Father Benny, #1 Dad

So last we visited, Father Benny had successfully established himself as the ad hoc spiritual leader of Vault 551, mainly owing to an absence of any competition and there being only one clergy outfit available.  Thus the Church of the Divine Copulation was formed, and within a quite short time, it successfully claimed a half dozen young women to the true faith via the sacrament of special private confession time with Father Benny, one on one.

The Father chose the location of his chapel well.  It is located in an unused Living Quarters seven levels underground, making it generally safe from intruders from the surface.  To the right is the Vault Bar, where fellow Dwellers can drink their way to higher charisma.  One floor below is the gaming room/casino.  Finally, to the left and past the main elevator, is a mess hall.  As a result, Father Benny rarely has to leave the immediate vicinity of the CoDC chapel, while also sitting in a pretty high traffic recreational corridor.

In fact, when he isn't busy counseling his flock, he's often next door drinking alone and thinking about how awesome of a father he is.

Father Benny drinks - and parents - responsibly.

Behold Father Benny of Vault 551

The genesis of this blog came from an article by Forbes' Paul Tassi about the Android release of Bethesda's mobile game, Fallout Shelter.  Tassi's point was basically that the game was little more than a shallow grind, as (in his opinion) are most other mobile games, and on that point he recommended that people either not play it at all or play it for just a day and leave it forever.

I didn't really agree with him, but admittedly I did hit a grind wall after playing it for a couple of weeks.  Once I got past the early fight-for-survival phase, each play session felt like more of the same: click, pick up energy, click, pick up water, meet collection challenge, build new room, rinse and repeat.  It had gotten boring for me.

Thing is, though, every game feels like a grind to me after a while, from Black Mesa to Civilization to EVE Online.  This onset of digital meh would take me to the next game in the cycle, which would keep me entertained for a couple of months, until ennui set in again and it was time to move on.

Was that happening in Fallout Shelter already?  After only a couple of weeks?

But then I discovered Father Benjamin Cooper, later renamed Father Benny The Most High.  And as is true for most of his followers, Father Benny's unending happiness and upbeat attitude became a welcome source of inspiration and enlightenment for me in a world of darkness and grind hell.

So, with no further adieu, this is Father Benny.

As you can see, Father Benny is a pretty happy guy.  Current happiness level: 100%.  You can't get any better than that - this dude OOZES happy out of his pores.  This Living Quarters area is dedicated to his new chapel, from which he conducts services at his Church of the Divine Copulation.

And goddamn.  He loves his job.

The CoDC was formed one day when, by sheer happenstance and probably divine intervention, a very slightly more-charismatic-than-average Vault drone named Benjamin Cooper - never really happy with his job, tired of being stuck down here in this cold, claustrophobic world - discovered a clergy outfit in a lunchbox. Not understanding what such a thing was, Benny tried it on and very soon thereafter found that it added a whopping FOUR points to his charisma level.

See, for the most part, Charisma is used for two things in Fallout Shelter.  One, high charisma characters can man the radio station and lure new wasteland dwellers to the shelter.  But more importantly, charisma is the main deciding factor in procreation.  You have to make babies to keep your vault healthy and growing.  Pregnant vault dwellers are happy vault dwellers, as are the men who make them pregnant.  You just need two reasonably charismatic folks who aren't too closely related (even though grandparent-grandchild seems to be just fine) to spend some time in a living quarters room.  And so there ya go.

Benny had found his purpose.  No longer would he merely exist, making do with his meager 65% happiness rating.  He snatched up that clergy outfit, boldly said goodbye to the drudgery of Water Reclamation Unit 4 (of course the other workers of WRU-4 thought he was making a mistake and would come back, begging for his job), moved into an unused living area on Level 7, and opened his new church.  The Church of the Divine Copulation.

And so, quickly became the happiest damned guy in Vault 551.

Stay tuned.  Everyone likes an underdog, and if Father Benny isn't the embodiment of the true American Dream, I sure as hell don't know what is.