Book Chute, or Library processing unit 232.7, is an automated personality AI in the Big MT in 2281.
Background
The Book Chute is a mechanical device located in The Sink. Like all the other systems there, it was disabled shortly after Dr. Mobius left the Think Tank for the Forbidden Zone. When his personality back-up is recovered from Dr. Klein's house (House 101 in Higgs village), he speaks like a dystopian authority, promising to protect citizens from "seditious material"; namely, pre-War books. According to his dialogue, he was also supposed to come equipped with an indoctrination module, but it was stripped to suit the R&D budget. He instead instructs the player in how to perform a form of self-indoctrination, involving a small cage and a sack of mole rats. The Book Chute also dislikes Communism, and anything related to it, often commenting on it when the player is nearby.
Interactions with the player character
Interactions overview
| Interactions | ||
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This character is essential. Essential characters cannot be killed. | |
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This character is a permanent companion. They grant the - perk. | |
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This character is a temporary companion. | |
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This character starts quests. |
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This character is involved in quests. | |
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This character is a doctor. |
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This character is a merchant. |  -Sells: - |
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This character can repair items. | Max Repair condition: - |
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This character can modify weapons. |
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This character rents beds. | -.
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This character plays Caravan. | They can bid caps. |
Quests
- All My Friends Have Off Switches: Book Chute is one of the appliances you have to upgrade.
Other interactions
- The Book Chute converts old books into blank books at a one for one exchange. The books that it will accept are as follows:
- These blank books can, in turn, be used at a workbench to create one skill book of each type. The player will need to acquire the recipe holotape (which unfortunately are single-use items) for the skillbook they wish to assemble, as well as 25 blank books and two bottles of wonderglue.
- The mulching upgrade allows the Book Chute to breakdown any type of clipboard into 1 duct tape and 1 scrap metal. It can also breakdown pencils into 5 lead and 1 scrap metal for each turned in.
The four clipboards types it accepts include:
Inventory
| Apparel | Weapon | Other items | On death |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | - | - | - |
Notable quotes
- "Ah! Good day, citizen! Library processing unit 232.7 is on-line and ready to eradicate sedition!"
- "If you know what 'proletariat' means, do you know what that makes you? Well-read and erudite...for a communist"
- "Citizen! Did you know communists have an organ behind their eyes that converts salt water into fresh water...or is that penguins?"
- "If you haven't found any communists in your backyard, you're not looking hard enough!"
- "The Commies have eyes everywhere, Citizen! And that means they're not just Commies, they're Peeping Toms!"'
If you know what 'proletariat' means, do you know what that makes you? Well-read and erudite...for a communist
Appearances
The Book Chute appears only in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Old World Blues.
Behind the scenes
- The character is an amalgam of several concepts from the novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell. The book chute concept is reminiscent of the "memory holes" present within the "Ministry of Truth" where material that contradicts the current government line are placed never to be located again. The character also makes reference to a form of torture used in later parts of the novel ("a cage that fits over your head and a bag full of mole rats."). Another reference is that the personality matrix for the Chute is recovered from House # 101 in Higg's Village. Room 101 is an infamous room in 1984, in which the main character undergoes torture similar to what the chute describes with such vigor. It also references using the blank books to keep a journal, something the main character of Nineteen Eighty-Four does.
- In The Venture Bros. episode "Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic," Dean Venture declares that penguins have a gland above their eyes that converts salt water to fresh water. The Book Chute paraphrases this, confusing penguins for communists.