The Great Bank, Part III

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"The Great Bank, Part III" is the ninth quest in the main quest line of Washington's Malevolence. The quest "Memento Mori" is considered part of this quest, also acting as its subtitle.

The Story
The player and the new runners fight their way through the sewers to the bank entrance. Eyes stops them in front of the bank entrance and tells them to check their weapons. Chains then asks Eyes if he is truly ready to fight his brother if he has to; he coldly replies that he barely even knows him anymore since they were separated for so long. Ian, Marion, and Ralph pop through the manhole cover, and Jimmy and Lizzie soon after. Jimmy quickly reiterates the game plan to the group; the old runners are to wait at the bottom of the staircase while the new runners are to fight their way to the top to activate the switch that unlocks the lower passage and enables the vault control pod to accept the key cards.

The runners enter the bank, but as the player is heading to the dividing hallway, they are stopped by Ralph, who still wracked with guilt, decides to join the player on the trek upstairs to atone for his previous betrayal. They successfully make it to the top floor; Ralph separates from the player's group to head back to the old runners waiting in the lower passage on the lobby level. The player heads into the administrative hall to see a massive standoff; Brotherhood soldiers, Enclave soldiers, and Outcasts are in every corner of the room, all with their eyes and guns trained on one another, ready to fire off a shot if the other even so much as breathes the wrong way. The player heads up the central staircase to see Commander Newman, Protector Newman, Sterling, and Sam in a standoff. The player must then talk to all four of them to attempt to ensure that there is no massive firefight.

Good Ending
The player is able to defuse the complete powder keg of a standoff masterfully; all three leaders order their people to stand down. Sam excitedly tells Sterling that they finally get to see what's in the vault; Sterling then coldly tells Sam that he would not be able to. Sterling then goes on to explain that since Sam did such a pitiful job dealing with the runners, that he had become nothing more than a liability and he couldn't be trusted. Sterling then executes Sam with multiple shots to the skull, destroying Sam's head in the process.

The player talks to Sterling, who then explains why Sam had to die and that the player's next action should be to flip the master switch behind the administrator's desk in the back hall. The player does this, then is stopped by Eyes on their way down to the lower passage, who tells the player to take Lizzie to the vault and tell Jimmy he and the others would be down as soon as he and Sterling had a little conversation.

Bad Ending
The player is unable to stop the powder keg from exploding; bedlam ensues as the soldiers execute everyone in the room. The player has to mop up the soldiers, then retrieve the key cards from Sterling's body, activate the switch in the back room, then prepare to head downstairs to give Jimmy the bad news.

Objectives
The player must talk to all four NPCs at the top of the stairs; the order is not important. The conversations, depending on the choices the player makes, add to a total tracked in the quest script. The player must get at least 10 points to successfully defuse the argument. Even if the player has 10 or more points, they must still talk to all four NPCs. If the player fails to gain 10 points (or if Sam is angered through dialogue regardless of point count) then the player will fail "Memento Mori", the quest that has a direct bearing on which ending the player receives.
 * 1) Fight your way to the administrative level of the Rocky Cape Bank.
 * 2) Defuse the situation involving Sterling, Sam, Paladin Newman, and Commander Newman... or not.

The maximum points to be gained from each NPC are as follows: Sam is the only character with an auto-fail condition built into his dialogue, due to his unstable nature. The player must not use any kind of passive aggressive language towards Sam, since angering Sam triggers the fail condition and causes the death of all the NPCs in the room. The player will not be able to save any of them. This is also a quick way to see the bad ending if the player so wishes.
 * Commander Steve Newman: 5 points
 * Paladin Noah Newman: 4 points
 * Sterling: 3 points
 * Sam: 4 points

If you are able to defuse the situation: If you are unable to defuse the situation:
 * 1) Talk to Sterling to receive the keycards.
 * 2) Activate the switch in the back room behind the table.
 * 3) Talk to Eyes on the lower level.
 * 1) Search Sterling's body for the keycards.
 * 2) Activate the switch in the back room behind the table.

Trivia

 * "Memento Mori" was originally supposed to feature a battle between Eyes and Sterling; however, due to time constraints, this was scrapped.
 * The player was originally able to save some of the NPCs if the fail condition was triggered; due to time constraints, this was also scrapped.
 * Shilling and Pence were to appear here as well and had accompanying dialogue; prior to the 3.x series of updates, due to a mistake in the script, they did not. 3.x restores their presence in the final scenes.
 * In pre-release versions, Sterling originally had more dialogue before the "go push the switch" line; due to both time constraints and an error in voice recording, the lines were not recorded and were subsequently scrapped, which explains why in versions 1.0a-2.10 Sterling abruptly tells the player to push the switch. The 3.x series of updates added new lines to Sterling that replaced the original dialogue.