The Superhuman Gambit

 is a Fallout 3 quest. It is also an Xbox 360/PC achievement and PlayStation 3 Trophy.

Objectives and Walkthrough
The town of Canterbury Commons has become the battleground of two self-claimed "superheroes" - the AntAgonizer and the Mechanist. Its inhabitants are not very happy about it and want you to help them get rid of them.

Upon arriving in Canterbury Commons, the AntAgonizer and the Mechanist will be engaged in a brawl. Once the dust clears, Uncle Roe will speak to you, asking you to handle the ordeal. With a speech check, you can double the pay, from 200 to 400 caps. After you have accepted the quest, speak to Derek Pacion. He gives you the best info on where to find them. The AntAgonizer lives in a cave north of town and the Mechanist lives south of town in a old robot factory. (Both locations will be marked on your map.) With the Child at Heart perk, you can ask Derek for their weaknesses. The Mechanist doesn't harm the innocent, and other than the royal guard, the AntAgonizer's ants are weak.

AntAgonizer's Lair
If you decide to take out the AntAgonizer, you head to her cave north of town. Inside, keep an eye out for frag mines. (The path to the right immediately upon entering the cave leads to random equipment that is guarded by a combat shotgun trap.) Down the stairs and to the right is an empty room. A button on the wall lowers a staircase to a cave. Continue through the cave, killing a few ants and you'll soon reach her lair.

Alternatively, you can sneak in the back entrance, a pipe to the west of the entrance at the top of a mountain of rocks (requires a lockpick skill of 50.) This route bypasses all of the ants in the tunnels. It is also possible to use this entrance if you pickpocketed the AntAgonizer's key during the brawl when first entering town.

In her lair, there are no ants to fight, just the AntAgonizer. Speaking with her, you can either decide to kill her, or help her destroy the Mechanist. If you decide to kill her, there ARE ants to fight. She will also attack you if you show up wearing the Mechanists armor, as she will believe you are him. If you try to help her destroy the Mechanist he will barge in her lair and you'll have to fight him.

Another option is if you have already convinced the Mechanist to give up his superhero ways (which will evidently give you good karma), is to give her the suit, kill her, then take all of the nice items. On her is a Ripper which can be a rare weapon to find, her armor, and behind her is a Nuka-Cola Quantum. Doing this will not affect your karma at all.

If you give the Mechanist's suit to her (regardless of how you got it), you will be awarded with the Ant's Sting, a knife that poisons an enemy for an additional 4 damage per second for 10 seconds, and negative karma.

The Lady Killer perk or a high enough Speech skill, coupled with her real name given to you from the man that runs the diner, will give the player a dialogue option to convince her see the error of her ways. Selecting it will make her stop being the AntAgonizer and leave, giving you her funny outfit. Be sure to keep it if you plan to also convince the Mechinist to end his "career": he will want to destroy it.

Alternatively, if you have been to Hubris Comics and read the note to the editor about AntAgonizer's canceled Grognak the Barbarian comic, you can use this to point out that she can still be redeemed. Doing so will yield good karma. This bypasses the gender-specific perk and means you don't need to make the very tough speech check. You will also receive her armor.

Mechanist's Hideout
The Mechanist's Hideout is located just south of town, on higher ground. Unlike the AntAgonizer's lair, his hideout's name doesn't actually tell you he is in there; it's simply called the Robot Repair Center.

If you decide to visit the Mechanist, you can: 1) attack him, 2) have him join you against the AntAgonizer, or 3) talk him out of the whole thing.

To reach his hideout without having to fight through his robotic security, you can lockpick the elevator near the entrance with a skill of 75 or above, bypassing the heavily guarded stairs. Otherwise, the facility is broken up into four sections: Office (left of Entrance), two Maintenance areas (Sector A and B, which are connected by a control room on the upper level) and the Forge (where the Mechanist is hiding). Sector B is closest to the entrance (metal door past the elevator), and the Forge entrance is on the upper level of Sector A.

The security terminal for Sector B is in the control room on the upper level, which allows you to disable the automatic turrets and security robots. The security terminal for Sector A is located in a small control room near the back of the bay, close to the Forge entrance (upper level). From this terminal, you can disable the automatic turrets in this room, as well as emit an emergency pulse explosion that will destroy any active robots in this sector.

Once you enter the forge, activate the coffee maker to reveal the Mechanist's lair. You then need to activate one of the little gears to the right of the door. Lying, Congressional Style is sitting on the desk in this room. While you're here, there's a huge amount of scrap metal and energy cells to be found in the facility (including a Nikola Tesla and You book in Sector A). The book is on a desk next to a toolbox on the ground floor next to the conveyor belt. On the desk there are two already dead Protectrons.

The sequence of numerous hidden doors opening to reveal the inner lair is pretty fun (six, including the initial bare wall), a kudos to MST3K.

Convincing the Mechanist to end his superhero career and leave the town alone will grant you his suit and positive karma. The Black Widow and the Child at Heart perks give a dialogue option to tell him he is scaring the whole town. With that, he will give you his suit and leave. Giving him the AntAgonist's suit (regardless of how you got it) and encouraging him to continue his superhero ways grants you Protectron's Gaze and negative karma. Protectron's Gaze is a laser pistol that fires bursts of laser fire like a shotgun. You can receive both the increased reward and the pistol by giving him the suit, receiving the pistol, and then killing him after the conversation. You can drop the AntAgonist's Helmet to the ground and give him only the armor, then kill him and get 2 AntAgonist's Helmet's in that way (to repair and get an AntAgonist's helmet with DR 6). If you attempt to help him defeat the AntAgonist, she will appear in his room and you will have to fight her.

