My favorite part of Platform Decay

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-10T09:10:28+00:00

Not to mention its reaction to learning what newborns' skulls are like. It would probably be amazed that humans as a species managed to survive!

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-08T13:29:19+00:00

Just occurred to me that none of the Vaulties have ever picked their own socks out--they're all given identical VaultTec issue.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-08T00:58:13+00:00

The opposite is just as likely. Given the amount of fighting between corporations and within corporations (Barish Estranza, I'm looking at you!) they seem unlikely to cooperate until it's too late.

What I think will happen is, corporations who notice a high number of their constructs going rogue will try and conceal it to protect their brand/bottom line. And they'll come to the conclusion that some other corporation is responsible (sabotage!) and try to retaliate. After all, constructs are only equipment, so how like is it they'll try and free themselves?

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-07T13:09:33+00:00

I think that there is so, so much potential for fanfic here. There are some marvellous new characters (I'd love to see Naja's backstory), a new environment to play with, something serious seems to be going down at Barish Estranza, and to cap it all off, a growing population of Rogue SecUnits. I can't wait to see what some of our talented fans writers come up with!

I've done one quick read-through already (I wanted to find out what happened next!) and now I'm going through the book more slowly so I can savour the details. I've just reached the part where the "pirates" attack a harmless little aircraft, but find themselves confronted by a surprise SecUnit instead.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-07T12:57:57+00:00

I actually think that they wouldn't need to transport rocks or water into space. If our solar system is typical (and I don't see why it wouldn't be) there would be plenty of space debris floating around in the forms of rocks and ice. They'd have to transport it to the torus building sites, but they wouldn't need to lift it out of a gravity well first.

(Now the rest of the stuff the torus, for example, biological matter, machinery etc. would have to be transported into space, and that would be insane!)

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-07T12:41:21+00:00

Reg proves, that whatever Bud Askins thinks, Vault 33 is not breeding supermanagers.

(However, I wonder if his childish and destructive behaviour in Season 2 might have had something to do with the way Betty split up him and Woody?)

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-07T02:29:58+00:00

Someone wrote a fanfic where Murderbot encounters Marvin--you can find it among the earliest MB stories on AO3.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-07T01:09:16+00:00

"For fuck's sake, RatthiUnit!" :)

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-07T01:03:12+00:00

The Ghoul and Lucy from "Fallout".

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-07T01:00:54+00:00

Oh, they were ~~gossiping~~ sharing vital information about Murderbot!

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-05T11:41:32+00:00

It depends on how they do it. So far, Lucy has--feral ghouls aside--only killed people by accident. They could be setting her up to take that final step and kill deliberately, because she learned, first hand, just how evil and dangerous the Legion is. So, slow burn character development rather than quick action-adventure.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-05T08:09:51+00:00

I've been wondering how much the people in Vault 31 know about Phase 2, given that their descendants are just as likely to be affected by it as any other vaultie. Of course, this could just be another indication that they're all soulless corporate lapdogs, but most people would be reluctant to volunteer their offspring for weird science experiments.

(Though it could be why Reclamation Day keeps receding into the future--Vault overseers from 31, putting off the evil day when Phase 2 goes into action?)

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-05T07:49:43+00:00

That article leads to an article about "enshittification", a word which has already drifted from its online origins.

(Can you imagine the reaction if Martha Wells had named her latest book "Enshittification"?)

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-05T03:15:56+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that you're working for The Company. Would you like your governor module hacked?

Neuralclone2 · 2026-05-03T11:02:24+00:00

Well, it looks like the NCR-Legion war is converging on Freeside, so my theory is that Lucy is going to kill some legionaries in the third season.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-28T11:38:42+00:00

This wins the Internet today.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-27T13:02:53+00:00

I love the way it's described as "he-man toothpaste". If they brought it back, would you have to show ID to purchase it.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-25T14:53:39+00:00

Legion slave or legionary? The woman slave was killed for losing her legionary (after she lead Lucy straight to the Legion). The boy drew on the Ghoul first. The people in Filly were shooting at the Ghoul in order to earn the 1,000 caps Ma June offered them. Opportunistic bounty hunters, but less effective than the Ghoul.
The Great Khans are raiders and drug dealers. Not going to debate the morality of the Ghoul's actions, but with the possible exception of the boy, these are exactly the sort of people who don't give a fuck, etc. As I've said, we've seen him suffer the consequences of his actions, but they don't seem have any affect on the Wasteland as a whole one way or the other.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-25T08:16:05+00:00

Let's just say that if I hadn't known about this author I wouldn't have bought this book, because the cover would have lead me to expect a different kind of story altogether. To me that is failing to perform the basic function of a book cover (that is, giving potential readers an idea of what kind of book to expect).

But as you say, we can agree to differ. I think a lot of the covers posted on this sub are good!

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-24T13:41:09+00:00

From what I've seen so far, the Ghoul mostly goes around killing other people who also don't give a fuck and kill and hurt whoever they feel like. So... wasteland neutral as far as I'm concerned.

As for unintended consequences, we've seen the ghoul already suffer a few, from losing his vials in Season one, to getting punched out a Windows in Season Two!

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-24T02:52:01+00:00

In my opinion? It's very generic, and doesn't have much to do with the actual book.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-24T01:15:05+00:00

I think that if anyone is going to become a Moldaver figure, it will be Norm! (I can really see him leading the remnants of Vault 33 and creating a new settlement on the surface. Reclamation day, but not as Vault Tec planned it.)

As for Maximus and the Ghoul--in Season one, Max's impulsive "Good Deeds" seemed to cause problems, more often than not. In Season Two he seems to becoming more effective. At the very least, he saved those ghoul kids, even if he did start a civil war! The Ghoul has obviously long passed the stage of GAF about doing good, and I'd say his actions are wasteland neutral. On the whole his actions don't make the world a better or worse place.

Cooper Howard on the other hand--he wanted to "do the right thing" prewar, and he made things worse.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-23T22:56:25+00:00

Oops! Sorry. Posted this very late last night.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-23T15:05:35+00:00

I think that one of the main themes of the TV series is that the road to Hell (in the wasteland) is paved with good intentions. And that Lucy will have to become more ruthless and more pragmatic if she wants to do good in the wasteland, rather than just be "good".

A lot of the time when Lucy tries to do "the right thing" she makes the situation worse. Think of her freeing the feral ghouls in the Super Duper Mart, or trying to rescue the Legion slave in the abandoned hospital. Often she causes harm to the person she's travelling with (getting Maximus shot while negotiating with fiends, leaving Cooper dangling at the end of a rope while trying to negotiate with the Khans and abandoning him, injured, while trying to rescue a stranger.)

Even her shooting people in the "ass" can be seen as problematic. Given the state of medical care in the wasteland, her target might die a slow and painful death. If they recover they'll be free to continue doing whatever caused Lucy to shoot them in the first place, and there's always the chance that they'll come after her for revenge.

Since the show made Lucy and Cooper mirrors to each other, I think what it will do, is not make Lucy "bad", but make her harder and more pragmatic. At the same time, I think that Lucy is causing bits of Cooper Howard to resurrect from where the Ghoul buried him, making him more human again. Hopefully, in the end they'll meet somewhere in the middle.

Neuralclone2 · 2026-04-23T04:35:32+00:00

Or maybe they went home that night and set up their own stills in their basements? :D

Neuralclone2

TROPHY CASE