least on the surface, to be in fully functional order. Every part of me said it was likely a bad idea to activate the robot. I did it anyway.
As I wandered back outside little had changed. Dogmeat was still pawing at the ground, the scrapyard was as quiet as when I first entered. Then I caught something, a glimmer of red light in the corner of my eye. I crouched and carefully approached the source of the light. It was the Sentry Bot. Though it warned me several times not to interfere with security operations, it appeared otherwise harmless and inert. I stood for a good minute wondering what was to be done with this hulking, fearsome piece of work I had just stumbled on. If there were some additional puzzles or clues as to its operation. I decided to insert the Sentry’s accompanying holotape into my Pip-Boy. Much to my delight, I now found I could boss the thing around.
The sentry prototype offered me with several US military structures in need of its supposed defense. While this seemed like a useful function, I was barely familiar with any of the locations it wanted to set off to. One point at least looked familiar, the USAF Satellite outpost Olivia. It was the site where a Raider had once blown me up with a rocket. Then later the site where a Raider shot me in the back. Then the site where a Raider dog tore out my throat. You get the idea.
I ordered the sentry to the satellite with the edging anticipation of righteous vengeance. “Those raiders don’t stand a chance against this thing” I thought to myself. I squirmed in my seat as the Sentry bot told me it was initiating defense protocols, a dance of excitement in my pants as it mapped the path to the satellite. Then, with all the fanfare of a sparkler on the fourth of July, nothing happened.
I jumped back into my Pip-Boy. I ordered it once more to the satellite. I listened to its command protocols initiate once more. I watched once more as it did nothing. I cleared the debris from in front of it and ordered Dogmeat some distance away, believing perhaps the sentry’s pathing could easily be obstructed much like the early Apple Maps app. Once more the sentry did nothing. I demand it give me an explanation. It told me not to interfere with security operations.
So it was time for a change in plans. I once more ordered it to my desired destination, and set off on my own, figuring if I got a good distance away the sentry would surprise me by following in my steps or better yet, mysteriously teleport to the desired locale. I snuck up to the satellite station and fired my opening shot. A feeling of smugness knowing backup would arrive any second to deliver upon these raiders righteous fury. That backup never came. I was dead in an instant.
So if walking wouldn’t work, perhaps fast travel would work? Holotape. Orders. Protocol. Initiating. Do Not Interfere with Security Operations. I fast travel to the satellite. I look behind me. The good news was the Sentry bot had moved, the bad news, it some how teleported into the middle of a highway barrier. I walked a decent enough distance away from both the satellite and the sentry bot so I could fast travel to the satellite once more. Once I finally made it back to the satellite there was no sign of the sentry, though I did discover one fatally injured Raider waiting for me to pick her off. “Perhaps the sentry did its job after all.” Though scavenging the battleground afterwards revealed a very different story, a story that involved bloatfly corpses and molerat corpses and raider corpses and dog corpses. Things had certainly killed other things here, my sentry just had no part in it.
At the top of the satellite tower I jumped into VATS to scour the horizon and low, found my sentry robot halfway into town, in the exact opposite direction of where I told it to go. I got up close and personal to the sentry. If it wasn’t going to listen to my orders there was only one option left.
It was time for the self destruct.
I may not be getting a cool robot, but I was at least going to collect my damn robot parts. I ordered it to explode. I waited. Nothing happened. The damned thing was just as flippant when it came to suicide as it was with homicide,. I ordered it once more to blow up. Once more nothing happened. I shot at it. It got angry. It exploded. I briefly watched Dogmeat launch into outer space before my arm was torn off in bloody glory in the wake of the sentry’s localized nuclear blast.
This would be the last time, I decided. Pip-Boy. Holotape. Self destruct. I ran a good distance. I waited and waited. Want to take a guess as to what happened next? That’s right. Nothing. I remembered the last time the catalyst for the explosion was me shooting it. I fired. It got angry. It turned its weapons towards me, but it wasn’t blowing up. Fuck. I fucked up.
I braced for the worst. I had died so many times near this damned satellite outpost already what did once more matter? Then a miracle happened. A spark of electricity. A mushroom blast. The sentry bot was done.
I ran up to the wreckage and collected what seemed to be piddling spoils for everything I had gone through. Still, the sentry bot was out my life and I would never have to deal with it again.
This event, I thought, was very quintessentially Bethesda.
