I, the undead, save the world with the dolls

"He told me a lot of impressive things. He said that as long as he lets go and remotely controls the construction of NCR, the United States can start its plan to colonize outer space in two hundred years. I was stunned when I heard it," said the postman.

"Just listen to his bullshit. With that attitude? When judging a person, you shouldn't look at what they say, but what they do. He's been awake for so many years now, and all he did was recruit people to build a pre-war casino to attract people to spend money. What else has he done?"

"Isn't it a good thing to have money? If you have enough bottle caps, you can hire workers, teachers, buy and sell materials... Making money shouldn't be a big problem, right?" The postman didn't understand.

"Because House has never done anything other than making money, Postman No. 6, when I was wandering around Liberty City with you, I realized that something was wrong here." Bandaged Man Joshua explained.

As a well-educated person, Joshua's vision and opinions are naturally different from those of the ultimate rough guy, the postman.

"Liberty City, and New Vegas in the center of it, is a city that relies heavily on revenue from trade routes and gambling. All other industries thrive around these two. But here, I don't see any large-scale factories or schools," Joshua said.

"I guess that House doesn't trust humans at all, or he only trusts himself and machines. According to my previous intelligence, most of House's affairs are handled by the three major families and a man named Benny." Joshua informed the past intelligence.

"I know this too, so?" the postman continued.

"He only knows how to teach people to live a luxurious pre-war life, but he has no idea how to cultivate a normal pre-war human being. He can't systematically train qualified teachers, workers, scientists, artists or people in other professions. Maybe he has no problem building factories, but when it comes to education, he knows shit. No matter how well-built a factory is, it's useless without workers who master professional skills." Joshua said a lot of things proudly.

"Well said, Graham. This is why I think he can't do it. Want to enter the space age? Then you have to develop productivity. Productivity comes from science and technology, and technological progress requires the cultivation of people who can understand technology and delve into it. Do you understand the value of developing a country through science and education?" Sun Yang applauded the bandaged man.

There is a huge gap between people who have studied well and those who have not in the wasteland.

"It's been so long, and the schools and factories haven't been built yet. Damn it, instead of building infrastructure to enter the fucking space era, it's better for him to enter House. He doesn't want to build schools and factories, but still fantasizes about entering the universe? I think he just wants to be the king of the city in his imagination in New Vegas, this pre-war city built out of thin air." Sun Yang said foul language.

New Vegas, after all, is nothing more than a tower block built on money. Like pre-war Las Vegas, without the casinos and gambling, it would be a barren desert.

The so-called pearl in the desert is nothing more than a man-made prosperous city. Once the trade routes are cut off and no one comes to consume, this pearl will soon decline.

"Okay. I understand." The postman was a little confused, but she still understood that everything needed to be done by someone with professional knowledge. Farming requires farmers, and blasting requires blasting knowledge and precautions.

Without cultivating talents in all walks of life, a country cannot be supported.

"As for this House, I will bring another group of people to negotiate with him. With the current strength of his robots, it will be too difficult to deal with him. Based on his response, I will make subsequent adjustments." Sun Yang took the responsibility directly.

"I understand. But after all this talk, what are we responsible for? Boss, your robot has done all the work." After listening for a long time, the postman realized that his postman team had not been assigned any follow-up tasks.

"Well, let's decide this after you enter the Great Rift Valley. The places my people can be arranged to go are just for standby, but this time you are going to work seriously." Sun Yang gave his reasons.

The humanoids each received their equipment and left the mound in different directions.

And when they gather together again, it will be the time when things change in Mojave.

209 Ulysses's Trail

A teleportation beacon was placed on the mound outside Free City for quick travel.

Team Thomson and Team Palette took a helicopter to the west coast. They still needed to do some reconnaissance before the operation officially began, mainly to scout the locations of various farms and formulate an action plan.

Sun Yang and the four members of the postman team took the last helicopter to the vicinity of the Great Rift Valley. They couldn't drive directly in, as the storm inside could even cut a person's skin. Even if the helicopter got close, it would crash in minutes.

The postman on the helicopter was still sorting out the information he had collected during this period.

"Actually, I still feel like there's someone out there who's been giving me trouble. It's the guy who gave me the piston that delivered the chip. I think he and the only surviving postman Joshua mentioned are the same person. And I also have a feeling that guy might be waiting for me in the Great Rift Valley." The postman muttered.

"Are you sure? There are at least hundreds of people working in NCR and Mojave as part-time couriers." Joshua had thought the postman was crazy more than once.

"Because my Pip-Boy received a signal - the coordinates point to the canyon ruins west of Primm Town. Following these coordinates was the message 'Postman No. 6', signed Ulysses. My Pip-Boy suddenly received this message recently."

