Fanfic / Better to Reign in Heaven

Better to Reign in Heaven is a Fallout fanfic by Straightjacketed.

Beginning just prior to the apocalyptic Great War and continuing for over two hundred years after, this is the sordid tale of Dr Stanislaus Braun: his shady past, how he became the Overseer of Vault 112, the long years of torture inflicted on the residents of his simulated kingdom... and what happened after his defeat at the hands of the Lone Wanderer.

Completed as of July 2, 2022.

---

Better to Reign in Heaven provides examples of:

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • In the original "Tranquility Lane" mission, most of the residents have lost access to their memories thanks to Braun's control over the simulation, so all of their angst comes from the torture. Even Dithers, who can remember everything, restricts herself to agonizing over the horrors that Braun has inflicted on them. By contrast, this story takes the time to focus on the residents in a point in time before the brainwashing took place, during which all of them are grieving for various losses in the wake of the Great War; in particular, Tessa Dithers is mourning for her girlfriend.
  • In canon, the Lone Wanderer generally isn't given a lot of dialog choices that can convey angst over everything that's happened to them. In the fanfic, Matthias - AKA Mattie - is doubt-ridden, homesick, conflicted over all the morally ambiguous things he's had to do in order to survive, and is gripped by imposter syndrome whenever he hears Three Dog calling him a hero. Plus, Braun tortures him quite extensively during his time trapped in virtual reality.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Throughout the "Tranquility Lane" mission, Braun doesn't use his powers for offence unless the Lone Wanderer directly attacks him and spends most of his time waiting in the park - unwittingly allowing the Lone Wanderer to sneak into his house and use the failsafe. In the fanfic, Braun takes a much more direct role in the story, to the point that he actually stops Mattie from using the failsafe, and even uses his control of the simulation to go One-Winged Angel.
  • Canonically, the Lone Wanderer is never given any control over the simulation. In the fic, however, Braun is eventually convinced to share control over the simulation with Mattie as a reward for playing along with the games - eventually allowing the Lone Wanderer to lull Braun into suspicion via a Shapeshifter Showdown and turn the tables on him by hijacking his pain receptors.
  • Canonical Dithers is generally too frazzled and confused after all the torture she's endured to be of much help beyond providing advice. In this story, however, Tessa Dithers has more time to recover her composure, so she's able to render some much-needed help to Mattie by keeping Braun distracted. Later, she successfully tricks Braun into sparing Mattie from a Fate Worse than Death, helps Mattie organize a rebellion, and even physically attacks Braun himself during his Worf Had the Flu moment.
• Adaptational Explanation: In the original Fallout 3, it's indicated that the memory chip that allowed Horace Pinkerton to make the runaway Synth into Harkness was stolen from Vault 112... but according to Horace's notes, he didn't know whose memories were on it and couldn't alter them to that end, raising the question of why a chip with Harkness's memories and personality were encoded to a chip in Vault 112, given that nobody by that name is known to have lived there. Better To Reign In Heaven answers this by revealing that Braun was playing games with the memories of his subjects and created the persona of Harkness for Dithers just so he could see what would happen when the male identity awoke in the body of a woman - but Pinkerton stole the memory chip before the experiment could take place.
• Adaptational Heroism: The residents of Tranquility Lane are just bystanders in Fallout 3, and the most help that Dithers provides is in directing the Lone Wanderer to the abandoned house where Braun is hiding his auxiliary terminal, hopefully leading to the activation of the Chinese Invasion Failsafe. By contrast, the story's incarnation of Dithers is Mattie's ally and confidant throughout his time in the simulation, even saving him from a Fate Worse than Death at Braun's hands, and later leading the residents in rebelling against Braun in order to buy Mattie the time he needs to activate the Chinese Invasion Failsafe.
• Adaptational Name Change: Variant; in the original game, T. Dithers' first name is unknown except for the initial. The fanfic gives her the name Theresa, though she prefers to be called Tessa.
