The Bleakest Fallout Game

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Welcome back to Acceptable Losses! When asked what the darkest entry in the franchise is, most people immediately point to the horrors of the Mojave Wasteland or the desolation of the very first game. But they're missing a story that didn't have the luxury of a century to heal its wounds. Today, DK, Kirioth, and PancreasNoWork are exploring a chapter where you step out of a Vault into complete, unsettling silence. It's not a wasteland of ancient ruins; it's an abandoned graveyard where the ghosts of the recent past are still fresh. We're talking about the original, vanilla release of Fallout 76.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Acceptable Losses Podcast, where Kiriath is gonna send me, DK Diamantes, and him, Pancreas No Work, screaming, crying, and pissing ourselves through some sort of awful, grimdark world. But before he does, you should check out our merch shop at Orchid8.com because we do have a new shirt. Pancreas Pancreas, were you aware of the new shirt?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

I don't believe I am aware. I was aware of the new shirt. You haven't seen the Weeb for Lincoln shirt? Oh no. Oh, that oh wait, never mind.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

You co-invented it, good sir.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

I thought there was an additional new shirt, but no, this this thing goes hard. This is this is a masterpiece.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

We we love being weebs for Lincoln. Hell yeah, brother. But that's there. The uh you like sci-fi right shirt is there. I think we still have some wall scrolls, um, some pins, some commemorative coins. There's probably a QR code on the screen. There's probably a link in the description. It's all amazing. Check it out. Also, thank you to all the people that sent pictures that uh have gotten our sort of founder's bundle. In the Discord, someone posted the number one shirt, and I was like, oh, bless bless your heart. In a good way. Because apparently in the South, that's usually. I missed that.

SPEAKER_05 1:37

I can't believe I missed that.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

So yeah, check it out. Um also Kirioth, how's that Patreon?

SPEAKER_05 1:44

I will answer that in just a second. I'm sorry to be a pain, guys, but I've just noticed my waveforms look really odd. Oh no. I'm just gonna double check because I don't like the shape of this. Just give me a second. Okay, and I've started again. And yeah, sorry about that. But we have an amazing Patreon. It's the best. If you go to patreon.com slash acceptable losses and sign up, then you get exclusive episodes that we do just for you, and you get early access to main episodes as well. And right now, if you head over, even if you don't want to do the the monetary thing, there is a free episode which is Threads, which we absolutely love. Great film, ten out of ten, would recommend, or at least just listen to the episode because it's significantly less miserable than watching it. We had a good time making the episode. I don't know that people had a good time watching threads, so there we go.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Same for the film. I was part of that episode, and I was like, yeah, I would not have a good time watching this, but that's kind of the point. Uh also I think you have to at least follow the Patreon, right? I don't think you can just, yeah, you at least need to follow the Patreon in order to get like the free episode, but you know, it's a button click.

SPEAKER_05 2:55

It is, and you get updates there as well. So it's absolutely worth doing. Go and check out the Patreon. There'll be a link in the description as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Well, I buy that for a dollar.

SPEAKER_05 3:07

Now, we're we're gonna do the quickest check-in because good lord, is this a monster. How are you doing, Pancreas?

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Oh, that silence is just reassuring me with all kinds of great hope that Pancreas is doing fine.

SPEAKER_05 3:21

Is this are we are we having our first cursed app? Is that what this is? I don't think we've had a cursed ep yet, have we? Well we have now.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

Oh no. Did we should did Pancreas' mic just suddenly break?

SPEAKER_05 3:38

Potentially. I hope it's just the mic and it's not Pancreas, because I am waiting for the timeout. I'm waiting for the disconnect. That's what I'm waiting for.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Oh yeah, unfortunately. Well, I'm sorry to say, Shy, you're gonna have a little bit of splicing to do on this side. Oh, oh hey, hey, there he is.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

I wish I had an answer for what just happened to me, but my Discord froze and then Audacity froze, and we're back.

SPEAKER_05 4:08

It is. It's a cursed episode.

