Silath's Journal: Day 21 - November 8, 2281

Headed out of Cottonwood Cove, found the Searchlight North Gold Mine along the way. Nothing interesting inside, just several NCR feral ghouls.
On the road north, I came across a large brahmin caravan. Sadly, some Legion assasins chose this moment to strike. They killed almost everyone in the caravan, as I couldn't get clean shots on them with Brahmin and people running everywhere. I feel bad, but I'm not so stupid to think it's my fault. Ceaser is the one who sent the fuckers after me. I think this makes the third attempt, now.
Stopped by Novac after that, traded a little with Cliff Broscoe at the Dino-dee-lite. He had a silencer that fit any 5.56 barrel, and I slapped it on my cut down R91. I've been trying to think of a name for it, and finally decided on 'Perferator'.

Ended up taking a side road north out of Novac, and noticed a massive building, so I headed towards it out of curiosity. Turned out to be the Helios One power plant, which I had heard about on the radio. Was stopped by a Lt. Haggerty, and offered my assistance in getting the place up and running. I'm starting to get really good at science and repair oriented jobs, so this seemed like the perfect place for me.
Unfortunately, the NCR had put some absolute idiot calling himself 'Fantastic' in charge. He asked me if I was there to replace him, and I jokingly said yes. He freaked out, and I told him if he gave me some caps I would let him keep his job! The idiot paid up.
On the bright side, there was a FOA guy there, Ignacio Rivas. A little... creepy, but at least he wasn't a complete idiot. He had a theory that some sort of weapon named 'Archimedes' was located here. After all the hidden military complexes I've seen, I'd believe it. He also told me that the Brotherhood of Steel had fought to the death against NCR forces to hold this place (Obviously they eventually failed) and the brotherhood doesn't defend something like that unless it's very powerful.

It seems, though, the NCR has no idea this place is anything more than complex solar power station. It seems I need to locate two panel control teriminals and reestablish their uplink with the power station mainframe, then get to the mainframe and set where I want the power to go. After that I need to access the panel calibration console and get them all aimed properly.
Of course, the mainframe was guarded by a small robot army, which was why the NCR hadn't gotten to it yet. But I'd rather face down robots than almost anything else; they're insanely easy to get the drop on.

For some reason the NCR had laid all sorts of traps around the first terminal, and locked three guard dogs around the second. Fantastic had given me the password to the first (he found it scrawled on one of the bathroom stalls, what the fuck?) and Rivas had discovered the password to the second. After dealing with the traps and dogs, I reconnected them both to the mainframe.
Then I headed for the large building housing a solar collecting tower. It wasn't hard to tell that the panels were designed to hit a point on the tower, pretty smart actually. Reflect all the sunlight onto a single point.
The first room was guarded by a series of turrets, but I snuck past them into a side room housing a terminal which let me erase their targeting data; sure enough, a moment later the sounds of laser and gunfire rang out. Then I shut them down and headed out.
The rest of the building was guarded by a few robots, which I took out easily enough with my perferator. Really glad I got that silencer, the robots never got a shot off on me! Easiest assignment yet.

Found the mainframe, and after repairing the power lines from the generator, got it back online. Now I had a choice; I could send the power to the Strip and McCarran, but that seemed like a waste. They already had plenty of power from Hoover Dam, and considering that had survived 200 years, I doubted it would be going anywhere soon.
I could use the collected power to activate Archimedes, but from what I had seen on the terminals, that seemed like a VERY bad idea. I could also set the station to emergency power, but years of neglect had left it unable to handle the influx and would blow the entire system (Or so the mainframe warned me). That would have the advantage of rendering Archimedes unusuable, but why do that when I could just do a little hacking and erase as much of the Archimedes software as possible?
Another option was to send the power fo Fremont and Westside, but they're both on the outskirts of the Strip anyway. Eventually the Strip is going to grow into the areas, and when it does, the power of Hoover Dam can be used on them.

The best option, it seemed, was to just distribute the power of Helios One onto the entire grid. The mainframe warned me there wasn't enough to maintain stable output, and that brownouts would be frequent.
Nevertheless, even infrequent power is a hell of a lot better than none at all. Hook up a bank of batteries to the grid and let it continuosly charge, problem pretty much solved. At least then people could run neccesities, use the batteries to run lights at night, or hook up a refridgeration unit. Water purification or condensation stills. Power tools. Sure, people won't be able to light themselves up like the Strip, but if they use the power intelligently it could do a lot of good for the entire Mojave. Or at least, along whatever power lines were still intact.
So that's the option I picked. Afterwards I headed up onto the tower itself, where the panel control console was located. Irritatingly, it could only be focused during 'Peak daylight hours' - between 9 AM and 3 PM. It was now 5 PM.
The Mojave would just have to wait till tomorrow to get it's solar power, I guess. So I went back inside the main building, did a quick sweep to make sure all the bots were disabled, then hacked the mainframe to erase as much Archimedes control software as I could find. Since the two outside terminals were connected now, I deleted the Archimedes logs on them as well.
As far as the NCR and anyone else (Except possibly the Brotherhood and Rivas) knows now, Archimedes never existed. I set up my bedrool near a sink offering rad-free water. Everyone is probably thinking I died in here, I suppose that's for the best for know. It's nice to get a few hours of peace and quiet to myself.
Don't reckon the NCR will be pleased that I'm not sending the power to where they wanted, but there's not going to be much they can do about it. I'll just have to convince them that in the long run, this is going be better, help develop the Mojave as a whole. If they won't be convinced, they'll just have to deal with it.