Tranquility Lane

 is a Fallout 3 quest. It is also an Xbox 360 and PC achievement. It begins immediately at the end of Scientific Pursuits, as the player sits in a Tranquility Lounger and begins a simulation...

Tranquility Lane is a virtual reality simulator housed in Vault 112. The player is tasked by one of the residents, Betty, with an ever-escalating series of violent jobs in order to try and figure out the location of their father James.



Betty's Tasks Solution
Betty will ask you to do the following things for her entertainment:


 * Make Timmy Cry: Timmy can be quite easily made to cry by punching him or hitting him with the Rolling Pin. For a more creative solution, you can convince him that his parents are divorcing each other because of him, or you can give him the Military School Pamphlet to fool him into believing his parents are sending him away.


 * To really impress Betty, kill both of Timmy's parents and tell him what you've done.


 * Break Up The Rockwell's Marriage: The easiest method is to simply tell Mrs. Rockwell that her husband is cheating on her, which she will readily believe. You can also place the Sexy Sleepwear from the Simpson household on the desk in the basement, then tell Mrs. Rockwell that her husband is either cheating or he is a cross-dresser.  Finally, one can read Mrs. Rockwell's diary upstairs, which will indicate that she'd like to kill Mrs. Simpson.  Take the Rolling Pin from kitchen in the Rockwell house and beat Mrs. Simpson to death with it, then tell Mr. Rockwell about it.


 * Kill Mrs. Henderson: Note that Betty is adamant that you cannot simply beat Mrs. Henderson to death, as that's boring; you must be creative about it.


 * The Henderson household has at least three simple ways to end her life: the chandelier above the hallway to the kitchen can be rigged to drop when someone walks under it, and a pair of roller skates can be moved to the stairs, resulting Mrs. Henderson falling to her death when she tries to go upstairs.


 * For a more exciting murder, her oven can be sabotaged to leak natural gas. Ask her to make you a pie; when she lights the stove the explosion will kill her instantly.  Most elaborately, the security console in the kitchen can be accessed, allowing one to enable Security Lockdown, locking Mrs. Henderson in the house.  Set the robot to "House Cleaning" Mode, and as it wanders around disable the "target selection" data, rendering it unable to determine friend from foe.  This requires that you make sure the robot does not see you or it will attack and quickly kill you as well.


 * Another method of killing her is to use the roller scates located at the top of the stairs. When you activated these, it pushes them forward closer to the stairs, and when Mrs. Henderson walks up or down the stairs, she slips on them and dies.


 * Note: If Mrs. Henderson is not in her house, she might be in the Simpson house.


 * Kill Everyone: This is exceedingly simple: as Betty says, you'll find the Pint-Sized Slasher Gear in the doghouse, which will automatically be equipped and cannot be removed. At this point, everyone will become hostile and attempt to flee from you (with the exceptions of Betty and Doc); it can take some time to locate all the residents, as they'll often move from house to house to escape you.

After everyone is murdered, Braun thanks you for the entertainment and tells you what you wanted to know most: Doc is actually your father, and has been watching you in horror the entire time. He then opens the Exit Door, allowing you to leave the simulation.



Alternative "Fail Safe" Solution
If the player speaks to Old Lady Dithers, she will tell the player that she knows that Tranquility Lane is a simulation, and she knows that Betty is really "Braun", and he is at the "Fail Safe Terminal". She mentions that the player should go to the Abandoned House, but is quite obviously insane and mostly babbles.

Within the abandoned house, the player will find a set of unusual objects which make unusual noises when activated. If the player enters the proper sequence, (radio, pitcher, gnome, pitcher, concrete block, gnome, cola bottle), the Fail-Safe Terminal will reveal itself. In the terminal, selecting "Chinese Invasion" will summon a number of Chinese soldiers who proceed to murder the residents of Tranquility Lane, with the exception of Doc the dog, Betty, and the player. According to the notes on the Invasion program, this program disables the fail-safes on most of the pods, meaning that dying in the simulation will kill the real world person as well.


 * If you can't remember the sequence to activate the terminal, note that each object has a specific tone, and Betty whistles the correct tonal sequence while playing in the center of the lane.
 * The background music for Tranquility Lane also incorporates the melody.
 * Another solution is to listen to the error sound that plays if an incorrect (out of sequence) note is played. It takes 5 tries to find the first tone, 5 for the second, 5 for the third and so on.. so in max 35 attempts the puzzle is solved.
 * PC players can Quick Save between every correct tone to make things much easier

Speaking to Braun, he will lament that he is now alone and trapped forever within the simulation, something confirmed by his own notes on the Chinese Invasion Plan on the Fail-Safe Terminal: the systems in place for his own safety will not allow him to be killed, even if when the Invasion program is launched. He will further point out that Doc is actually James, and he will be waiting for you once you leave the simulation.

