Today in the CBO
The View from the BMU
by Nat Wright-Kawolski
9 August 2298 – Union's Hope Cathedral
On certain Tuesdays for the 2297 and 2298 seasons, we will feature one of the settlements where teams in the Boston Minor Union play.
In our twenty-first trip around the BMU, we are visiting the settlement in Cambridge that is mostly populated by employees of Kendall Hospital, Union's Hope Cathedral, also called Union Hope Cathedral, and now referred to more as just Union Hope.
A Feral-Ghoul-Hating Ghoul Holy Man
When Nate Howard first came upon Union Hope, he heard a scuffle happening inside the cathedral. There he saw three feral ghouls attacking another ghoul. Hearing the man, Father Gabe, calling for help, Nate dispatched of the ghouls. Instead of thanking, Nate, though, Father Gabe attacked, confusing Nate who thought his efforts would be appreciated.
Father Gabe
Howard retreated and then negotiated. In time, Father Gabe believed Nate that he was not a raider who came to steal his goods but a wannabe hero of the wastes. Father Gabe trusted that Nate was trying to secure the area and make it free of raiders and ferals and mutants and whatever else may crawl out of the ground.
From there, Nate and Father Gabe established the Union Hope mission to be a place where people could go for sanctuary regardless of their situations. Father Gabe established a hierarchy of people to clean up the place and clear out the graveyard so that more ferals would not congregate, provide security, produce food, work on repairing Kendall Hospital, and otherwise solidifying a large chunk of Cambridge.
Union's Hope Cathedral - 2287
Later, members of the Brotherhood of Steel joined the cause to help further secure the area, making the Union Hope Cathedral a place where people could go for relaxation and Kendall Hospital where people could go for repair.
Kendall Hospital, the "Best Hospital of the Commonwealth"
The largest employer of the Union Hope residents, Kendall Hospital is Cambridge's premier hospital. According to a terminal, "Once a hospital, after the Great War, this facility became a hiding point for The Railroad, known as Augusta safehouse. However, it was compromised by the Institute, sending in a squad of coursers and an unknown number of older models that somehow knew exactly where they were. They attempted to interrogate the safehouse's organizer, Blackbird, but he succumbed to his injuries before they could extract sufficient information. Once the Institute finished off the safehouse, raiders discovered them, and slaughtered every synth within. Those corpses that are not burned in the lobby bonfire were thrown to the deathclaw kept on the lowest floor."
Kendall Hospital - Union's Hope Cathedral is seen in the background
Nate cleared the hospital, too, and was part of a Railroad crew that cleared out the former safehouse and started to put the hospital back in order. That made this area of Cambridge an anomaly in the Commonwealth before the Four Factions Treaty was signed in 2288 because the Railroad and Brotherhood of Steel worked together here starting in early 2288. In fact, testimony from Father Gabe and representatives of the Railroad and BoS helped in the Four Factions Treaty.
Cambridge, the Smart City
Nate hopes to reestablish the Commonwealth Institute of Technology (CIT), also once known as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as a hotbed of future science technology. There is still a lot of work there, and we will cover the C.I.T. Ruins in a future edition of "The View from the BMU." However, the Kendall Hospital-Union Hope area is also an important point of Cambridge in addition to the future project that is the C.I.T.
Cambridge overview - 2287
According to a terminal about Cambridge, "Before the Great War, Cambridge was a city sprawling with college structures and old homes built before the 21st century. Home to the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, Cambridge was highly bent on academics and research, with buildings such as the Campus law offices, Greenetech Genetics, and Cambridge Polymer Labs. Serviced by College Square station, the district was connected to the rest of Boston through bridges over the Charles River.
"The staff at the Cambridge Polymer Labs were working on power armor technology for the military when the bombs dropped. As the world descended into chaos, the director, Jon Elwood, was informed that the military could spare the resources to escort only essential personnel to safety. He kept the staff in the facility, passing the gunfire and explosions outside as a military drill in order to keep them calm to complete the project.
"The lack of information and confinement in the lab prevented the staff from working. Eventually, Jon died from radiation exposure, and the staff met a similar fate, locked up in the lab to turn into feral ghouls.
"During the war, a number of C.I.T. personnel survived by taking refuge in the underground level of the campus. In 2110, survivors and their descendants founded the Institute, an organization dedicated to furthering pre-War science. Following the invention of a teleportation device known as the molecular relay in the 2180s, the Institute was able to expand deeper underground and enhance the production of advanced robots known as synths."
"At some point after the bombs fell, the Railroad set up a safe house known as Ticonderoga in Cambridge and began carrying out operations in the area. Soon after, in 2287, the Brotherhood of Steel's Recon Squad Gladius moved into the Cambridge Police Station, fortifying it.
"Though all three factions were bitter enemies, they all unknowingly had a presence within blocks of each other. Adding to the danger in the area was the presence of both Gunners and raiders in the district."
It should be added, though, that Nate helped make that area less dangerous and one of the more progressive areas in all of the Commonwealth, a great reason why we see the peace we see today in the Commonwealth.
The Union's Hope Cathedral Graveyard - 2287 - Now The Cathedral Diamond ballpark
Now, Union Hope Cathedral is a central part of the peaceful Cambridge. The graveyard that was cleared in 2287 became small farms. Now, however, the old graveyard has been repurposed into the Union Hope Lifegivers' ballpark, The Cathedral Diamond.