SPEAKER_04 4:10

It's a cursed episode. It's happened. Lovely.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

We've talked about so many man-made horrors beyond human comprehension that we have the the this episode of the podcast is just cursed. It's still happening. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Oh god. Oh, we we seem to have stabilized. Okay, that's a good start. That's okay. Sometimes the best we can hope for.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

So to answer your question, how's Pancreas doing? Probably not great at the moment, but yeah. He's here and things are happening.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

I'm doing alright.

SPEAKER_05 5:00

That was the best timing you could have possibly mounted for. Like of all the times. I was literally, and now for the quickest check-in. Pancreas, how are you doing? Dead silence.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

What was great was there was a second where it like it snapped back before it kept breaking, and then I heard, oh, he's gone quiet. That's not great. And then I couldn't respond to that.

SPEAKER_05 5:23

It's longer than you think. Shall we uh should we attempt to forge ahead? And with any look, we might we might get an episode out of this recording.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Yeah, let's let's let's go ahead and forge because Kyrie Az, you said this is a massive episode. And for you to say that, I'm I'm blocking out like four hours.

SPEAKER_05 5:42

Parson went ham. That's all I'm saying. And I I would imagine that whoever like everyone listening or watching has probably seen the amount of time that it took to record this episode, and are probably thinking to themselves, oh you poor sweet summer children, it was so much longer than you thought. So let's let's get in to the original story of Fallout 76. Now, Possum has really, really gone into this, and at the start of every chapter, there are some there are some lyrics, which I'm going to uh send to you now.

SPEAKER_04 6:17

Uh we have a single start us off. If you expect me to sing these lyrics, crazy.

SPEAKER_05 6:24

Or just read them. Reading them is also fine.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, uh Shenandel River, life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

You uh your cowardice will be remembered. Okay, you sing it, pancreas. I'm it's not my turn.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Oh we will remember what it is, don't worry. DK Diamantes will remember that.

SPEAKER_05 7:00

Nonsense. Okay. So a common question asked regarding the Fallout series is which entry in the series is the darkest? As we've discussed, Fallout and the universe it exists in is a bleak reflection of the United States and the aftermath of total collapse, and the normalcies of the world beforehand have been replaced with both tragedy and madness. Consensus wise, many people will say that the two entries that are the darkest are either New Vegas, due to the volume of horrific individuals and stories, and the first game due to it firmly setting the stage for the mythos that exists to this day. However, these entries and most of the other entries have a luxury that tends to be overlooked, which is time. The events of the first game take place eighty-four years following the dropping of the bombs, and the effective end of the world as we know it, and future games would exceed this distance in time dramatically. Time allegedly heals all wounds and the landscape of the wasteland is scarred over by this point. The ruins of old America serve as a historical monument while long established factions attempt to cement their foothold in the new world. But what if we did not have the luxury of time? What if, instead of almost a century of detachment, there was hardly any time at all? Familiarity of the old world being seared in the minds of the people who step out to see what happened. Memories of structures still standing, haunted with the ghosts of the recent past. Fallout 76 currently exists as a very different and robust game with a multitude of expansions and updates, showing a more active Appalachia, which by the way I'm sticking, I'm pretty sure that is how that's supposed to be said, right? Because I've always heard um Appalachia, but then I started listening to the old gods of Appalachia podcast, and I was like, well, if they're saying it like that, I'm saying it like that.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

So I feel like I've only heard Appalachian Mountains, but it wouldn't be the first time a dumb American was dumb. So I would take my hearing of it with a hefty, hearty grain of salt.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Retweet, brother.

SPEAKER_05 9:07

Well, the original story of Fallout 76 upon release was different. It told the story of a religion that tried to band together, of a region, sorry, that tried to band together after the end of the world and completely failed to do so. All while they were under the shadow of a sealed vault that celebrated the history of a nation that no longer existed. A symbol of hope that turned into a mockery to those fighting against one another, as well as people who had succumbed to a devastating plague that burned them from the inside out.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Which what a what a statement. Yeah. I mean, that's more or less radiation poisoning. You just kind of get burned and destroyed inside then out, and yeah, true. So that's a pretty uh, you know, that that I'm I'm sure they're quite familiar with seeing something like that in Fallout 76 land.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Hey, what's the screwdriver doing here?