Using the Exit Door on the playground will end the simulation.

Outside Tranquility Lane
As soon as the Tranquility Lounger pod opens, James will run up to the player and begin a conversation. He had intended to discuss Project Purity with Braun in an attempt to figure out what he, Catherine, and Dr. Li did wrong previously, but was duped into entering a Tranquility Lounger. After some dialogue, he says he'll be returning to Rivet City to meet with Dr. Li and resume the project; the player can either immediately go with him or indicate that they've other tasks to attend to. This has no real influence on the plot, and James will leave for Rivet City regardless.

Any companions who were with you (potentially Clover, Dogmeat, or Jericho) will have been set to "wait here" mode, and must be told to follow or they'll remain in Vault 112 indefinitely.

This immediately concludes Tranquility Lane and begins The Waters of Life.

Note you gain significant good karma for immediately activating the Chinese failsafe, but bad karma for every evil act you carry out on Betty's behalf.

Trivia

 * At first glance, Tranquility Lane appears to take place in the 1950's. However, certain artifacts, such as a Mr. Handy in one of the houses, places it most likely during 2077 (which apparently was very much like the 1950's in the Fallout world setting).  This is the only true glimpse of the pre-war world we see in the entirety of the Fallout games made thus far.


 * Tranquility Lane's Sepia-toned look is very reminiscent of the movie Pleasantville, in which a pair of teens, wind up in a 1950's black & white soap opera and then try to get out while blending into the town.


 * Characters with 75+ Science Skill can use a terminal to unlock a door in the room with the tranquility chairs. That room contains a laser rifle, an assault rifle, a bunch of ammo, and some meds as well as a password for the Overseer's Room upstairs. The Overseer's Room contains Braun's tranquility chair and a safe with some caps. Curiously, there does not appear to be any way to interact with Braun's pod and end the simulation without going into Tranquility Lane.


 * Complying with Betty/Braun's requests will result in bad karma, despite the fact that all of the harm being caused is confined to the virtual world of Tranquility Lane. On the other hand, using the failsafe terminal and running the Chinese Invasion protocol does not generate any bad karma despite the fact that it causes the inhabitants of Tranquility Lane to die in both the virtual and the real world (which can be confirmed by checking their vitals after the simulation terminates.) This seems to imply that the game developers view putting the trapped Vault-dwellers out of their misery as the most moral choice, since there appears to be no way to free them or kill Braun; given that that the alternative not only tortures them but leaves them in Braun's control, this makes some sense. It is however of morally dubious choice at best.


 * If you attempt to check your Pip-Boy while in the simulation, you will instead see a simple Vault Boy wristwatch permanently stuck at 2:45. As it is impossible to check your quests, your goals will periodically pop-up on the left side of the display.  Oddly, VATS still works as intended.


 * If you kill anyone within the simulation, trying to loot the body will result in an in-game error about the simulation preventing you from tampering with corpses.
 * Note that the Chinese Soldiers will entirely ignore the player, Doc, and Betty; even standing in front of them while they fire will cause you to take no damage, and attacking or killing them will not turn them hostile. The bodies cannot be looted; trying to activate them does nothing despite the "Search Chinese Soldier" message.  if you attempt to talk to the Chinese Soldiers, they will always reply with "Stand aside comrade! we'll deal with these imperialist pigs!"


 * It is possible to pickpocket the chinese commandos after activating the failsafe. This does not work though on anyone else.


 * Attacking Betty/Braun in the simulation with a weapon like the rolling pin or knife, or even your fists, will cause a severe retaliation and instant death for the player. If you talk to Braun after activating the failsafe, he says you can leave because he can no longer harm you - however, he can still instantly kill you if you attack him / her. It seems strange that Braun, now trapped here for eternity alone, doesn't try to kill you if he still does have such powers.


 * You can attack Doc untill the point of unconsciousness.


 * If you have the Mysterious Stranger perk, he will still show up during V.A.T.S. in Tranquility Lane (that's, if you decide to do things the violent way).


 * When leaving the simulation there might be an issue regarding your hotbar bindings, causing you to lose them and forcing you to reset them.


 * Although not a direct reference, the situation with Braun is reminiscent of the Harlan Ellison shortstory "I Have No Mouth, But I Must Scream". In that shortstory a sentient supercomputer named AM is said ot have gone insane and trapped the last 5 members of humanity within himself, making them all immortal so he may torment them throughout eternity. The protagonist, Ted, descides that the only way to end the suffering is to kill the others as a mercy. Braun seems to play the part of AM. This would seem fitting since much of the Fallout world borrows (though through other sources as well) from Ellsion's other major post-nuclear shortstory "A Boy and his Dog".