Today in the CBO
Settlements Today
by Nat Wright-Kowalski
27 April 2297 - Vault 81
On certain Tuesdays for the 2297 season, 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. These will be done at Nat Wright-Kowalski's availability
In our nineteenth installment of "Settlements Today," I visited the underground living facility, Vault 81. Though due to size the settlement has expanded outside, including the lovely CURIE, Inc. Field on the East Bank of the Charles River, it was originally only a vault where those living tended to stay.
Vault 81 Entrance
When Nate Howard first visited, he made a grand discovery the people living there never knew. Well, actually a certain baseball player we know as Austin Engill, the number one overall pick in the 2296 CBO Inaugural Draft. Well, technically, another person made that discovery before Austin. OK, long story, short: there was a secret extra area to Vault 81.
Nate was the one who discovered that area and after killing off the venomous mole rats (who almost killed Austin Engill), Nate discovered a living, not-breathing resident in the extended vault. She goes by Marie Curie, and she owns the biotech company CURIE, Inc., which is the main sponsor of the Dwellers franchise.
Austin gave Nate a grand tour of the vault when he first arrived, including introducing him to the familiar atrium as seen below. Vault 81 was the type of vault Nate thought he, hs wife Nora, and his son Shaun would live in when they were ushered there the day the bombs fell, October 23, 2077. Instead, Nate ended up in a cryopod vault. He's alive now because of that vault, and there are rumors he also possesses some of the Cabots' mysterious serum, though he does not look younger than he did ten years ago. But, I digress. Like mentioned, Vault 81's atrium.
According to the Vault-Tec terminals, "Vault 81 is unique in that it is an active, functioning vault. The former overseer's terminal (stored in the generator room) reveals this success is not due to a more benign experiment (like with Vault 101), or simply being a control vault with no experiment (like with Vault 3), but rather because the original overseer actively sabotaged Vault-Tec's original mandate by refusing to conduct the experiments to fruition."
Vault 81 actually had one of the most advanced plans in all of the Vault-Tec world, at least as far as we know. You see, this Vault had "the purpose of developing a single, universal cure for every sickness that humanity could possibly suffer from, using the residents as human test subjects. The vault was divided into two separate areas; the main vault, where up to 96 residents would make their home for the foreseeable future, and the secret vault, where Vault-Tec scientists would conduct their research and observe the residents as they were unknowingly exposed to different diseases and cures. The diseases were released via propellant nozzles hidden within the resident's rooms. In the case of an evacuation of the vault, all main vault residents were to be incinerated with the same propellant nozzles."
Vault 81 - Apartment-style living without the radstorms
Well, not humane, per se, but the technology available here could mean the end to all known diseases. That is how the work of Marie Curie and clinic operator and owner of the Dwellers, Dr. Jacob Forysthe come in. They are a big deal in our medical advances, even beyond what the Institute has been able to discover about FEV.
Owner - Dr. Jacob Forsythe
Dr. Forsythe
Forsythe got acquainted with Nate Howard after Howard saved young Austin from a near-fatal encounter from some lab-created mole rats. Later Forsythe became acquainted with Nate's companion Marie Curie, whom he did not know lived merely feet away from him for many years. After Nate tamed the Commonwealth, Forsythe and Curie worked together researching deadly diseases and formulating treatments and cures, hoping to extend the lives of human wastelanders. Their research brought in a lot of caps for Vault 81, and Forsythe reinvested those caps in the Dweller baseball franchise.
One Cure for All
Curie is both a nod to famous scientist Marie Curie who helped to create this nuclear world we know in the 20th Century and an acronym for her original form as a researching nanny bot. The acronym is actually C.V.R.I.E., which stands for "Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer."
For Curie, she had bigger dreams to study the world, and Nate helped her, including transporting her into an organic brain-damaged synth at the Memory Den, made up of all the humanity she sought.
Before becoming a "human," "in 2204, Curie finished the broad-spectrum cure that would be capable of curing every pathogen developed and analyzed in the captive mole rats. She spent the remaining time scanning the same four walls over and over again, until [Nate arrived], allowing her to exploit a loophole in her programming and escape from the bondage of the vault."
Curie as a "human"
Curie continues her research, and every new medication she creates puts money into the Vault 81 coffers. Vault 81 is definitely a wealthy area, and it is a place thriving and continuing to expand, even if there is no more room for residents in the vault.