This is a Good, Good Post. Also there is a lot about Vaughn you can learn on a silent playthrough that is uh…. enlightening.
This is a Good Post that more people should read because it’s so flawlessly correct, and people need to give Rhys a break. He keeps staring vacantly into the distance and he sounds so exasperated when people grill him about his choices, as if he’s done nothing but examine and re-examine them for the last however-many months while he was rebuilding an arm from scratch one-handed with one eye and probably not insignificant brain damage, or at least a massive gaping hole in his head. (Why the hell was he in the propaganda department and not robotics again?? Higher pay?)
Also, hey, some Vaughn stuff that’s only clear during a silent playthrough (tho note I’m not even halfway through on it):
- When asking Rhys what he’ll do with the money from the pay raise, Vaughn says he wants a Dahl sniper rifle (don’t remember which one sorry) because he feels powerful just holding one.
- He says this in a way that implies he gets sniper of the month magazine or something. He has been shopping around.
- When Yvette reminds him of the guy that got disappeared for stealing candy bars, Vaughn shrugs it off because “he was an asshole and his family are assholes” and then steals 10 million dollars. That’s a) cold as hell and b) immensely confident in his own abilities.
- Also proves that you can’t tell Vaughn what to do, fuck you i’ll steal 10 million dollars if I want and Hyperion can kiss my ass
- If Rhys is silent for the deal with August, Vaughn steps in and plays it pretty aggressively, but in a very convincing way. He gives a shaky excuse for Vasquez not being there but he also goes with the “it doesn’t matter what our names are when we’ve got 10 million dollars are we doing this or what” tactic
- That’s as far as I’ve gotten in that playthrough really but
- Vaughn, while being held at gunpoint, elbows Vasquez to get him to let go of him. Yeah, he was a hostage, but still a pretty risky move.
- Vaughn is significantly more bloodthirsty and simultaneously more reasonable than most of the caravan crew. This makes him MORE dangerous, not less.
- Organized a workforce to turn a crashed hunk of metal into a livable, structurally-sound space. We saw how difficult that probably was when Rhys had to avoid being crushed by it several times
- Had enough clout to keep a LOT of ex-Hyperions (chronic backstabbers and power junkies all) in line with him at the top
- When Finch drags him in, he’s SOAKED with blood. Whose blood? Maybe his own people, maybe people he stabbed. We really can’t be sure. I’m betting he stabbed a couple of people.
- Vaughn will stare death in the eyes and say “come at me bro.” Verbatim, that is what he will say.
This devolved into “Vaughn deserves better than to be condescended to” power hour.
An extra note about Rhys upon meeting Vaughn again: One of the options available is “I thought you were dead.” It’s entirely possible that he DID look for Vaughn, but never found him. Or else that he was simply convinced he was dead and didn’t want to go out and verify what he suspected to be true.