Tranquility Lane

00:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)Spackling

 is a Fallout 3 quest an Xbox 360/PC achievement and a PlayStation 3 Trophy. The quest 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 simulation 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 free their father James, from the simulation.

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 Timmy what you've done.


 * Break Up The Rockwells' 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 4 simple ways to end her life:


 * The chandelier above the hallway to the kitchen can be rigged to drop when someone walks under it.


 * A pair of roller skates can be moved to the stairs, resulting Mrs. Henderson falling to her death when she tries to go upstairs.


 * 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 can quickly kill you as well. If you do manage to destroy the robot after it kills Mabel but before deactivating its security mode, you will be locked in the house, as the front (and only) door requires an unattainable house key - this glitch is potentially game-breaking if you do not have a save-point to revert to far enough prior to these events.
 * 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 to the right of the Abandoned House, 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. The pointers on your compass can help you find them.

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


The player can, in fact, skip all of Betty's negative karma inducing tasks by simply finding the abandoned house at the beginning of the simulation. Just go around in the row of houses until you see one titled "Abandoned House". (The gate should be closed, but this isn't a guaranteed indicator.) Step inside and activate the fail safe using the tones. You can also look at all the other notes written by Braun in here. After activating the fail safe, you will receive positive karma and all the innocent residents will be killed, because you freed them from their otherwise eternal suffering at Braun's hands. Braun, as Betty, will now be kept alive and forced to reside alone, forever.

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, 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. Radio, Pitcher, Gnome, Pitcher, Cinder Block, Gnome, Bottle.
 * A helpful mnemonic for remembering this might be "Rads Please Ghouls, Players Can Glow Badly".
 * 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.
 * Players can also 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, Charon, or Jericho) will have been set to "wait here" mode, and must be told to follow or they'll remain in Vault 112 indefinitely. Dogmeat may be sent back to Vault 101.

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.

Bugs

 * For some reason Mrs. Rockwell can skip the argument with her husband if you decide to use the sexy sleepwear. She will just run away when she's within speaking distance of her former husband.


 * One way to avoid this is to exit the basement before she does and make sure Mr. Rockwell is not too close to the basement door.


 * When leaving the simulation you may lose your hotkey bindings, forcing you to reset them.


 * It is possible to cause Fallout to hang by finding the rolling pin and pressing B if using the XBox 360.

Pop Culture References

 * 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 sitcom and then try to get out while blending into the town.


 * Although not a direct reference, the situation with Braun is reminiscent of the Harlan Ellison short story "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream". In that short story, a sentient supercomputer named AM has 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, decides that the only way to end the suffering is to mercifully kill the others. 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 Ellison's other major post-nuclear short story "A Boy and his Dog". It similarly lampoons the 1953 Jerome Bixby short story (adapted into the famed Twilight Zone episode of the same name) called "It's A Good Life," wherein inhabitants of a small town are forced to bend to the whims of a child with god-like powers, forced to live an existence of synthetic pleasantness while completely at the whims of the sadistic child.


 * In an episode of the Twilight Zone (Kick the Can.) the settings retirement home is on "Tranquility Lane".

"Dithers" may refer to the bumbling character Mr. Dithers in the Blondie Comic strip. The strip represents middle American values in the 1950's as well. "Simpson" may be a wink to the suburban cartoon family "The Simpsons".
 * The name "Rockwell" may be an homage to Norman Rockwell, a famous illustrator known for Americana paintings decpicting life in the 1950's.