Liberty Prime (later Liberty Prime Mark II) is a unique U.S. Army robot which was completed but never saw deployment due to its lack of a suitable power source.[1] After lying dormant beneath the Pentagon for nearly two hundred years, it was discovered by the Brotherhood of Steel, who were able to restore it to working order. Local scientist Dr. Madison Li solved Prime's power issues in the year 2277, enabling its first deployment. The robot was critical in the annihilation of the Enclave in and around the Capital Wasteland.
After its destruction at the satellite relay station, Prime remained in disrepair until 2287, when it was brought to Boston for restoration and activation in their campaign against the Institute and all synthkind. It plays a major role in Fallout 3, Broken Steel, and Fallout 4.
Background[]
Creation[]
In response to the Chinese occupation of Anchorage, the United States Army contracted RobCo Industries and General Atomics International to collaborate on an unprecedented joint project, military contract 38917, with the goal of creating the most powerful combat robot in the history of warfare.[2]
Development commenced in 2072, and in the words of General Constantine Chase, initiator of the project, Liberty Prime "will be the very embodiment of American military might -- a walking, talking, nuke-tossing hero who will remind the world what it means to be a super power."[2][Non-game 1][2] Confident that the project would soon yield result, General Chase publicly confirmed in June 2072 that the U.S. Army was working with General Atomics and RobCo to create a superweapon meant to establish dominance of the United States on the Alaskan front.[3] Propaganda posters also purported the existence of a Chinese super robot, Warmachine, and called for the United States to build its own.[4]
However, while the chassis, voice module, and weapons systems were all completed by the projected date, the developers were unable to develop a power source compact enough to power all of its systems. Stanley Bloomfeld, project lead, was unable to ascertain a solution and Vault-Tec was unable to help, as the only person capable of solving this conundrum - Stanislaus Braun - went into seclusion shortly before the problems manifested. The robot could technically move and navigate terrain, but it would only do so with all weapons systems offline.[5] The delay was unacceptable and the U.S. military was forced to press on without the aid of Liberty Prime. The Alaskan campaign was won, at a heavy cost in men and materiel, while Liberty Prime remained in a bay below the Pentagon, waiting for a solution to its power management problems.[6]
Capital Wasteland[]
In 2255, Owyn Lyons and his Brotherhood of Steel expedition arrived in the Capital Wasteland and found Liberty Prime beneath the ruins of the Pentagon. This impressive find led them to fortify the Pentagon as their main bunker in D.C., thenceforth the Citadel, and resume development of the failed pre-War project.[7] However, the same problems would plague the program as before the War. Chief among these was energy consumption. The Brotherhood had no way of powering the behemoth robot, even with Head Scribe Rothchild heading the project.[8]
For 20 years, the Brotherhood struggled to launch its robot.[8] Every attempt to gain ground was compensated with failures. As of May 8, 2277, the research team had managed to restore 46% power to internal processors, 45% to weapons, and 37% to power management systems, and attempted to redistribute power to bring the robot online.[9] The attempt proved fruitless, with problems coming from the least expected direction: Liberty Prime himself. Rothchild's team tried to bypass the aggressive combat subroutines by trying to fool the robot with a neural dampener that power was being redistributed from a source other than its weapons. However, the onboard AI routines detected the attempt and again refused to allow the researchers to draw power away from its weapon systems. The attempt fried some of the robot's circuitry and set the project back three months.[10]
Another attempt was made on July 13, 2277.[11] This time, a faulty power capacitor caused a power spike and degraded system performance, dropping internal processor, weapons, and power management power to 12%, 13% and, 1% respectively.[11] Tired of struggling with rerouting power, Rothchild ended power management experiments and resumed work on Accelerated Vector Fusion module to simply meet the power demands. Inspired by the work of Dr. Madison Li in Rivet City, Rothchild hoped for a breakthrough.[12] The attempt caused injury to several individuals. In its first major experiment on August 1, 2277, the AVF device resulted in second degree burns for Scribe Bowditch, while an accidental weapon discharge nearly killed Elder Lyons.[13] These events led to stricter control imposed on the experimentation team.[14]
