Today in the CBO
Settlements Today
by Nat Wright-Kowalski
4 August 2296 - Jamaica Plain
Each Tuesday for the upcoming weeks through the playoffs, we will feature one of the settlements, teams, and owners of the Commonwealth Baseball Organization. This is meant to tell you more about life in the Commonwealth, as well as give you more information about the teams and their owners. Note: Soon we may delay the other franchises to the 2297 season unless time permits. Sorry for any settlements that have yet to be covered in 2296 if we cannot complete these stories this season.
In our sixteenth installment of "Settlements Today," I visited the settlement with the greatest promises in all the lands: Jamaica Plain. With Kasumi Nakano taking over, we are going to look forward instead of back on what is happening with our ownership and sponsorships. Therefore, we are not featuring Lucas Miller, the current owner of the Jamaica Plain Treasures.
Before the Great War, Jamaica Plain was a small Boston suburb struggling to survive. According to reports, "In 2077, with the city finances at a deficit, Jamaica Plain sought a way to close the huge gap in their budget without cutting the massive pay and benefits to their work staff. They decided to create an attraction to boost the local economy, called the Treasures of Jamaica Plain, a time capsule to be opened two hundred years later. However, they also had another fiscal problem, as they had to appropriate funds to maintain the town hall. Instead of looking for more cuts to make, Mayor Alyssa Park decided to kill two birds with one stone and send the funds to repair the basement, although not the roof or plumbing. In time, the exhibit became her pet project.
The "Treasures of Jamaica Plain." When Nate found the treasures in Jamaica Plain, the vault in the Town Hall basement turned out to be a time capsule, in which the town paid $38.79 million to build. Now, it serves as Lucas Miller's office.
"The project consumed a massive amount of funding, pushing the budget into the red. They began construction by removing the storage room and laying marble floors, and later added an automated security system, a Type-V Laser Defense Grid, to guard the treasure. Once completed, the treasure rooms took up most of the basement. Apart from the Revolutionary era antiques, it contained battlefield mementos (as a memorial to Private McKinney), a journalist's life work (also a memorial, for M. Stahlman, a reporter of the Canadian Annexation) and donated baubles from local residents, businesses and facilities. In the end, the exhibit was a disaster and very few visited. On October 23, 2077, with the Great War occurring outside, the janitor made one final entry and locked down the exhibit."
Jamaica Plain, 2287. Another area overrun by ghouls.
When Nate Howard arrived in the town, it was overrun by ghouls. He found the bodies of a group of treasure hunters and eventually opened the vault of the "Treasures of Jamaica Plain." After, he made the area a Minutemen outpost as a gateway between Boston and the Southeast Quadrant.
Today, Jamaica Plain is still being refurbished, with the east part of town, town hall, and a few shopping areas getting most of the work. Town mayor and former Treasures (baseball) owner Lucas Miller has spent a lot of time and money to make Jamaica Plain one of the nicer areas of the Commonwealth, hoping to compete with Fairline Hill Estates for being an upscale area.
Jamaica Plain 2296 - A refurbished building. Picture located at: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/images/125011
Owner - Kasumi Nakano
About Nakano: "She is curious and empathetic, as shown by her pursuit of DiMA's radio signal and her desire to help the people of Acadia. When she was living with her parents, she was frequently bored, as she was isolated from the wasteland in her remote home. Her grandfather's passing worsened this feeling of boredom."
After she returned to her family from Acadia, Nakano used her talents to refurbish Red Rocket stations as a build and repair shop for electronic products. She is considered to be a key partner in the BosCom Project.
Gasoline, Diesel, Fusion: You're Good to Go
A Red Rocket billboard preserved from pre-War advertisements
Before the war, Red Rocket was everywhere in the USA: "The company started its rise in an age when gasoline and diesel were still common fuels. The fossil fuel market crash and the beginning of the Resource Wars in 2052 and the invention of practical fusion energy cells in 2066, Red Rocket expanded rapidly nationwide, offering fusion and coolant refilling services, as an early adopter, though gasoline and diesel continued to be sold throughout the franchise. On the east coast, Red Rocket holds a veritable monopoly on the market for this very reason. Many of its old gas stations were retrofitted with apparatus for maintaining and refilling nuclear engines, sometimes without even removing old warning signs.
"Red Rocket was very conscious about their public image, particularly concern for the environment, as well as family friendliness. While customers were treated with care, if any posed any threat to the family friendly image of the company, they were to be eliminated. Employees were expected to make every effort to reduce waste. One element of these efforts was the annual Trashbusters Award given to stores who demonstrated the greatest year-to-year waste reduction. The inspections were skin-deep, however, and unscrupulous franchise operators could win it simply by dumping their waste out of sight."
Now, Red Rocket is working to do more than just repair electronics and build new radios and televisions. They are even trying to recharge fusion cores so that power armor and later powered vehicles will be usable throughout the Commonwealth. It could revolutionize travel in the Commonwealth where refurbishing train tracks and engines has failed.