"Brutal. I don't suppose you'd get rid of it for the greater good either?" she asked wincing the moment she said it.
"Whose greater good? People forget but there isn't just one. The NCR has it's greater good, the legion it's, the raiders their own. Hell even people have their own greater goods. So whose greater good would it serve? Because it's certainly not mine." I said seriously.
"The greater good of humanity?" she said tentatively.
"And who gets to decide that? It's certainly not any faction that didn't ask the opinion of the rest of humanity. The only thing that can be considered as a true greater good was what the majority of people all agree on, the wasteland is a harsh place that needs fixing." I say without missing a beat.
"But technology going out of control is what caused the wasteland!" she argued.
"No it isn't. Technology never went out of control. It's a tool and someone CHOSE to use it like this. Technology isn't the problem, people are. Everyone seems to forget but the great war was something that was chosen. It happened because the resources that the world had simply weren't being shared freely. Each country wanted to be the one that got everything and when it became clear that wasn't going to happen each of them chose mutual annihilation. This hellscape exists because someone chose to make it so, not because technology went out of control." I said firmly.
"Mutants! Those are an example of technology going unchecked!" she said grasping at any straw that she could.
"Once again incorrect. While the mutants are a problem the F.E.V was a tool that was used poorly. A matter of hubris, choice. The fact it was created at all in order to get unleashed on the world was simply just a choice some prewar people made. How it was used was also a choice. It could just as easily have been used to create superfoods or cure genetic defects and diseases. It was a tool that simply did what it was made to, nothing more." I say seriously.
"But without the technology the temptation to use it like that wouldn't exist!" she said with an expression that said she solved the problem.
I almost didn't want to shatter that delusion.
Almost.
"Do you know WHY technology exists?" I asked calmly.
"Because it can?" she answered warily.
"Nope. It exists because there was a stimulus for it. Curiosity, politics, survival, greed, pride, the list goes on and on. The point however remains the same, technology always has a reason why it comes into existence. Even if you were to take every piece of advanced technology on the planet and toss it into the sun while somehow wiping our knowledge of it humanity would more likely than not still eventually advance back to the same point. Just look at history. We went from cave dwelling savages beating each other to death with sticks to creating the power of a sun. It just took a while." I say seriously.
Her breathing came in rapid hyperventilating gasps as she frantically dug through her mind for any sort of argument. But the pure simple truth seared itself into her thoughts, I was right. This dichotomy of belief versus reality strained her mind until the most primal solution possible clicked into place. Before her conscious mind could even understand what she was doing she threw a haymaker right at the faceplate of the armor. The power fist struck the metal with a screeching impact and I was sent stumbling back from the force even if I was unharmed.-
Boone and Jess both shifted from neutral observers of this conversation to downright murderous as they reached for their weapons.
"STOP!" I yelled making them pause.
I regained my balance and chuckled "And there it is. The thing that created the wasteland. That primal acknowledgement that you don't need to consider the words of a dead man." I said and Veronica shook as she finally processed what she had done.
Really UNDERSTOOD it.
"You must be trying to explain it away right? A moment of passion? Perhaps a reflex? Anything but the fact you didn't like hearing the truth since it didn't line up with what you thought was truth. Am I right?" I asked as I walked right back to where I was.
"You know who I am, WHAT I am." she said breathlessly.
"I do, Field provisionary scribe Veronica of the Mohave chapter of the brotherhood of steel." I say casually.
"How? My disguise is perfect." she asked confused and lost.
"Magic, of a sort anyways." I said with a chuckle.
"So she's with the brotherhood? No wonder she attacked." Boone said nodding like he had it all figured in.
"Anyone going to fill me in? Who the hell is the Brotherhood of steel and why did that make her attack him?" Jess asked lost.
"The brotherhood of steel is a group founded right before the bombs dropped. Story goes that some military guys were working out of a laboratory where scientists were experimenting with the Forced evolutionary virus or F.E.V for short. They were so disgusted by this that they rebelled under the leadership of a guy named Maxson. Those military guys swore that it was the rampant abuse of technology that was the greatest source of evil and that no one else could be trusted to use it responsibly. They also declared all form of mutation an abomination to be eradicated." I paused to let it sink in.
"Then the bombs fell and the Brotherhood was founded roughly based on the ancient principles of knighthood with these beliefs as core tenets. The trouble she is having is that reality and those beliefs don't align as cleanly as she's been taught. The problem was never technology like the brotherhood believes but rather people in general. The technology was just a tool to make those people more capable of being shit people. The only thing they get mostly right is that mutants and inhuman creatures are a serious problem. Though the absolute eradication of them is a bit extreme." I finished my explanation.
"So she hit you because you just logically dismantled the beliefs she has?" Jess asked with a weird look.
"Yep, she resorted to the only argument left when the truth isn't acceptable. The biggest fist is always right, a very common concept for the brotherhood. They tend to have the biggest fist after all from all that high tech stuff they kill for, salvage and hoard. Power armor in particular is their bread and butter." I say casually.