Despite the accidents, Rothchild's team was able to restore much of the power and improve its distribution bringing power to internal processors to 87% and weapons to 60%, but problems with power management (operating at 3% efficiency) made deployment impossible. Mobility and navigation translation remained at 0%. Only the voice module worked at 100% at all times, mocking the researchers.[15]
When the Enclave seized Project Purity, Dr. Madison Li arrived at the Citadel. With her experience in fusion research and applications, Rothchild and his team were able to resolve the power management problems.[16][17]
Liberty Prime was brought online for the first time. Deployed against the Enclave in the battle of Project Purity, Liberty Prime made its way towards Project Purity over the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The massive robot acted as a spearhead, destroying Vertibirds and entrenched Enclave positions.[18]
Lyons's Pride and the Lone Wanderer followed the robot's path of destruction, engaging any Enclave personnel that survived the initial assault. Liberty Prime continued up to the purifier, destroying photonic resonance barriers set up around the island to deny land access. Upon arrival at the Memorial, Liberty Prime and Lyons Pride set up a security perimeter, while Sarah Lyons and the Lone Wanderer headed inside the facility.[18]
Destruction[]
The victory at the purifier set the pattern for attacks using Liberty Prime. For two weeks, the Brotherhood mopped up Enclave forces throughout the Capital Wasteland, until the Battle of Rockland. The attack followed a standard pattern. Liberty Prime was deployed as spearhead, destroying the bulk of the enemy forces and bypassing their fortifications, while ground troops under Tristan's command followed the robot, mopping up any stragglers. The initial attack went well and the combat group penetrated enemy defenses right up into the facility. Liberty Prime proceeded to create an access point into the facility, by punching through the concrete walls.[19]
However, this was a ruse by the Enclave. Liberty Prime was lured into the cul-de-sac in front of the Rockland facility in order to be destroyed. Just as it opened the facility to the Brotherhood's assault, the Enclave initiated a tactical missile bombardment from the Bradley-Hercules orbital weapons platform, turning the area into a kill zone. Liberty Prime was destroyed, with Tristan's forces just barely able to reach minimum safe distance.[20][19] The destruction of Liberty Prime put the Brotherhood in a very difficult position, as it removed the only significant military advantage it had over the Enclave.[21] Lyons had little in the way of men and resources at the beginning of the conflict with the Enclave, and after the loss of Prime all of these problems surfaced, exacerbated by the ongoing water delivery program. With the resources pooled into defense against the Enclave, the Brotherhood had to rely on the Lone Wanderer as their trump card.[22] Meanwhile, Rothchild immediately began work on rebuilding Prime, hoping to restore him to working condition. Eventually, the project was shelved due to a lack of success.
The Commonwealth[]
Proctor Ingram was ordered to resume the attempt to fix Prime in 2287. Despite the terrible state of salvage,[23] she labored for several years to reconstruct the robot.[24] When Elder Arthur Maxson realized that the Institute could be tracked down and confronted in the Commonwealth, Prime's components were loaded onto the Prydwen and brought along for the campaign. A special gantry was constructed in the ruins of the Boston Airport, to assemble the war machine under Proctor Ingram's orders - as long as the Brotherhood would be able to salvage the components that would allow for it to be deployed.[25]
There were several problems that had to be rectified. The fragile CPU blew itself out whenever the scribes tried feeding power to it, due to the complexity of the robot's power system.[26] The missile strike that destroyed Prime also wrecked the power system, necessitating the development of a new system, enlisting the aid of either Doctor Madison Li or Professor Scara.[26] They helped restore the total corruption of the memory core, caused by improper salvaging of Prime and flaws in its original design (lack of inertial dampeners and titanium shock casing to protect it).[27][28]
The next step in the reconstruction was rebuilding its limbs. Electromagnetic actuators were used for this purpose, constructed on site using high powered magnets.[25] The restored memory core posed a constant problem, as explaining to a combat robot why it can't move was a drain on the scribes' patience.[29] Following the successful assembly of the limbs, the penultimate component of the combat robot was a supply of modified Mark 28 nuclear bombs, necessary if it was ever to operate at more than half capacity.[30] The nukes salvaged from the Commonwealth at Sentinel site Prescott had to be adapted to remain stable in the unconventional launcher.[31]
