#hector ref

Option A: Hector leaves MAAK at his home base. + more flexibility on the journey + less risk for anything to happen to his beloved robot + IF replacement part Hector needs is something for MAAK’s leg -> can’t physically take MAAK with him unless he wants to risk breaking that leg entirely. - emotional support robot not present - home base is outside of Nuka World -> Hector can’t just go get MAAK because he’s not allowed to leave - will probably take a long time until people trust him enough to let him leave temporarily just to get MAAK

Option B: Hector makes MAAK wait in a little secret place outside of Nuka Town + easier access to MAAK after the gauntlet + emotional support robot is present - why would he take him along all this way only to leave him right before the moment he’d probably get most nervous - more difficult journey to Nuka World because MAAK is not exactly agile. - risk of damaging MAAK (further) by taking him along

Option C: The raiders take MAAK along with Hector’s other shit as they catch him + emotional support robot is present + easiest access to MAAK after the gauntlet (presumably) + extremely high chance for one of the raiders to get bitten - leading to a high chance of the raiders taking their anger out on MAAK - they have no reason to assume this will end in anything other than Hector’s death so they do what they want with all his shit - MAAK might get damaged / end up in the scrapyard / ??? +/- Hector rage mode activate - less flexibility on the journey to Nuka World

Option D: Hector has MAAK with him in the gauntlet + emotional support robot is present - VERY scared of anything happening to him with all those traps and explosives around - Hector has to path him through shit because MAAK is not agile. like how the hell is he going to navigate this big fat robot over the trap boards in the first tripwire room? the generator maze? down and through the mirelurk pit??? seems impossible - why would the raiders go through the trouble of letting Hector take the robot along. they take his weapons but have the patience to get this boy into the elevator to the gauntlet? nah +/- could be helpful in the fight against Colter. A distraction, maybe manage to crunch down on a leg real good. but might get his circuits fried if the electrical shield isn’t disabled by then. Colter could stomp him real good. rip maak

Like you said, MAAK is pretty much just a pet that can bite your hand off. A very dangerous roomba. How many traits/abilities he has besides trying to eat anything that vaguely resembles trash, I’m a little conflicted about. I’ve made quite a few doodles in which I anthropomorphize him, hinting at him having at least the vaguest aspects of a personality, but. Whether that’s actually the case or if that’s just Hector projecting traits onto a brick, I’m still not sure about. It all hinges on how Hector programmed him in the first place and how far he got until he decided ‘this is good for my current abilities’ and left him as is. And then later forgot how the fuck he did anything and was too scared to try and figure it out.  Regardless, MAAK is not much use in combat. He’s pretty clunky and cumbersome, and while he can do some faster snapping movements that could potentially help in a fight, it’s nothing you can rely on very well.

but hey, there’s potential for that to change later on, thanks to dear kind Butch being helpful and understanding once MAAK is in desperate need of a tune up.

However, side note to that… so far I/we have treated that scenario as being the first time Hector was brave enough to maintain MAAK’s inner workings just from a mechanical perspective. One of the servos in a leg giving out is the best option I can think of why Hector would make the trip to Nuka World in the first place. If we adhere to that scenario, it needs to be something important but can’t be vital enough for Hector to require opening MAAK up completely.

here’s a blank png if anyone wants to fuck around and clothe the man

yes the anatomy is wonky and no I don’t know how to fix it nor do I have the patience to try and figure it out

This is about as far as I got with my thought process: Gage leads Hector to the grille, probably trying to ‘sell’ the place to this terrified little man. Check it out you own all of this. This over there was Colter’s old bed and it’s yours now, look at how nice and big it is and look how nice this patio is. Decor’s a little lacking maybe but check out that view, such nice big windows that, and I cannot stress this enough, will let in so much daylight it’s great. Obviously he wouldn’t phrase it that way but that about gets the message across. And Hector’s just like “thanks :)” but crying on the inside. He proceeds to not sleep the whole night, not sleep a lot the rest of the week, only take of the mask when he’s damn near starving and generally just have a shitty time.

He doesn’t really have the courage to make any big changes even if Gage said it’s fine. Because Gage also said time is ticking and they have to get to work and get the gangs to respect him and they have to show results. I think rather than spend valuable time and effort to make the patio livable for himself, Hector is more likely to approach Gage after a while about maybe moving a bed inside. Or maybe uh. switching places? If Gage would be interested in that. totally not trying to encroach on his territory, not at all, just thought that maybe Gage would like to be on the patio since he talked about how nice it is and--

Gage would be understandably confused, and possibly a little defensive about his little corner. No thanks boss, I quite like it in here, and also it’s a strategic position because if anyone tries to sneak in at night through the elevator on the inside, Gage is the last line of defense and that’s the way it’s supposed to be, etc. Hector could think of quite a few excuses, but he’s afraid of making himself sound like a sensitive little wimp in front of this tough raider man who keeps telling him that raiders will eat him alive if he shows any weakness at all. So he can’t argue that it’s a little drafty out there and he gets cold, or that he doesn’t sleep as well in brighter light conditions, or that he feels watched with all these windows. And he sure as hell can’t admit to his biggest weakness being the fucking sun. So Gage wants to keep his inside bed, Hector doesn’t want the outside bed but he also wants privacy.

Solution: move into the little storage room next to the indoor kitchen Because He Is The Boss Do Not Question Him. Gage doesn’t have a good argument against it aside from ‘that’s not very Overboss of you to sleep in a small shitty room’.

It might take until Gage learns about the sun allergy that Hector can relax a little. Gage suddenly realizes why Hector danced around some unknown thing all the time when it came to arranging his living situation, and he might be more open about figuring something out with him. I’m unsure if Gage would actually end up moving out onto the patio, but then again... why not? Hell, might even be happy to. I can just see him being most concerned about making the impression to others that he gets to live better than Hector, which undermines his authority, stuff like that. I’m unsure. Because as much as Hector wants to just cover everything to banish the sun forever, he has to admit that the patio and the view are quite nice. Just bricking everything up would be a shame, but he also doesn’t trust any blinds they could construct to do the job with 100% reliability. The best solution would be UV filtering window films/coatings, but there’s practically no way they can get their hands on something like that (but perhaps at a later point the institute could help?). Hector may be able to do it on the lenses of his mask, but large scale with those huge windows? no way, at least not in any acceptable time frame.

On the other hand... I do also like the image of Hector just boarding everything up. Nothing temporary like blinds, but something that would take time and effort to remove again. It’s especially beneficial to him leaning into the vampire thing, because having all those big windows suddenly boarded up basically tells the entirety of Nuka Town that This Man Hates The Sun. Maybe the storage room gets too cramped after a while, Hector gets more confident, Gage would still rather just stay in his spot, and thus Hector decides he’ll take some time to make the patio livable after all. However this would also require me to figure out when exactly he does the whole vampire thing and that’s another story again