"That powerful Legion spy wasn't called Ulysses, but I don't rule out the possibility that he changed his name." Joshua's eyes were clouded. "That tracker was originally from the Twisted Hair Tribe, but he has grown into a formidable warrior. He trained the White Legs Tribe that massacred New Canaan. Unfortunately, I don't know where he is now. If it really was him..."

"Are you going to kill him?" asked the Postman.

"No, I won't do that. This is retribution for the crimes I committed in the Legion over the past decades. The Tribe he belonged to was destroyed by the Legion at my instruction. Some of those who disobeyed were hung on crosses and bled to death, while others were assimilated into the Legion's slaves." Joshua clenched his fists and sighed deeply.

"I destroyed his culture and tribe, and now he's responding to me leaving the Legion in the same way. If I really want revenge, I would choose to deal with Caesar. That scout was just carrying out Caesar's will. His revenge is reasonable. I want to find an answer from him." Joshua spoke his words calmly.

The postman kept flipping through the activity report in Sun Yang's hand. She carefully checked the relevant records about the Madre Casino and the Great Mountains.

"Speaking of which, postman, here are two logs. You can listen to them if you are interested." Sun Yang took out the two tapes from the mountains.

"Oh? Let me listen." The postman put the tape into the Pip-Boy, and soon the sound of conversation came from it.

[...I didn't expect you to come back.] A clear female voice came from the Pip-Boy.

"Isn't this Christine?" The postman heard Christine's voice recorded by the humanoids when he was looking through the records of Madre's activities.

"Almost, but I got the answer. The Elijah you were looking for discovered the treasure here, and later made great progress in researching its principles." A deep male voice, as if speaking through a breathing mask, sounded.

"It's him, the best scout in that legion. Did he go to the Great Mountains?" Joshua also recognized the man's voice.

[Do you know where he went?] Christine's voice sounded again.

"His destination is the Sierra Madre Casino, a living hell. He won't return. Even if the casino can't do anything to him, someone smarter and more powerful will surely end him," said a male voice.

“Even so, I won’t let go,” Christine said.

"I don't mean to stop you. I know what it's like to chase someone who means something, and I'm about to meet that person myself," the man replied.

"You mean the postman?" Christine asked subconsciously.

"She will come to me, and I will give her a message in due time, just as she once gave me. Let her walk the straight westward road herself, step on the dust of the old world, listen to the roar of the storm. See what the Great Rift Valley looks like, and understand what happened there." said the male voice.

[The Great Rift Valley? There's nothing left there now.] Christine's voice was filled with confusion.

Nothing left? Like the mountains? Like the Sierra Madre Casino? You're wrong. There lies an old world, a real one. Just like the flag I carry, the postman knows the way. In the Great Rift Valley, she and I—right there, we'll settle our differences.] The male voice finished, and the recording ended.

"Fuck... I was just saying it." The postman looked at the message in his Pip-Boy. It was signed by Ulysses.

"That's him. He was once from the Twisted Hair Tribe and the only one allowed to retain his tribal culture. He was the best scout in the legion. He changed his name to Ulysses now?" Joshua pursed his lips. He really didn't expect it to be the same person.

"I don't know any Ulysses, but I seem to be the only one who delivered things to the Great Divide? The road is not easy to travel, but the reward is not bad. So he was the one who gave me the task of transporting the platinum chip from Prim?!" The postman felt sweat on his forehead.

"No way, is my mouth blessed? I just started to complain to Ariana about how famous I was, and I haven't been so boastful since then. How can I be famous? I'm just an ordinary postman. Where do these extreme fans come from?" The postman couldn't help but hold his head and wail for a while.

"You're wrong, Postman. No matter what you think now, you're a big shot in Mojave. Everyone in NCR and Liberty City knows you, and everyone in the Legion wants to chop you off. What's more, House pulled you over to Lucky 38 Casino and chatted with you for a long time, which is an honor that no one else has. And you brought Joshua with you, which is even more of a mockery of the Legion. You've been famous for a long time." Ariana corrected the Postman's misunderstanding in time.

Joshua, who was named and ridiculed to the maximum, shrugged his shoulders and said that it was the decision of Postman No. 6 to bring him along.

"Okay, okay, let's see what's on the next tape." The postman finally accepted the fact that he might have a twisted, fanatical, and crazy fan, and put on the next tape.

"...I don't want to argue with you about ideology. The Brotherhood is a group of protectionists. Technology can be extremely dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. The Mojave Wasteland is a prime example." Christine's voice rang out.

