Broken Hills is a location in New California in Fallout 2. Before the Great War, it was a mining town, but has since become a safehaven, inhabited by humans, super mutants and ghouls, living together in relative harmony, led by Marcus. However, in 2241, this peace is threatened by a conspiracy aiming to destroy the mutants, leading to the involvement of the Chosen One.
Background
Shortly after the Master's defeat, a super mutant named Marcus wandered aimlessly until he encountered Jacob, a Brotherhood of Steel knight in power armor who had pledged himself to the extermination of all mutants. Marcus and Jacob fought for a period of time, but soon realized the futility of their battle.[2] They became friends, even though Marcus still thought that Jacob would have been improved by a dip in the FEV vats.[3] As they wandered through the wastes, they attracted a small following of war refugees. The refugees believed that Marcus's strength and Jacob's power armor offered them a certain level of protection from the hazardous wasteland. Eventually, Marcus and Jacob led the refugees to settle in Broken Hills to exploit the uranium mine there.[2]
The mine in Broken Hills provides all the uranium that Vault City and Gecko need for their atomic power plants. The ghouls and mutants that live and work in Broken Hills make ideal uranium miners since they are not affected by exposure to radiation in the mine. Since Vault City will deal only with humans, the miners must use human traders as their intermediaries. These traders charge the miners excessive commission for their work. Tensions in this multiracial community over time have greatly increased and the human merchants have been accused of outright theft.[Non-game 1]
At some point after 2241,[Non-game 2] the Chosen One puts an end to the conspiracy to destroy the mutants, and Broken Hills began to thrive for a time, until the uranium ran out. Without the income from the mine, the town slowly dispersed, leaving the place an empty ghost town.[4][5]
Location
Broken Hills can be found twenty squares east and fifteen squares south of Arroyo.
Layout
The Broken Hills uranium mine is worked by the town's super mutant population. The radiation in the mine has minimal effect on them and their great strength aids in the physically taxing labor. The mine does require an air purifier, however, as toxic gas build-up makes the mine inoperable unless it is regularly filtered. The town's lifeblood comes from the uranium mine.
Broken Hills has its own operational refinery operated by ghouls. If uranium ore is purchased from a caravan, the refinery will produce refined uranium in return. The town is powered by a small reactor that runs off of uranium slugs and produces ample power for the community. The uranium trade runs to the NCR and Vault City as well as trafficking brahmin herds across the wastes. The uranium trade is so important to so many towns' existence that even Vault City will check their unrelenting bigotry for outsiders and mutants and trade valuable medical supplies and money for uranium ore. Ever since the mine's air purifier broke down, uranium production has halted, leading to an economic crisis in Broken Hills.
Random encounters in the Broken Hills area feature Unity patrols of humans, ghouls, and mutants which are friendly to player characters with positive karma.
| Broken Hills mine | ||
|---|---|---|
| ↑ | ||
| Broken Hills Downtown | → | Broken Hills Residential |
| ↓ | ||
| Broken Hills underground |
Downtown
If anything, Micky's presence well indicates a broken Broken Hills economy. Ghouls operate the nuclear plant fed by the operation of the uranium mine, located downtown. Marcus can be found in front of the jail, and player characters in need of work can visit the caravan office, operated by Bill. Liz runs the general store in town.
Residential
Broken Hills offers a resort-like setting for unprejudiced, mutated, and motivated individuals looking to make a fortune mining for uranium. Once threatening, dangerous mutated cacti from the wastes have been placed into pens to make attractive lawn-spaces along the length of the main street. The residential area houses ghouls and super mutants, as well as one scientist, his chess-playing radscorpion, and a talking spore plant.
Mine
The Broken Hills uranium mine is worked by the town's super mutant population. The radiation in the mine has minimal effect on them and their great strength aids in the physically taxing labor. The mine does require an air purifier, however, as toxic gas build-up makes the mine inoperable unless it is regularly filtered. The town's lifeblood comes from the uranium mine.
Underground
The underground is a base home to rats, but super mutants, such as Francis, claim to have seen people in the underground. The Chosen One discovers that many people died here due to their own super mutant prejudice by completing the quest Find the missing people for Marcus.