• Adaptational Sexuality: In Fallout 3, there was no indication that any of the residents were anything other than heterosexual, in keeping with The '50s-inspired atmosphere of Tranquility Lane. However, the fanfic portrays Dithers as a lesbian, while Timothy Neusbaum - who is actually an adult beneath the persona Braun has forced on him - is portrayed as asexual.
• Adaptational Timespan Change: In Fallout 3 the Lone Wanderer's visit to Tranquility Lane lasts only for a few hours of in-game time. In the fanfic, it's extended to at least a week as a result of Braun countering the Wanderer's first attempt to stop him.
• Adaptational Villainy: In canon, it's indicated that Braun was responsible for Vault-Tec's immoral experiments and became addicted to the torture and murder after being granted control of Vault 112, but other than that, there's nothing to indicate that he was especially vile prior to the War. In this story, Braun was a functional psychopath throughout in his pre-War days, to the point of regularly murdering homeless people for fun. For good measure, Braun's activities in the Vault are expanded upon in further detail, giving him more space to be an even bigger monster than he was in canon.
• Adaptation Expansion: On top of elaborating upon Braun's backstory and revealing the answers to a few unsolved mysteries, the fanfic also makes the events of "Tranquility Lane" more detailed by giving Dithers a bigger role, forcing the Lone Wanderer to struggle against worse threats, and providing a much more dramatic end to the conflict with Braun.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Timothy Neusbaum is the youngest of the group, being in his early twenties at the time the Great War breaks out. As such, the other residents often shield him from Braun's advances, especially Tessa - his closest friend in the Vault. Unfortunately, Braun just takes this as a cue to single Timothy out for the very worst of the torture out of sheer spite. In Tranquility Lane, he takes this idea to its logical conclusion by regressing Timothy's virtual avatar to childhood.
• Back to the Womb: After catching Mattie in the act of trying to use the Chinese Invasion Failsafe, Stanislaus Braun uses his Virtual-Reality Warper powers to regress him to a fetus. Then, since Tessa Dithers helped Mattie, he makes sure that Tessa ends up pregnant with the infant Lone Wanderer... and out of sheer sadism, he makes the labor as difficult and painful as possible: not only does he seal her inside her house away from anyone who could help, but gives her only the crudest, rustiest instruments to help with the birth. As a result, both Mattie and Tessa die multiple times over the course of the week-long torture, Braun rewinding them back to the start of the torment after every death. Oh, and Mattie is fully conscious of his plight in the womb until Tessa finally manages to beat the odds and safely deliver the baby.
• Basement-Dweller: In the real world, Timothy Neusbaum was originally a computer programmer who lost his job and was forced to move back in with his parents, leaving him embarrassed by the loss of independence, not to mention his mother's contact meddling in his private life.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: In the story's canon, the Courier (Domingo Graves) sided with Mr House, while the Sole Survivor (Norah Walker) became the head of the Institute. As such, neither of them can be described as morally pure and good, given that Norah slaughtered the Railroad (several of whom she had befriended) in order to seize control of the Commonwealth as well as aligning with the Nuka-World Raiders, while Domingo has enthusiastically participated in the takeover of the Mohave by a capitalist autocrat with no sense of charity... but next to Braun, the guy they're keeping imprisoned, they're saints.
• The Corruptor: In an effort to enhance his games, Braun tries to seduce Tessa into working for him, tempting her with all manner of privileges and benefits - most prominently a simulation of her lover. Later, Tessa convinces Braun that Mattie might be able to serve as the kindred spirit he's been looking for, setting the stage for a series of challenges in which Braun sees just how low Mattie can go - totally unaware that Mattie is just distracting him while Tessa booby-traps the neighborhood in his favor.
• Cosmic Horror Reveal: The ending of the story has Braun, now powerless and stuck under the gaze of the Overseer AI, accept a deal from the mysterious stranger (revealed to be Nyarlathotep) who's been watching him throughout his life to escape his fate. This leads to his body dying only to be reincarnated into what is heavily implied to be the Warhammer 40,000 universe, where he will be under the tutelage of the Dark Eldar (specifically Urien Rakarth).