"I don't deny it. The evidence is in this huge pit, and everything around me proves it. Your tribe, I mean the Brotherhood of Steel. I haven't had much contact with you, but I hope to. I thought you might be the last hope for the Mojave, the West, and the East... but in fact, you are all the same, equally obsessed." A deep voice, belonging to Ulysses, echoed.

"It's Elijah who's obsessed. He's gone mad. That's why the Brotherhood has ordered his death," Christine retorted.

The Brotherhood and Elijah, these two are more alike than you know. You're both obsessed with the past, trapped in the wrong corners of history, fearful of the future, and unable to see a way forward. This isn't just my opinion; I've been there, and I know what it's like.

Still the voice of Ulysses continued.

People are like postmen, you and her, sometimes you don't know what news you'll bring. You each have a new banner, thinking you're carrying a brand new philosophy. But your beliefs are no more noble than those of a bear or a bull, and neither has a future.

"Bear and Bull, NCR and Legion. Those are the two animals printed on their flags." The postman expressed his understanding.

So, this man, carrying the banner of the old world, uttered such words. But America, the Union... had long since burned away along with the old world. Christine was somewhat puzzled by Ulysses's fixation on the America of the past.

Federation. In the world of Fallout, the states of the United States form thirteen federations, which is why there are thirteen stars on the American flag in Fallout.

America is simply dormant. Until it dies, I will carry it on my back, just as I carried you on my back as I escaped from the lab. Within this great crater are the voices of those who lived before the war, and I want to speak with them. Unlike your Elijah, I have questions to ask, and I want to hear the answers that history has to offer.

The "human voice" that Ulysses refers to is the voice produced by the mind through the machine.

This somewhat lengthy recording ends here.

"Judging from the time stamps, I'm listening to the first one now, and I just listened to the second one. No wonder Christine said, 'I didn't expect you to come back.' This Ulysses, his thoughts are quite complicated... Ulysses seems to disagree with the brotherhood." The postman said with a complicated expression.

"I think with Ulysses's intelligence, he will definitely figure out what they are like during the conversation with Christine. If he sticks to his old ways and stays trapped in the bunker, he will sooner or later be abandoned by the times," said Sun Yang.

"Is the flag he carries a metaphor? Does he really inherit the spirit of pre-war America?" Cass, who had been holding it in for a long time, also asked a question.

"I think it was a bit of both. He was probably wearing a shirt with a antebellum American flag painted on the back," Sun Yang said.

"So, boss, you have been to the Great Mountains. Did the thought beings there say anything to Ulysses?" the postman asked Sun Yang.

"You've also read the report. Because the brains of those thinking entities are directly connected to the database, their memories were hacked once by Elijah and erased several times by Mobius. The thinking entities can't tell us much about the content of the communication." Sun Yang could only tell us what he knew.

In his flashbacks, Klein mentions that "he" was a melancholic figure who asked many historical questions. Their conversation was interrupted twice: once by Elijah's attempt to escape the Great Mountains, and again by Klein's database being wiped. Ulysses also visited Dr. Mobius later.

At that time, due to the interference of Mobius' technology, the minds had lost their concept of time and geography. Without these two concepts, there was no concept of history. Unable to find an answer, Joshua asked the minds a question: "Since you don't know your history, do you still know who you are?"

This question caused the minds to regain their memories. Once upon a time, America, the flag behind Ulysses, was more than just a flag. It was a piece of land, a concept they once cared deeply about. After their memories were awakened, the minds informed Ulysses of the Great Divide.

The erratic weather there stems from experiments in weather control conducted in the Great Mountain Range. And beneath the Great Rift Valley, the "Voice of Old World America" ​​remains. Scattered throughout the shattered underground, nuclear silos and the devices that activate them lie dormant.

"So, are there still a considerable number of nuclear bombs there? What would he do with them? I still don't know enough about him. Ulysses, he was stationed in Salt Lake City and visited the Great Range. I've walked everywhere he walked—except the Great Range. But I once heard a term called 'old-time blues.'"

The postman looked at the various videos and images provided by Sun Yang. On the wall of the laboratory in the Great Mountains, there were red and blue American flags painted on it. Perhaps that was the technology that Ulysses believed was needed to rebuild the United States.

"Old-time blues. Obsessed with the phantoms of the past, Ulysses, perhaps bewildered by the pre-war America in his mind." The postman murmured, looking out at the dark night sky.

210 The Great Rift Valley, or the Great Dividing Range

The helicopter finally landed near a dirt slope not far west of Prim. They could not fly any further west; the storm from the Great Rift Valley had already spread to the area.

Sun Yang wanted to stop the strong wind in the Great Rift Valley, but the weather control system of the mountain range was on the verge of collapse after nearly two hundred years of operation. Trying to change the parameters of the weather system might cause irreversible adverse effects.