Conflict
It's not always easy for humans, ghouls, and super mutants to live together. This has culminated in a conspiracy to rid Broken Hills of its mutated citizens, led by human purist and store owner Jacob. The conspiracy has resulted in the arrest and incarceration of several of Joseph's supporters as well as the murder of several civilians. Their bodies have been dumped in the town's caves and sewers in hopes of destabilizing Broken Hills and starting conflict. Jacob also sabotaged the mine's air purifier, temporarily halting mine operation. He ultimately hoped to detonate the purifier and bring the whole mine down on all the super mutants working inside.
In opposition to Jacob are the mutants, mine foreman Zaius, and the arm wrestling champ Francis. There is also a conspiracy on the mutant side, instigated by Francis, which the player discovers upon finding a note on the corpses in the secret tunnel system under Broken Hills. The note proves that the mutants hoped to frame the anti-mutant faction in the town for the deaths of the townspeople.
Inhabitants
Downtown
Residential and mine
| Img | Name | Dialogue file | Description | 
|
|
|
|
Clothing | Proto | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Chuck Stodgers | Hcchuck.msg | Leather jacket | 00000034 | Broken Hills mine | |||||
|
Professor | HcProf.msg | Scientist. | Scientist outfit | 00000088 | Broken Hills Residential | ||||
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Professor's radscorpion | 00000005 | Broken Hills Residential | |||||||
|
Seymour | Hcseymor.msg | Intelligent spore plant. | 00000016 | Broken Hills Residential | |||||
|
Typhon | Hctyphon.msg | Set's son. | Black ghoul outfit | 00000173 | Broken Hills Residential | ||||
|
Zaius | Hczaius.msg | Super mutant miner. | Super mutant leather armor | 00000121 | Broken Hills Residential | ||||
|
Dan | Hcdan.msg | Worried spouse. | Farmer outfit | 00000067 | Broken Hills Residential | ||||
|
Dan's wife | HIDEAD.MSG/ HTCORPSE.MSG |
A corpse in Broken Hills underground. | Torn women clothing | 00000025 | Broken Hills underground/ Broken Hills Residential 
| ||||
|
Eric | Hceric.msg | A sweaty ghoul. | Black ghoul outfit | 00000159 | Broken Hills Residential |
| Unnamed | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank guard | Broken Hills citizen | Henchman | Mutant miner | Refinery supervisor |
| Mentioned only | |
|---|---|
| Jacob
|
Cameron
|
Related quests
| Name | Given by | Reward | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alternative 2 | Alternative 3 | ||
| Fix the mine's air purifier | Zaius | 1000 XP $500 |
1000 XP Combat shotgun |
- |
| Find the missing people for Marcus | Marcus | 500-2000 XP $1000 |
500-2000 XP Scoped hunting rifle +5 Karma |
- |
| Break Manson and Franc out of prison | Jacob the Chemist | 1500 XP -5 Karma Next quest |
2500 XP +20 Karma |
- |
| Blow up the mine's air purifier | Jacob the Chemist | 1500 XP -50 Karma Liz's weapons cache |
2500 XP +20 Karma |
- |
| Divert more electrical power to Eric's home | Eric | 1000 XP +10 Karma |
1000 XP Buffout |
1000 XP $150 |
| Beat Francis at armwrestling | Francis | Ball gag | 350 XP Big Frigger power fist |
- |
| Defeat the professor's radscorpion in three challenges | Professor | 1500 XP | - | - |
| Typhon's Treasure | Typhon | 2000 XP Bottle cap |
- | - |
| Become an Expert Excrement Expeditor | Bill | 500 XP $500 Expert Excrement Expeditor perk |
- | - |
Notes
- Uranium ore can be obtained either from a wandering merchant in a random encounter in the Broken hills area or from the hidden cave to the right of the entrance just inside the uranium mine.
- Unlike the Den,[6] Broken Hills is still home to cats.[7]
Vault City travel log
- Broken Hills: A mining community to the south of Vault City that mines uranium ore. The ore is traded to Vault City in exchange for medical supplies, mostly Rad-X and RadAway. Humans are believed to be forced to live with mutants and ghouls within the town. Due to the nature of the inhabitants and the high probability of contamination, Vault Citizens should avoid Broken Hills at ALL costs!
- Population: No current census, but believed to be in the hundreds of residents.