The final step in bringing Liberty Prime back to life was reactivating its fusion reactor, which lay dormant ever since its destruction. Kept online by power leeched from the Prydwen, Prime's reactor required the experimental beryllium agitator to cold start the reactor.[32] The agitator - located at the Mass Fusion Building - would provide the power surge necessary to start the reaction.[33]
Liberty Prime has two primary weapons, including a head-mounted liberty laser[34] and a back-mounted supply of Mark 28 nuclear bombs.[35] Prime was able to destroy fortifications by walking through them.[36]
The robot had drawbacks in function, including lacking a sufficient fusion power source.[37] As the war with China dragged on, the project was eventually put on hold. The self-sustaining fusion reactor remained active, powering the robot, until finally Madison Li resolved the power distribution and management problems, allowing it to be deployed into combat.[16] In addition, the machine's slow speed and large size made it vulnerable to high-yield artillery and orbital missile strikes capable of overwhelming its armor.[36]
Interactions with the player character[]
Interactions overview[]
Fallout 3[]
Interactions | ||
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This character is essential. Essential characters cannot be killed. | ||
This character is involved in quests. |
- Notes
- Liberty Prime is first seen in the lab beneath the Citadel in its inactive state. The Lone Wanderer can gain information about the robot, as well as hear some of its dialogue by using a nearby computer terminal to initiate a dialogue test.
- Liberty Prime fires dual, head-mounted energy beams, which are similar to shots fired from a Tesla cannon. The beams can kill multiple Enclave soldiers with a single shot. Its backpack holds a limitless supply of explosives that it throws at enemies. These munitions detonate on contact.
- Prime is immune to all kinds of conventional attacks and is able to defeat energy barriers simply by walking into them. The robot will sometimes grab them and rip them down. While traversing the wasteland, it repeats anti-communist phrases and declares that "Democracy will never be defeated" and "Communism is a temporary setback on the road to freedom."[38]
- Due to its size, Liberty Prime primarily follows pre-scripted paths whenever it appears and has little independence outside of them. The walk to the purifier is filled with scripted elements.
- As it is being lifted out of the Citadel lab, Liberty Prime will hit the wall of the Citadel, dislodging some pieces of the wall.
- Although it cannot be killed, it is possible to cause it to turn hostile, in which case it will attempt to eliminate the player and their followers.
- Quests
- Take it Back!: The Brotherhood of Steel, with the help of Dr. Li, manages to fix the power issues with the robot. With the pressing need to reclaim Project Purity, Elder Lyons orders Prime deployed without proper testing. Liberty Prime makes its way to the Jefferson Memorial, while destroying Enclave energy barriers, vertibirds and troops. Once there, Liberty Prime assists the Brotherhood in guarding the memorial's entrance, after taking down the force field surrounding it. The giant robot will then remain there for the duration of the quest.
- Death From Above: Liberty Prime joins the Lone Wanderer in the assault on the Satellite Relay Station, an Enclave base located beyond the Rockland Car Tunnel. After the Enclave hits Prime with an orbital strike, Prime crawls from the wreckage and initiates its self-destruct sequence to prevent being captured by the "communists." Its head, feet, and what appears to be a forearm are taken back to the Citadel. Similar to Deputy Weld, its head can be activated, which will cause it to playback some of its anti-communist phrases, although they sound much more garbled than they are during the 'Take it Back!' quest.
- Three Dog will make a news report as a eulogy for it on Galaxy News Radio when it is destroyed.
- After Broken Steel is completed, Liberty Prime's head can be found on the table in the Citadel lab. However, it is not removed from the satellite relay station, and it will remain there as well.
- Getting Ready for Prime Time: At the conclusion of Broken Steel's main questline, Scribe Rothchild vows the Brotherhood of Steel will rebuild Prime, although it may take months, or even years. He then asks for the player character's help in scavenging sensor modules and cameras to assist in the rebuilding process.