• Darkest Hour: After Mattie is caught trying to use the failsafe for the first time, he and Tessa are subjected to a week of humiliating, agonizing, and ultimately lethal punishments, both left horribly traumatized as a result. For good measure, Braun seals the door to his house shut so that Mattie won't be able to access the failsafe terminal a second time. However, just as Braun is getting ready to erase Mattie's personality so that he can be raised to become his pawn, Tessa is able to bullshit Braun into sparing the Lone Wanderer's mind and even sharing some of his power with him - setting the stage for a rebellion.
• Desperate Plea for Home: Mattie's experiences in Tranquility Lane push him to the absolute limit of his mental endurance, and when Tessa makes it abundantly clear that he'll have to kill the other residents in order to break out of the simulation, he breaks down and admits that he wants to go home. Even more depressingly, he's not talking about his shack in Megaton, but Vault 101.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Prior to becoming a resident of Vault 112, Tessa Dithers drank frequently in order to smother her depression over being fired from a well-paying position, being forced to break up with her girlfriend, and being left alone in her house with rapidly-dwindling funds. It's on the morning after one such drunken bender that the warning sirens sound, forcing Tessa to make a run for Vault 112 while still hungover.
• Enfant Terrible: Braun was a monster even as a child, to the point that he took to torturing animals just so he wouldn't get into trouble for torturing people. As he grew older, this tendency was extended to slashing tires, cutting the brake lines on cars, and eventually to murdering hitchhikers.
• Evil Mentor: As a child, Braun was mentored in getting away with murder by another budding serial killer by the name of Elizabeta; she taught him how to disguise himself, how to pick the perfect site for a murder, how to clean up afterwards, and even how to progress from animals to humans. More disturbingly, Elizabeta regarded young Braun as a younger brother, despite the fact that she's implied to have drowned her real younger brother in the bath for disappointing her and that she might have been willing to do the same to Braun if he ever failed to live up to her expectations.
• Feel No Pain: Thanks to his peerless ability to control the simulation, Braun does feel pain unless he actually wants to. However, this means that he hasn't felt pain at all in two hundred years, and Mattie eventually uses this to his advantage: once he gains enough control of the simulation reactivate the Overseer's pain sensors, Braun is so overwhelmed that he's virtually crippled by the aftereffects.
• Fleeing for the Fallout Shelter: The fic depicts the day the Great War broke out, as seen from the perspective of Tessa Dithers. At the time the sirens begin sounding, Tessa is hung-over and mistakes it for another evacuation drill until she notices the emergency broadcast on TV, sending her on a barefoot sprint through Washington D.C. to reach Vault 112. Tragically, many of the citizens she passes are also convinced that it's a drill and don't realize the danger until it's too late to do anything about it. Tessa arrives with just enough time to help the Neusbaums into the secret passage before Bill Foster closes it behind her, a nuclear ICBM detonating over Washington scant seconds later. Tessa and the other survivors are shaken but unharmed, and soon descend into the Vault itself, ready to begin their new lives in safety... right up until they take their places in their Tranquility Loungers and meet Dr Stanislaus Braum.
• Fountain of Youth:
  • Braun regresses Timothy Neusbaum to childhood, both to match his new avatar and to make sure he won't be allowed around "Old Lady Dithers" anymore.
  • As with the game, the Lone Wanderer AKA Mattie is regressed into a ten-year-old upon entering the simulation. Later, after catching Mattie trying to access the failsafe terminal, Braun punishes him by regressing him to infancy... and even further, causing him to wake up in the womb.
  • After spending the better part of a year as an old woman, Tessa finds herself regressed to her twenties... but only to briefly lull her into complacency before Braun makes her pregnant with Mattie.
• For the Evulz: In the case of some of the more scientifically questionable experiments being conducted in the Vaults - such as Vault 92, 95, and 106 - Braun privately admits that he suggested them just to brighten up a really dull meeting; indeed, he reportedly took to proposing the most ridiculous concepts possible for Vault experiments just to see what he could get away with.
• Go Out with a Smile: Tessa Dithers and Timothy Neusbaum die together after helping Mattie to activate the Chinese Invasion Failsafe, both of them smiling in the knowledge that their suffering is over, and that Braun is finally getting his well-deserved comeuppance.
