#too broken

So! It starts with the Eddie Winter Quest (after the Memory Den he gave me that quest so that's where I'm starting.) As you find the tapes, you get a requirement to talk to Nick about the tape which he has you play back just to confirm its authenticity.

At first Nick seems relatively fine, maybe a bit reflective on the case of whatever the first tape you find is. Your dialogue may vary.

Then, subtly, Nick starts saying things that doesn't seem relevant to the tapes in some parts of his dialogue.

And at first you brush it aside thinking it's just weird dialogue, but Nick starts to get more and more "off" with each tape- saying things that Kellogg would say to the player in Nick's voice but not actively doing anything against you.

Nick tries to brush it off himself also near the middle of the quest, claiming it's a bit of stray memory left over from Kellogg and nothing more. However, after the last tape, you confront Nick about Kellogg affecting his speech... because for a moment Kellogg breaks through again like in the Memory Den.

Now, you have three choices that will permanently affect Nick's behavior as a companion at this point depending on what you choose. This is where the multiple quest ending comes in.

1.

You put Nick out of his misery. Over the conversation, Nick gets worse and worse and if you act as if you don't trust him or are scared of him, the more Kellogg seizes control.

You may either fight Kellogg!Nick or choose a dialogue where you kill him instantly with some heartbreaking parting words from the detective. Kellogg!Nick I expect to be difficult if Nick is stocked up on weapons and ammo at the time. This fails the Eddie Winter quest line.

2.

You convince Nick to fight Kellogg back with no other assistance. Your support is key in giving him the strength to keep the bastard from controlling his body and mind completely.

Kellogg does resurface from time to time during other points of the game and might affect persuasion attempts, but movement, battle, and ally wise, Nick mostly remains the same aside from the occasional weird dialogue from Kellogg when you talk to him.

You still get to fight Eddie Winter but Nick's reflection of events of Human!Nick get confused with Kellogg's own memories due to the corruption never being really fixed.

2.

Kellogg gets expunged at the memory den. You convinced him to get help and gave him moral support to fight Kellogg until you get him to the Memory Den. Dr. Amari sits you back in the chair and you go through a similar process to reading Kellogg's memories.

This time, things are much more interesting. Kellogg's memories try to fight you and your only weapons are an old revolver and your fists. You actually can die trying to clear Kellogg's memories from Nick's mind.

You have help, though. Human!Nick is there from the core memories. He's the visual representative of the system fighting to keep Kellogg at bay while the mercs you fight are Kellogg's.

Human!Nick doesn't always address you and there are stages where he's a lot less effective thanks to the corruption. This changes from stage to stage. Each have moments of Human!Nick's life that shows more of who he was as a cop and his relationship with Jenny- her memory being the most colorful and bright, representing how much Past!Nick and Current!Nick cared for her.

Each memory is more broken than the last. They play out (or try to) before the system deploys Human!Nick to help you ward off another attack. At a certain depth, Human!Nick stops being able to help all together but that doesn't mean the system (Current!Nick) isn't done helping you.

The system provides a safepoint/area to restock and aqcuire very specific armor you can only have in the memories (armored polished looking version of Nick's current attire I would think. Or an armored suit.) It gives you a special gun that Human!Nick used to use as a cop. This gun is more affective than the one you already use.

Oh and did I mention he disguised this safe area as a 1960s/70s black and white TV ad, complete with Nick's special brand of silliness? During this he does stress "protecting your family" or "purchasing" food or medicine to "keep you healthy" in that classical TV ad tone to guide the player. All the items are preserved so they don't give you rads.

After the safepoint you continue and notice... no more Human!Nick helping you. It's mostly Kellogg and his goons from this point further.

The last memory before you reach Kellogg himself and fight him is a deeply corrupted memory of Jenny's murder- you only get to see bits and pieces of it, but it's more vivid than the rest.

When you get to Kellogg, he sends synths at you. Some synths look like Current!Nick with a missing hat or face, some are missing entire parts of their bodies- representing what he's attempted to take over. It's a struggle, but eventually you beat him in a memory of the room you killed him in.

Once he's dead, the stage takes the form of Amari's office, albeit with some glitchiness at first.

The Synths you beat fighting Kellogg are reset and start milling about wordlessly until you talk to what looks like a patchwork version of Human!Nick and Current!Nick standing in the center of the room.

When he thanks you, you realize the other Synths talk for him for some phrases, like multiple cores on a CPU breaks up a task into smaller bits of data. It's Current!Nick talking, but the patchwork person in front you represents his conflict with his human memories and is essentially his core.

He reassures you that everything's back to normal, he's okay, and tells you he'll see you when you wake up on the other side.

Once you wake up, our good old detective friend is already in the same place you found him in last time you went to the Memory Den.

You get to talk to him about Past!Nick. If you bring up Jenny, he tells you that he'll talk to you about it later, saving it for the end of the Eddie Winter quest line.

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Cursed...

"Voodoo Girl"