SPEAKER_05 10:08

The uh I'm afraid the the extra descriptive element of burning from the inside out, leaving them as ash-like husks, permanently etching their final moments of pain as a cruel artifact. Lovely.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

That's nice. They got Pompey. Yeah, that's the one I meant. Also, hey, Bancry is not not afraid to sing. He he went in with Pompeii.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

I I will die for the bit. I I'm almost offended you think I won't.

SPEAKER_05 10:46

It will happen. Though it may not be the darkest entry of the Fallout games, the original story of Fallout 76 presents a bleak and hopeless story that is littered with unsettling silence. The emptiness of West Virginia Virginia's speckled bodies and the remnants of recent conflict provides an eerie landscape compounded with flashes of something watching you from the trees or the empty houses. Be it the burning eyes of a scorched plague victim or a gigantic moth like creature that violently vanishes before you can track the source of its glowing red eyes, Appalachia is not in ruins, it's abandoned, and it knows you're here. Today we are going to be a morrifying thing to say.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

Nice scorched plague victim for you there. Yeah. You got a little something on your your face there, lady. Yeah. In, on, around. Yeah. Yeah, that's not great. Also, I'm I'm I'm seeing why this would be a Herculean task because you're trying to put together the entirety of a story of an MMO, more or less. Yeah, pretty much. Something that's changed a bit as well.

SPEAKER_05 12:02

It's it's it's a lot. Possum really, really went into it. So today we're going to exit Vault 76 and follow in the footsteps of the Vault's Overseer and see where things went wrong in an already hopeless world in the original core story of the game. As we make the same stop she makes, we'll also learn about her life before entering the vault, as well as what it was like before the war in regional increments. So the first chapter is The Forest. Pancreas, you're up for singing.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Okay, see, so the problem is not that I won't, it's that I don't know this song.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

I just assumed they would all be the I yeah, I was ready to belt out country roads, but uh I assumed it was all just country roads, but I'm like, wait a minute, I don't remember these lyrics.

SPEAKER_05 12:51

I knew that some of the like, but it was different ones because they're from different songs in the game, but I didn't want to point that out because I wanted to see what would happen if you were just presented with random lyrics.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Stay away, baby. Keep knocking, but you can't come in. Guess you better let me be. I uh Well, hey, you did it. You did that damn thing, brother.

SPEAKER_05 13:15

I mean, it sort of sounds like it could be close, you know? It's that's a bad effort.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

You fumble through it, it may be something almost resembling the game. That sounded like you were going for the um oh what's the what's the minor song?

SPEAKER_03 13:28

The you got the sixteen tons. What do you get? It's sixteen tons. It's in the fucking lyric.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

So what what is that? Does anyone know the same of the the name of the song where the devil goes down to Georgia?

SPEAKER_03 13:48

It's just it's it's totally eluded me. As soon as I said the lyric, I was like, oh god, this is getting oh boy.

SPEAKER_05 13:56

Well, here we go. Oh god. So, Vault 76. It was designed in order to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the founding of America due to its completion in 2076. It was the official vault of the tricentennial and stood as a sign of resilience during difficult times. Indeed, the location of the vault in the midst of West Virginia was no coincidence, as it was the staging ground for an ongoing victory lap for Vault Tech itself, which had profound influence over the area. In 2031, West Virginia University in Morgantown was fully rebranded as Vault Tech University, which served as the first of many similar locations across the country. Not at all worrying that, is it?

SPEAKER_03 14:42

Um you love to hear about Vault Tech experience.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

No, it's please, they have your best interest at heart.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Of course, of course. Love those big corpos. Always always have my interests specifically at heart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Is this so do you have a newspaper in front of you? Is that what this is?

