Broken Hills

Broken Hills was a town in the western part of the pre-War state of Nevada, inhabited by humans, super mutants and ghouls, living together in relative harmony (or so it seems).

Location
Broken Hills can be found twenty squares east and fifteen squares south of Arroyo.

History
Shortly after the Master's defeat, super mutant Marcus wandered aimlessly until he encountered Jacob, a Brotherhood of Steel paladin in power armor who had pledged himself to the extermination of all mutants. Marcus and Jacob fought for a day or two, but they soon realized the futility of their battle and became friends (though Marcus always thought that Jacob would have been improved by a dip in the FEV vats, while Jacob disagreed, which was always a bone of contention between the two). As they wandered through the wastes, they attracted a following of other refugees from the war, who believed that Marcus's strength and Jacob's power armor gave them the closest thing available to safety. Eventually, Marcus and Jacob led the refugees to settle in Broken Hills to exploit the uranium mine there.

With the destruction of the conspiracy to destroy the mutants, Broken Hills began to thrive. Then the uranium ran out. The city, having lost its sole reason for existing, slowly dispersed. The residents carried their riches with them, leaving the place a wind-swept, desolate ghost town. A few hold-outs remained, attempting to eke out a pathetic existence, but eventually, they too, disappeared.

Overview
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 life blood comes from the uranium mine. Broken Hills has its own operational refinery operated by ghouls. If you can purchase uranium ore from a caravan, the refinery will produce refined uranium for you. 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 unabiding 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 that are friendly to players with positive Karma.

Downtown

 * Lumpy the ghoul finds out the hard way to Look Both Ways before crossing the street as the Chosen One's Highwayman pulls into town and onto Lumpy. Lumpy is limping when he gets up, but ghouls do that.Brokenhills.jpg
 * Leave your guns in their holsters and your knives in your boot and your rocket launcher..somewhere and go talk to Steve, the town greeter. He is the only person in town who insists that you be unarmed before conversing, though.
 * Marcus is the town sheriff and will join your party once you have completed Find the missing people for Marcus and Fix the mine's air purifier. He has some stories to tell about Broken Hills, and some philosophy on the new Unity between humans and mutants and ghouls that you may want to discuss with him, before or even if you don't take him with you.
 * Doc Holliday has stories to tell. You don't have to be interested in them to get free healing from him for listening to them, but it doesn't hurt. He mentions that he knows Dr. Fung in San Francisco.


 * Joseph
 * Bill
 * Liz
 * Francis
 * Manson
 * Franc

Residential

 * Typhon
 * Dan
 * Professor: Mentats in inventory.
 * Smart Scorpion: Spectacles in inventory.
 * Seymour the talking Sporeplant
 * Zaius
 * Eric: Buffout in inventory.

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 Joseph. 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. Joseph 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 Joseph 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.

Quests

 * Fix the mine's air purifier
 * Find the missing people for Marcus
 * Beat Francis at armwrestling
 * Break Manson and Franc out of prison
 * Blow up the mine's air purifier
 * Divert more electrical power to Eric's home
 * Defeat the professor's radscorpion in three challenges

Exploits and bugs
A bug that can be either exploited or not but is amusing either way is to make your way behind the shops and power station, up to the top of the map, which is supposed to be inaccessible. Literally at the extreme western edge of of town, if you position yourself just right, on the square adjacent to the fence on one side and the red exit grid on the other, and click on the other side of the fence, the Chosen One will walk offscreen, and come back on the other side of the fence, and come back even easier. The footlockers in this newly accessible area contain, in the first locker, nothing, in the second and successive lockers, the sale inventory of the various merchants in town. Even after you put Jacob in jail, his box still restocks. Arm explosives, setting it for a long time period, and put it into the first box, then run back and talk to a shopkeeper you'd like to see fragged; after you leave dialogue they'll be standing around with, figuratively at least, a lit stick of dynamite in their hands. As usual, refrain from saving, reloading, or changing from one zone to another while armed explosives are waiting to go off, as this can cause crashes. There is an infinite money exploit at the uranium refinery behind the Caravan office. Bring Uranium Ore to the glowing white ghoul. If the player agrees to have the ore refined for $1000, which takes a game day, the ghoul will ask to buy it back for $1500. Once at the dialogue screen where the ghoul buys the refined ore, repeat the conversation and sale over and over, using the relevant number keys to speed the process.

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.

Appearances in games
Broken Hills appears only in Fallout 2 and is mentioned by Marcus in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes
Broken Hills is likely named for 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.

Broken Hills may also be a reference to a Nevada Ghost Town, which was also a gold and silver mine.

Fallout 2 Restoration Project changes

 * New Quest: Money Skimming Quest
 * New characters involved as well as several others modified to fit the quest.
 * Unlocked voice dialogue from Marcus

Broken Hills Брокен Хиллс