Completion
Once you defeat either superhero, return to Uncle Roe to receive 200 caps. [400 if you got successful speech]. If you speak with Uncle Roe after dealing with just one of them, the other will disappear. There are reports of players coming from the AntAgonizers cave and heading to town only to find that Uncle Roe and others were killed by random spawned creatures (Radscorpions are the most common). If that occurs talk to the little boy to claim your reward.

Should you succeed in talking both of them into ending their "careers" (or just leaving Canterbury Commons) you will receive 200 more caps; 400 even if you didn't succeed in the speech attempt when given the quest, or 600 if you did.

Alternatively, you may kill one or both immediately upon entering town (they're invincible for a short time while talking, but can be harmed soon after). Doing this grants you whatever that one had on him/her, as well as 400 caps from Uncle Roe (without ever needing a Speech check). (Alternatively, you can sneak up to both of them, and reverse pickpocket mines or grenades. Regardless of how far along they are in the scene, they appear to be vulnerable to this 'attack')

Receiving Both Reward Items
It is possible to complete this quest in a way that you'll receive both unique weapons: the Ant's Sting, and the Protectron's Gaze. After accepting the quest from Uncle Roe, proceed into the AntAgonizer's Lair. Save your game before approaching her. If you initiate dialogue with her, you'll be forced to resolve the quest now (which you don't want to do yet). If you're careful, you can get barely into range to steal from her without triggering dialogue. Plant some armor and a helmet on her (good condition Raider equipment will do). Now leave her lair, and re-enter it. She should have taken off her costume, which you can now steal. Steal it.

Leave the AntAgonist's Lair again and head over to the Mechanist's Hideout, and gain entry to his room. The best way to do this will be to proceed straight inside and lockpick the elevator (requires 100 lockpick skill). This will give you the version of his room with the long hallway, so you'll have more time for thieving. Approach the Mechanist and he will initate dialogue. Give him the AntAgonizer's costume, and he'll reward you with the Protectron's Gaze as if you'd killed her. He'll thank you kindly and take off down the hall, but don't let him go quite yet. Go into sneak mode and steal from him, planting yet another set of armor/helmet (again, Raider equipment will do) on him. When he passes through the elevator door, follow him through, and you'll find that he has taken off his costume. Steal it. While you're at it, take the AntAgonizer's costume back, too! Might as well grab all the unique items possible.

Now quickly head back to the AntAgonizer's Lair and give her the Mechanists' costume. She'll thank you kindly and reward you with the Ant's Sting as if you'd killed the Mechanist. Might as well go ahead and steal the Mechanist's Costume back from her while you're here.

You can't return to Uncle Roe yet for some reason. To resolve the quest, follow the AntAgonizer as she leaves her lair. She'll walk outside, and head over toward the Mechanist's place. Meanwhile the Mechanist will already be en route to the AntAgonizer's Lair. They'll meet halfway, and fight to the death. Talk to whoever survives to get thanked for the third time, and head over to Uncle Roe to formally complete the quest. This should net you a complete set of AntAgonist armor, a complete set of Mechanist armor, the Protectron, the Ant's Sting, and the caps reward from Uncle Roe.

Tips

 * There is a Stealth Boy on a shelf in the installation area of AntAgonizer's Lair. It can be used to sneak pass Sector B of the Mechanist's Lair. This makes it possible for a low level to reach the Mechanist without any investment in lockpicking.


 * If you're Evil, you can kill both the Mechanist and AntAgonizer plus everyone in Canterbury Commons except Derek. He will let you complete the quest and earn 600 caps.


 * If you get the encryption key out of the Easy safe near the terminal on the upper level of Sector A (southwest corner), you can cause a pulse wave explosion in Sector A that will damage robots or cripple their combat inhibitors, causing them to attack each other, thus making your job much easier. However, you have to run a gauntlet of turret fire to get up to this control room. If you went directly through the Mechanist's elevator, though, this "back door" approach is cake.


 * Alternatively, if you can handle an Average lock, open the door in the northwest office area. Immediately go left (down the ramp), then right, through the small doorway, and hack the Easy terminal. Turn off the Sector A defenses and fight the lone Robobrain opponent. Now go up the stairs to the control room between Sectors A and B, and hack the Easy terminal there to friendly ALL defenses in Sector B, including the wandering robots. You will take a few turret hits initially, but otherwise the entire Robot Repair Center amounts to fighting just one Robobrain, with this approach.


 * Barring the above, there's a box of pulse grenades in the southwest corner of the office room (read the terminals there). They can help with all the bots.

Bugs

 * If you have gained the Mechanists suit and wear it in the AntAgonizers lair AFTER convincing her to give up and gaining her suit, she will STILL attack you thinking you are the Mechanist and claim to be the Ant Queen (without her outfit), even though that part of the quest has been completed and she has supposedly given up her ways.


 * There have been reports that if you do not stay to watch the event between the AntAgonizer and the Mechanist and then immediately speak to Uncle Roe, that all three characters disappear. If this occurs, the quest can not be finished.


 * If you choose to go to the Mechanist's lair to deal with him first, there have been reported bugs where near entering the area around the lair (still outside), a huge strip of the background goes missing, turning black/dark gray depending on which angle the camera is at. It is unknown why this occurs.


 * In the Xbox version, the AntAgonizer's health will not change despite being hit numerous times. This occurs even in her lair. Only known fix is to continue hitting until she randomly dies, For me this was about five minutes, using the Shishkebab.


 * When first meeting the AntAgonizer and the Mechanist, if standing near the AntAgonizer graphics seem to stretch back and forth. This may be due to a overload or just a bug never fixed.