Due to terminal limitations on text content and images attached, this story runs from Tuesday through Thursday. Thankfully, the proprietor of this dynasty has truncated the contents into two entries (split into Parts 1 and 3 together and then Part 2 in the next entry) with the maximum of five images allowed per entry still intact. The proprietor also asks that you forgive the text wall below but hope it gives you some insight into one of the factions and what it was doing in 2287-2288 when the "reign of Nate Howard" began. If there is interest, perhaps some more of the Fallout lore can come to light in the future.
Today in the CBO
The View from the BMU
by Nat Wright-Kawolski
30 August 2298 – C.I.T. Ruins
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-fourth and final trip around the BMU, we are going to an emblem of Cambridge and the Boston area, the famed university, the Commonwealth Institute of Technology (C.I.T. or CIT).
1. The History of the University for the Smartest People in the World
Boston Public Library and the Will Hunting Memorial Library at CIT both have a lot of information available on the CIT. As a bonus, both have a series of physical books, as well as some terminal entries, so I was able to learn a lot about this university.
According to books and terminal entries, CIT, originally known as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, was founded on April 10, 1861, by University of Virginia professor William Barton Rogers. Rogers "wanted to establish an institution to address rapid scientific and technological advances. He did not wish to found a professional school, but a combination with elements of both professional and liberal education, proposing that: 'The true and only practicable object of a polytechnic school is, as I conceive, the teaching, not of the minute details and manipulations of the arts, which can be done only in the workshop, but the inculcation of those scientific principles which form the basis and explanation of them, and along with this, a full and methodical review of all their leading processes and operations in connection with physical laws.'"
In 1969, the United States of America changed to commonwealths. According to terminal entries, "The thirteen commonwealths of the United States were created in 1969, as a new intermediate level of oversight between the state and federal governments. States and commonwealths were both used to describe regions and governmental entities.
"Those 13 commonwealths, which replaced states, were: Columbia, East Central, Eastern, Four States, Gulf, Great Midwest, New England*, Northern, Northwest, Plains, Southeast, Southwest, and Texas. In 2076, America also added a 14th commonwealth, the Canada Commonwealth."
* The New England Commonwealth was made up of six former states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. In Massachusetts, we usually referred to ourselves as just the Commonwealth, even before the change to the American government.
In Will Hunting's "A 'Good' 125-Year History of Math, Love, and the C.I.T.," he goes into great detail about the change of the university's name to reflect the change in the American government. According to Hunting, "The decision to change the name defined Massachusetts like no other. Many in the community thought that CIT would be bastardized by letting the 'unkempt Yankees' into the college. There was much debate, but New England Commonwealth governor Michael Dukakis, who was a Boston man himself, urged the change. . . . On January 13, 1977, Governor Dukakis signed the executive order to change the name from the [MIT] to the [CIT]."
3. The Ruins
As part of the restoration project, the CIT is on the verge of being a full university again. While settlers have occupied the Rotunda and other wings of the CIT, the Institute has made it clear that the future of the CIT is to no longer be in ruins but to be repaired and built into a full technology instititute.
In cooperation with other factions, the Institute has also worked to secure the area of Cambridge by helping to establish businesses on the top side while the Institute itself remains underground.
Repairing the CIT building has proven problematic, but the Institute and Brotherhood of Steel have teamed up to build large construction machines, as well as employing multiple Gen-1 and Gen-2 synths, to repair the building. Once those are in place, current residents of the CIT buildings will need to relocate to the surrounding Cambridge apartment complexes.
Most of the people who are residents are involved in reparation and construction with some dealing in business and trade. Most of the food products come from places like Graygarden, Abernathy Farm, and Oberland Station. With the major roadway along the Charles River in front of the CIT, the CIT is a major trade thoroughfare. It is also the major passage for the west-east Corvega connections for the traveling CBO teams on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, so there are several market days set up during those times to help small businesses make more caps.
The CIT Ruins Refractors, the current minor league affiliate of the Fort Hagen Silver Shroud, play in front of the Ruins, but there has been talk of moving them behind the college after the full restoration begins.