• Hope Spot: Halfway through the Lone Wanderer's visit to Tranquility Lane, Tessa is able to distract Braun just long enough for Mattie to sneak into the abandoned house where the auxiliary terminal is hidden, buying him enough time to activate the Chinese Invasion Failsafe. However, upon realizing what this will actually do, Mattie freezes up; he can't bring himself to kill everyone in the Vault even as a Mercy Kill, and is left grappling with the decision. As a result, Braun has enough time to realize what's going on and stop Mattie from activating the failsafe, inflicting a particularly disgusting punishment on both Mattie and Tessa soon after.
• Humiliation Conga: The last few chapters has Braun being taken down a peg several times. After being forced to work for Mr. House, Braun makes multiple attempts at betraying him and his allies that are all quickly foiled and met with various humiliating punishments (forcefully uploaded to Muggy's chassis, uploaded to a synth body to be beaten, etc). Eventually, House finally has enough and traps him in Tranquility Lane without his executive privileges with an AI recreation of Tessa as his overseer.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Braun's ultimate fate after House, Domingo and Norah have finally had enough of his attempts at treachery and sabotage. House traps him in Tranquility Lane in the form of a child with all of his executive privileges removed where an AI recreation of Tessa serves as his caretaker, acting as a coddling mother figure preventing him from acting out in any meaningful way.
• Literal Transformative Experience: Mattie begins the story as a directionless young man looking for his father in the hope that it'll make his life start making sense again; he has little confidence, a serious case of imposter syndrome, and many unresolved doubts over his ability to live up to his reputation as a hero. However, while being subjected to numerous transformations by Braun - getting regressed to childhood, turned into a fetus, competing in an exhaustive Shapeshifter Showdown - Mattie starts learning to believe in himself and trust his own judgements, to the point that he's able to humble Braun on his own turf. By the end of his time in the simulation, Mattie has embraced his own legend and accepts his title as the Lone Wanderer.
• The Lost Lenore: Tessa Dithers is haunted by the loss of her girlfriend Marcie, who is presumed dead in the nuclear strike on Washington and spends many occasions wishing she could be reunited with her - either in person or in death. This only gets worse when she ends up as the only Vault resident apart from Braun who can retain her own mind, to the point that Braun openly tries to tempt her into becoming his pawn by offering her a recreation of Marcie that she can live with for all eternity. In her final moments, Tessa perceives herself being reunited with Marcie in the afterlife before her narrative is cut short.
• Madness Mantra: Braun loses all composure once Mattie activates the Chinese Invasion Failsafe and is quickly reduced to repeatedly screaming "this game ends when I say it ends!" in a futile attempt to regain control over the simulation.
• Mundane Luxury: After spending most of his life in the dilapidated confines of Vault 101 and several months wandering the Capital Wasteland, Mattie is utterly astonished at things that the inhabitants of Tranquility Lane consider commonplace: a middle-class suburban home seems like a palace to him, a slice of Mabel Henderson's home-made meat pie is the best meal he's eaten in his entire life, and the fact that all the houses have working indoor toilets with soft toilet paper almost makes him consider playing along with Braun's games in the hope that he might be allowed to stay.
• Not Afraid of Hell: In keeping with his nature as an unrepentant psychopath, Braun has no fear of what might await him after death, reasoning that there's honestly not much that he can do about divine judgement if such a thing exists, so he might as well enjoy himself while he has the chance. For good measure, he's also unafraid of death, even in the face of an imminent nuclear apocalypse. Appropriately enough, the heaven that he worked so hard to create ends up becoming his own private hell, not just because of the Chinese Invasion Failsafe, but because of the new visitors that Vault 112 ultimately attracts...
• Rapid Aging: After finding that Tessa is immune to the brainwashing thanks to Pinkerton's theft of her memory chip, Braun ages her from her natural age of fifty to somewhere in the vicinity of ninety, just so her attempts to alert the other residents to the simulated reality that they've all been trapped in can easily be dismissed as senile dementia.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After his final desperate attempt to upload himself into House's mainframe is failed, Braun receives one from the man himself who tells him that he only got as far as he did because he's been coddled by others covering for his actions and for all his technical brilliance he's no match for those who've had to work for what they've got like Domingo and Norah.