- Government: Rumor has it a MUTANT serves as the First Citizen of this community. This is extremely unlikely, as most mutants are incapable of higher reasoning. If this rumor IS true, it is another reason to avoid Broken Hills altogether.
- Background radiation count: Current readings are unavailable. Believed high.
- Mutation rate: Believed high. Broken Hills most likely has a high rate of degenerative mutations.”— Vault City travel log
Appearances
Broken Hills appears only in Fallout 2 and is mentioned by Marcus in Fallout: New Vegas.
Behind the scenes
- Designer Colin McComb worked on content for Broken Hills, including the character of Marcus.[Non-game 3][Non-game 4]
- Broken Hills is based on the real-world location of Broken Hills, Nevada, a ghost town with a gold and silver mine of the same name.
- McComb confirmed that Broken Hills was based on the ghost town and stated that it produced uranium because the design team was looking for a plausible source of the element.[Non-game 5]
- Broken Hills could also be a reference to Broken Hill, a town in Australia known for its silver, lead and zinc mining, and also the namesake for the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, the largest mining company in the real world. This could be a reference to Mad Max, as The Road Warrior (known as Mad Max 2 in Australia) was shot on location near Broken Hill. This would be yet another in a long line of Mad Max references featured throughout the Fallout series.
Bugs
- Access to the normally inaccessible section of the map on the westernmost edge is possible, on the square adjacent to the fence on one side and the red exit grid on the other. By clicking on the other side of the fence, the Chosen One will walk offscreen, and come back on the other side of the fence. There are footlockers in this new area containing the town's store's inventories.
- If explosives are armed with an extended wait period and placed into the first footlocker, returning to speak with a shopkeeper will result in that individual now having lit explosives in their inventory.
- Even if Jacob is in jail, his inventory in the new room will still restock.
- Refrain from saving, reloading or changing from one zone to another while the armed explosives are waiting to go off, as this can cause crashes. [verified]
- An infinite money exploit exists at the uranium refinery behind the caravan office. Bring uranium ore to the glowing white ghoul. If the player character agrees to have the ore refined for $1000, which takes one in-game day, the ghoul will ask to buy it back for $1500. At the dialogue screen where the ghoul buys the refined ore, repeat the conversation to sell repetitively, using the relevant number keys to speed the process. [verified]
References
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Non-game
- ↑ Fallout 2 Official Strategies & Secrets p.150: "Broken Hills provides all the uranium that Vault City and Gecko need for their atomic power plants. The radiation-resistant ghouls and mutants that live and work in Broken Hills make ideal uranium miners since they are not affected by exposure to radiation. Unfortunately, since Vault City will deal only with humans, the miners must use human traders as their intermediaries. These human salesmen charge the miners an exorbitant commission for their work. Tensions in this multiracial community have risen to a fever pitch because the human merchants have been accused of outright theft of the fruits of the miners' hard-earned labor."
- ↑ Fallout 2 begins in 2241:
Fallout Bible 0: "2241 July 25 Fallout 2 Begins: Chosen One begins his mystic test, descending into the Temple of Trials." - ↑ Fallout Bible 7: "2. In the Fallout Bible you have written, then FEV cause ghouls and supermutants sterile but in the F2 in the Broken Hills in the Old Ghouls House (or something like that) lives a son of Set. Set cannot have a son because he's a ghoul, so cause FEV sterile or not? (Or is it only a joke?)"
Chris Avellone: "According to designer Colin McComb (who is so tough that [1] he did design on Planescape and [2] lives in Detroit), Typhon was Set's son before they became ghouls and became sterile and mutated and all gross-looking." - ↑ Colin McComb on Twitter
@AnalogBeatdown: "Hi @ColinMcComb! I'm a big Fallout fan and I noticed you were credited with working on Broken Hills in Fallout 2!
That being said, I was curious if you were the original writer for Marcus, and if so, what you thought of his depiction in New Vegas. Thanks!"
@ColinMcComb: "I am generally an Obsidian fan, and more specifically a fan of Josh’s thoughtful work. It’s been a while since I looked at FNV but I recall being quite happy with the deepening of Marcus’s history and future." - ↑ Colin McComb on Twitter: "Broken Hills was based on the mining ghost town, and produced uranium mainly because I didn't know jack about geology and the design team was looking for a source for uranium.
(again, my memory on developing a lot of this is super-bad!) /end"
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