Helpless, the postman team and Sun Yang rested until daytime. After recuperating, they equipped themselves with full clothing and went into the Great Rift Valley to meet Ulysses.

The path to the Great Rift Valley was blocked by various car wrecks. They looked like they had been blown away by the shock wave, swept up into the sky by the violent storm, and then crashed here.

The wreckage of buses and cars, broken door panels and broken house debris piled up at the entrance. On the body of the bus blocking the intersection, there were several lines of words written in white and red paint.

COURIER SIX? (Courier No. 6?)

YOU CAN GO HOME COURIER (Go home, postman.)

"The coordinates are right here." The postman took a deep breath as he looked at the wreckage in front of him. The man named Ulysses had already opened up a path for both directions. The postman team and Sun Yang squeezed through the narrow path, which was only wide enough for one person to pass.

After passing through a pile of debris obstacles, they crossed the canyon and reached the pass leading to the Debris Valley.

After removing the last obstacle in front of him, the postman stepped on solid ground.

In an instant, a fierce wind blew over, almost sweeping her away. Fine sand and dust hit her body and helmet, making a clanging sound.

There wasn't much debris around, but instead dry soil and weathered rock walls.

There were almost no trees on either side of the mountain pass, but there was a car that had been blown here and broken in two. The postman looked up at the sky. It was clearly daytime, but the sky was unusually dim.

The sun was obscured by the flying sand and stones in the sky. The gravel and dust swirling in the air changed shapelessly, like a dozen tireless beasts fighting each other. Their war was endless, and the land and people under their feet were devastated again and again.

Even though it is morning now, the sun cannot shine its light on this land. It has become a veritable land of death.

"That guy, did he really intend to meet me here instead of letting me die in this shabby place?" The postman walked forward a few steps against the erratic wind. Even the experienced postman couldn't help but frown at the scene before him.

All that was left on the nearby hill was a signal tower broken in half, and a sewage pipe broken in the middle was placed on the edge of the cliff. It was not known whether it was blown away or the original ground had evaporated.

Near the cliff, the postman could only see fallen rocks, shattered by the blast wave and piled deep in the valley. Fifty meters below the cliff, he could also see broken rebar and grimy billboards.

The vertical depth of the canyon is nearly 100 meters, and this cliff perfectly demonstrates how terrible the shock wave generated by the explosion is.

When you look deeper into the canyon, which is full of fallen rocks and filled with garbage and debris, you can only see the flat center of the canyon.

In the center, there are no mountains and canyons, but only sand and rock hills piled to an unknown depth, and buildings that are buried in the dust and only half exposed, on the verge of collapse.

Not far from these buildings lay several deep ravines, a unique landscape seemingly formed by the weather. The few remaining buildings barely standing between them looked as if they would collapse at any moment.

The entire area was shrouded in a gray haze, and the relentless winds kept it constantly shrouded in dangerous sandstorms. In the midst of these dust storms, the postman could only barely make out the remains of a few half-collapsed buildings.

The wreckage of the buildings stubbornly stood firm in the storm, their reinforced concrete having withstood the test of time and storms. But soon, as the postman watched, one of the buildings slowly but surely collapsed, stirring up a thick cloud of dust that obscured the view in the distance.

"Damn this crappy place... How did he get into this damn place?" The postman cursed as she stuck to the mountain wall and moved forward between the cliffs.

Pieces of gravel fell from the cliff above from time to time. It seemed that under the ravages of the storm, these rocks were being worn away rapidly and weathered more severely.

After the postman passed several broken signal base stations, the entrance to a bunker built on the cliff suddenly appeared in front of him.

"Hey! There's a road here! My God, there are still buildings that remain intact after this explosion..." The postman waved his hand behind him, signaling his teammates to follow.

"This is a missile silo from before the war. It is probably one of the few that survived the explosion. There may still be nuclear bombs inside that have not been launched..." Sun Yang calmed his mind and body in the storm. Everyone in the postman team has seen strong winds and waves and has been through many battles. They can still endure such extremely bad weather.

Next to the bunker's entrance, a grimy, almost illegible metal billboard lay crooked. The postman strained to read the words: "Keep your feet on the ground and build the American dream together."

"Just pre-war propaganda." Joshua shook his head.

"No matter what, let's get in quickly. I don't like staying in this kind of damn place..." After Cass finished speaking, he formed a battle formation with the rest of the team. They opened the door and stepped into this centuries-old silo.

Sun Yang followed at the end. He was considered the least combat-capable person, so he was placed at the back and was responsible for guarding the rear.