• Shapeshifter Showdown: After tricking Braun into sharing some of his power with him, Mattie challenges the Overseer into a battle of forms. Here, they each have control over their virtual avatars, allowing them to assume whatever shape is needed in order to best the other... but the twist is that it's just a ruse to keep Braun preoccupied while Tessa and the other residents rig Tranquility Lane with bombs and traps, so that when Mattie flees the duel as planned, he'll have enough time to break into Braun's house again and activate the failsafe.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Ultimately, Braun is revealed to not be as smart or as dangerous as he thought he was; while he committed several murders when he was alive, he learns later that most of these were covered up by others without his knowledge because his technical genius was too useful for them to lose. When put in an environment where everyone knows what he is and he has no means of asserting his power, Braun is constantly outmaneuvered and his schemes stopped before they can truly start, culminating in him being reduced to a submissive child in a virtual environment who can only do what he's told and doesn't have the will to do anything more.
• The Sociopath: Already a canonical example of this in the original game, the fanfic elaborates on his psychopathic nature by revealing that he started out by torturing animals at an early age, his means of satisfying his bottomless need for stimulation when people couldn't be tormented.
• Spared, but Not Forgiven: It's revealed that Veronica wanted revenge against the Courier for murdering her friends among the Brotherhood of Steel on Mr House's orders, but after three attempts on his life, she gave up out of sheer despair. Though Braun tries to convince her to help him so she can get revenge, she turns him down... and she makes it abundantly clear that she still hasn't forgiven the Courier; she's only working for him because she owes him a debt for saving the life of Christine Royce.
• Take That!:
  • Later in the story, Norah/The Sole Survivor mentions the Brotherhood of Steel's memetic habit of crashing Vertibirds as a reason for not supporting them.
  • In the same chapter, Norah bitterly remarks on the Minutemen's apparent inability to do anything, and later mentions being so sick to death of Preston Garvey that he was ultimately forced to eat his hat.
• Took a Level in Cynic: When she turns up alongside the Courier, Veronica has suffered a serious knock to her idealism in the wake of Mr House's takeover. By now, she no longer cares about improving the Wasteland alongside the Followers of the Apocalypse: all she wants is to settle her debt to the Courier and then go home to Christine, and after that, she'll never leave again.
• Tuneless Song of Madness: During his stay in the "Slalom Challet" simulation, Braun goes for a wild skiing adventure through the alps - with the other residents tied to him, being routinely smashed into every obstacle that Braum skis past. Throughout this, Braun is belting out "The Happy Wanderer."
• Unholy Matrimony: Many decades prior to the start of the story, Braun was in a relationship with his mentor and fellow Serial Killer Elizabeta, united by a shared love of sadistic murder. By all accounts, she was the only human being on the planet that Braun showed any real affection for... but in the end, he still sold her out to the police just so he wouldn't get caught. Two hundred years later, Braun's twisted affections for Elizabeta persist, to the point that his avatar in Tranquility Lane, "Betty," is deliberately modelled on Elizabeta as she was when Braun first met her.
• Villain Protagonist: Braun is ultimately our main character and the only consistent perspective on events... and, as the story makes abundantly clear, he's a psychopathic serial-killing monster with a god complex, and will never change, never apologize, and never repent.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Braun is a master at putting on a good face for the public, hence why no-one suspects him of being a Mad Scientist on Vault-Tec's behalf and a Serial Killer in his off-hours. For good measure, his genius intellect makes him invaluable to Vault-Tec, and they're prepared to covertly disguise any of his activities that might be discovered.
• Worf Had the Flu: Braun's ability to control the simulation normally makes him unstoppable. However, when Mattie turns up his senses to their highest possible setting, the resulting pain is enough to leave Braun too dazed from the aftereffects to focus effectively - allowing Tessa and the other residents to best him in combat multiple times, buying enough time for Mattie to reach the failsafe.