Let me tell you of a quest that many casual players ofFallout 3may never have experienced. Nestled in a rock formation in the very northernmost reaches of the DC wasteland is a piece of paradise called the Oasis. There is no major quest or location that takes you towards Oasis, with the closest notable point of interest being Vault 92 to the east, the site of the Agatha’s Song quest. For this reason, a lot of players may never end up getting there.
I was on an expedition in the northern hills of the Capital Wasteland when I stumbled upon Tree Father Birch and the path to Oasis. After a brief conversation with the aforementioned Birch, I was whisked into the lush green tree cover of the Oasis - a place teeming with life and greenery incomparable with anywhere else in the Capital Wasteland (or perhaps any other Fallout wasteland). It’s quite the sight and a welcome reprieve from the sickly grey-yellow colour palette of Fallout 3.
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After hopping around for a while, I set about talking to everyone in the area. Oasis is host to a commune of individuals who shun technology and worship “Him,” an old friend who we’ll talk about later. They call themselves the Treeminders and besides Birch, there is Leaf Mother Laurel, Bloomseer Poplar, Branchtender Cypress, Branchtender Linden, Branchtender Maple and Sapling Yew. See the pattern here? Birch, Laurel and their daughter Yew are the main characters you’re going to be dealing with. Besides them, Poplar is a fortune-teller who can give vague hints for quests that the player hasn’t found yet. Linden, meanwhile, is a former member of the Brotherhood Outcasts.
After exchanging pleasantries with the tree folk, I drank some sap and went into a drug-induced haze (a surprisingly common plot device in Fallout). When I awoke, who was there to greet me but Harold, the beloved kinda-ghoul from Fallout 1 and 2, albeit now completely immersed in tree form. For those unfamiliar, Harold is a part ghoul, part super mutant who was left permanently changed following exposure to the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus). The protagonist from the original Fallout encounters Harold in the Hub as a wise beggar and befriends him in exchange for information. Despite his situation, Harold remains a jovial, witty and upbeat individual throughout.
Following this, Harold left the Hub, along with a sapling named Bob which had begun sprouting from his head. Bob appears to be some kind of FEV-mutated tree. The protagonist fromFallout 2, the Chosen One, encounters Harold in Gecko. Harold is running the local power plant and needs the player’s help in fixing a pollution problem that’s attracted the ire of the nearby Vault City. After the stint in Gecko, it would appear Harold wound up travelling as far as the Capital Wasteland, where I found him nestled away in the north of the map.
Bob has become a bit too large, to say the least, taking root in the Wasteland and consequently trapping Harold inside him. Bob’s seeds have sprung forth life in the area, bringing greenery back to the grim landscape. The pair were eventually found by Birch who began to worship them as a deity, founding the Treeminders to protect Harold and Bob from the horrors of the Wasteland. Unfortunately for the pair, this isn’t what they want, they were travelling companions and now they’ve been stuck in the same spot for decades.Harold then makes the rather tough request of you to grant him a mercy killing.
Harold has asked this of the Treeminders but they, tree-hugging zealots that they are, didn’t take it literally, and interpreted his request instead as a test of faith. Laurel and Birch have differing opinions on what to do with their god; Laurel wishes to accelerate Bob’s growth, blanketing the Wasteland in greenery within a couple of decades. Birch, on the other hand, wants to slow down Bob’s growth to prevent the location of the Oasis from being found, protecting the pair from harm. Harold just wants to die.
Ahead of me lay three options, Birch’s seems the least appealing as it doesn’t fulfill Harold’s death wish nor does it provide any kind of common good for the people of the Capital Wasteland. Laurel’s plan would introduce life back into the Wasteland, which certainly feels like the most do-gooder outcome. But Harold is an old friend, and sobering though it is, I’d do a lot for the long-suffering ghoul. I decided to grant Harold’s wish, which would would entail venturing into an old mineshaft where Bob has taken root and destroy the pair’s heart.
The opinion of each of the Treeminders can be heard prior to venturing into the cave - half are loyal to Birch and half to Laurel. With only the young Yew seemingly willing to listen to what Harold actually wants. Once I completed the deed, Harold’s blood pouring all over the ground of the mine (and giving me a solid little health boost), I returned to the surface, where Birch expresses regret at not understanding Harold’s true wishes and maintaining that the commune can survive as a tribute to the ghoul’s legacy. It’s a sad and strange end to a legendary character, and not every player was happy that Bethesda took it on themselves to kill off a character created by Black Isle way back in 1997, but there’s something poignant about the whole thing. It was a passing-of-the-torch moment in some ways for the series, in a serene setting. Harold had lived many lifetimes up to this point, and the fact that in death he’d continue to be worshipped felt like a fitting sendoff.
If you choose to burn Harold instead (you monster), you can return later to see his charred husk. It’s not a pleasant sight at all, but in an interesting little glimmer of hope, there’s actually a small plant sprouting out of him, suggesting there’s some life - whether humanoid or plant - there yet.
The Oasis is a little slice of life in a bleak world. It’s a creative idea, and within that you have plenty of backstories pack in to the Treeminders. Within one tiny corner of the map, you have a character who’s inadvertently involved with the creation of super mutants and was familiar with the antagonist of the original Fallout, another character who has found a new purpose after rebelling against the local Brotherhood of Steel branch, and a psychic woman who has tens of lines of dialogue that can point the player in the direction of quests they’ve yet to discover.
That’s Fallout, tightly packed, lore-heavy and a damn good time.
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