Interactions overview[]
Fallout 4[]
Interactions | ||
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This character is essential. Essential characters cannot be killed. | ||
This character is involved in quests. |
- Notes
- When Liberty Prime is brought back online at the Boston Airport in 2287 after its destruction in the line of duty, the Brotherhood of Steel has already implemented several upgrades to its systems, including an almost complete redesign of his limbs and arms which has replaced old liquid-feed hydraulic systems with electromagnetic actuators. They have therefore designated him as Mk. II. Other changes include its eye laser which now fires a single massive red beam instead of a salvo of blue beams as well as a new supply of Mark 28 nuclear bombs to throw at enemies after completing the quest Liberty Reprimed.
- Liberty Prime MK II autonomously switches from a land-based route to an amphibious assault during its attack on the Institute whereas before it only demonstrated the capacity to overcome straightforward obstacles such as energy barriers. Prime was also able to correctly deduce that the Institute was a subterranean complex and utilized its laser weapon to bore a tunnel directly into the facility.
- Liberty Prime is able to 'super-charge' its laser weapon while boring an access hole into the Institute, or firing at the Prydwen, releasing a more powerful version of its standard laser.[verification overdue]
- Liberty Prime may throw nukes directly at its own feet if enemies are close, dealing damage to its surroundings, including the player and companions.
- Prime still broadcasts anti-communist propaganda slogans, such as "Democracy is truth. Communism is death" and "Embrace Democracy, or you will be eradicated."[39]
- It is possible to target Liberty Prime in V.A.T.S., but will not incur damage. It never turns hostile against the player if struck. However, the Sole Survivor can be trampled underfoot if they are in its path.
- Liberty Prime has a death animation that is never seen by normal means, in which it will drop onto its knees and then suddenly spring forward uncontrollably.[40]
- Quests
- Liberty Reprimed: Upon returning to Proctor Ingram after Outside the Wire, it is revealed that the Brotherhood of Steel is reconstructing Liberty Prime, who was destroyed in the war against the Enclave in the Capital Wasteland. The Sole Survivor is asked to help restore Liberty Prime to its former glory, in order to help the Brotherhood fight the Institute.
- Spoils of War: With Liberty Prime almost ready, the Sole Survivor is tasked with recovering a beryllium agitator in order to power him up. The Sole Survivor is to travel to the Mass Fusion building with Proctor Ingram to get the agitator.
- Ad Victoriam: With Liberty Prime fully operational, the Brotherhood of Steel is ready to launch their assault on the Institute. The Sole Survivor is to follow Liberty Prime to the C.I.T. ruins and put an end to the Institute. After completing the quest, Liberty Prime will be found patrolling Boston Airport after the endgame.
- When Liberty Prime reaches Bunker Hill it recognizes it as a memorial site and engages "patriotism subroutines," pausing to salute while saying "honoring the fallen is the duty of every red-blooded American."[41]
- If the player turns on the Brotherhood of Steel after completing their storyline, and then takes down the Prydwen during With Our Powers Combined, Liberty Prime will actually survive the fight against the Minutemen.
- Airship Down: After the Institute and Sole Survivor has dealt with the Railroad in End of the Line, the Institute will initiate their final assault against the Brotherhood of Steel. To take down the Prydwen, the Institute created a computer virus that will reprogram Liberty Prime's targeting system. After they push back the heavy resistance and the computer virus is uploaded, Liberty Prime will target the Prydwen as an aerial communist incursion and shoot the airship down. The wreckage of the Prydwen subsequently lands on Boston Airport, destroying both the Brotherhood outpost and Liberty Prime.
Statistics[]
- Fallout 3
Name (Form ID) | Statistics | Behavior | Abilities | Items | ||||
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Liberty Prime 0005FD26 |
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Liberty Prime 00001FCC |
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- Fallout 4
Name (Form ID) | Statistics | Behavior | Abilities | Items | |||||
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Liberty Prime 001337F2 |
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Notable quotes[]
Capital Wasteland quotes |
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Broken Steel quotes |
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Commonwealth quotes |
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Appearances[]
Liberty Prime appears in Fallout 3, in the Fallout 3 add-on Broken Steel, Fallout 4, and is mentioned in the Operation: Anchorage and Automatron add-ons. Liberty Prime also appears in Fallout 76 as a power armor skin in the Atomic Shop, as well as on the legendary perk card Power Armor Reboot. Liberty Prime also appears in Fallout: The Board Game, where the Brotherhood of Steel may send him out to take out Project Purity during the Capital Wasteland scenario, ending the game.
Behind the scenes[]
- Although he appears in both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, the voice of Liberty Prime was not credited in either game, making his actor unknown.
- The Art of Fallout 3 shares that the Iron Giant was one of the inspirations for Liberty Prime.[Non-game 2]
- In an interview with 1UP.com, Emil Pagliarulo denied any intentional relation between Liberty Prime and Optimus Prime.[Non-game 3]
- Prime has several unused animations, one of which is named "DLC03PrimeWalkSmashedVertibird" in the game files.
- In the early parts of the development of Fallout 3, Liberty Prime was supposed to be larger than seen in-game, and the player character was going to ride inside of its head during the final battle.[Non-game 4]
- During development of Fallout 3, Liberty Prime's immense size broke the navmeshing system, which was intended for characters of the same human size. Programmer Jean Simonet had to implement a two-pass pathing trick to make the sequence work.[Non-game 5]
- The G.E.C.K. lists a cut quest called "Infiltration" which was situated between The American Dream and Take it Back! and had the player character stealing a power source from Rivet City to power Liberty Prime.
- Liberty Prime appeared in an advertisement for the PlayStation Now service, where he appeared alongside a cast of characters from various video games.[Non-game 6]
Bugs[]
- Fallout 3
- stuck. Although the most common places for this glitch is on the left side of the highway when heading to retake the purifier at the Jefferson Memorial, and on the first large bridge the Lone Wanderer crosses. [verified]
- If all else fails, you may be able to fix this by selecting Liberty Prime in the console and typing "moveto player."
Liberty Prime often gets - Vargas at any point in the game before starting Take it Back!, Liberty Prime will stay immobile, preventing the player from continuing the questline. [verified]
- player.placeatme 0001d44e 1 to respawn Paladin Vargas and proceed with the quest. The only way to fix this issue is using the console command:
- It is possible to get around this by baiting Liberty Prime into chasing after you by attacking BoS initiates.
If you kill - Liberty Prime may launch into the air and remain there. The best way to solve this is to wait (real-time). If this fails, the player may need to reload the previous autosave. [verified]
- If the Lone Wanderer manages to get far enough ahead of Prime when it is attacking Enclave forces, it is possible for the player character to be killed by its attacks. [verified]
- If the Lone Wanderer manages to get too far ahead of Liberty Prime before it disables the first "force field," Liberty Prime may stop walking across the first bridge after shutting down the first "force field." [verified]
- Fallout 4
Institute.[verified]
Liberty Prime often stops right before the body of water on the way to theGallery[]
- Fallout 3
- Fallout 4
- Fallout Wasteland Warfare
- Fallout 76
- Magic: The Gathering
References[]
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Non-game
- ↑ Fallout 3 Official Game Guide Game of the Year Edition p.81: "Liberty Prime is a formidable but currently offline combat robot that is being tinkered with in the laboratory. Its original intent was to liberate Anchorage, Alaska, from the Red Chinese back in 2072. A mixture of patriotic propaganda messages and incredible firepower ensured victory! But can the robot be fixed in time to help the Brotherhood?"
(Fallout 3 Official Game Guide Game of the Year Edition Wasteland Census) - ↑ The Art of Fallout 3 p. 45: "And Liberty Prime. Who doesn't like a friendly giant robot? We definitely had a bit of Iron Giant in mind when we pictured this guy, but Adam came up with an original, perfectly proportioned, towering robot that captured Liberty's Captain America personality."
- ↑ Emil Pagliarulo, "Fallout 3 Afterthoughts" on 1UP.com: "Honestly, he wasn't named after Optimus Prime, as most people suspect. At least, not intentionally -- but the subconscious is powerful thing, and I pull a lot of stuff from there unintentionally."
- ↑ Emil Pagliarulo, "Fallout 3 Afterthoughts" on 1up.com: "Liberty Prime is kind of an interesting case. We knew we wanted to have this big, pre-war, anticommunist robot. In the original plan, he was going to be massive, and the player was going to ride in his head, anime style. And, well, yeah -- that never happened!"
- ↑ Fallout 3 on jeansimonet.net
- ↑ PlayStation Now advertisement
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