SPEAKER_05 15:05

To uh to fit with Voltec standards, many of the teaching staff were fired and replaced with higher-ups within Voltec itself to really emphasize the core ideologies that the company had. This ultimately resulted in the privatization of the entirety of Morgantown, and virtually every aspect of it was controlled by Voltec from then on. This was far from the only thing automated in Appalachia during this time, and frankly might be the most benign side effect, considering the scope of the corporate skewering of the area prior to the day the bombs fell, but we'll explore that as we follow through the journey of our guide in these parts. We'll introduce her now, but her story will be illustrated as we move along. So the story of the original release of the game follows in the footsteps of this overseer, a character that we never see, and it always seems like she's just out of reach. The events that unfold and her perspective on them are presented through various logs that she leaves behind for the vault dwellers to find. It's not known when she was born, but it was likely around 2040. She was born in Sutton, and she had ambition throughout her entire life, be it through the Pioneer Scouts or in her eventual fast track into Vault Tech University, she had always shown promise, and when she's given a goal, she sees it done. And as overseer of Vault 76, she was given not only an almost insurmountable task as being one of the youngest overseers overall, but also one specifically related to the opening of the vault. This whole thing with Vault 76 is genuinely horrific for me because it's what can what's considered to be a control vault. We sort of talked in the last episode about the fact that there's a like a wide array of vaults around the country, and some of them were just filled with experiments that were like either kind of mundane to extreme and horrible, uh, which is very fun, but also, oh dear god.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Vault Tech wouldn't do that. They've got my best interest at heart.

SPEAKER_05 17:04

Gary. Now Possum posits that a uh a separate pot episode just on some of these experiments would be a really good way to discuss it further. I'd I wanna I want to see that. I wanna I want to read about horrible experiments taking place as the world literally falls apart by a horrible corporation.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Hell yeah. And then them getting out into a radiated wasteland. Yeah. Yeah, if they do get out.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Which I would say arguably nicer out there than in the vault for some of them.

SPEAKER_05 17:38

Yeah, probably. There were though, there were some vaults where there wasn't an experiment occurring inside, and in fact, the overseer was told to ignore standard operating procedures in Vault 76. Per vault tech's internal memo to the overseer, no expense was spared for this one, and this included the inhabitants. It was a selected lot of the greatest mines in the country, all of whom were more than capable of contributing to a brighter tomorrow. Her mission was to see the livelihood and well-being of all of the residents, to ensure that they were ready to colonize once the all clear was received. Every single vault citizen knows about the concept of Reclamation Day, the day when the vaults are ready to go and reclaim the surface. It's remarked in the Fallout TV show by Lucy that Reclamation Day hasn't happened yet as far as she knows, and that show takes place in 2296. For the citizens of Vault 76, they knew what day Reclamation Day was, but they didn't realise that it was unique to them and something that they could not choose.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Sick.

SPEAKER_05 18:44

Despite not being an experimental Vault, Vault 76 was designed in a very particular manner. Regardless of how things were or how ready everyone was, the door of Vault 76 was going to open 25 years to the day when it was sealed, and the power would go out, forcing everybody to leave and go outside.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Damn, they making people touch grass in the future? Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

It's no longer a request.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

The power's out.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

It seems that seems remarkably early to be shoved back into a nuclear hellscape.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

Oh, yeah. 25 years seems like you it seems like you would want a little longer than that. Like at least 50. No, you gotta get out there. There's fresh air outside. You want to touch the grass.

SPEAKER_05 19:34

Fresh is an interesting word to use here, but alright. The slightly glowing grass. Yeah, and it's with all the So yeah, the Great War, it started on October 23rd, 2077, and the vault would be sealed that day, meaning that the doors would open on October 23rd. 2102. That is that is not in the context of you know, world destroying nuclear war, that really doesn't feel like a long time at all.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Apparently, no should I said though it's uh only l nuclear winter is only around 15 years or so, huh?

SPEAKER_03 20:15

That's actually shorter than I would have thought.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Yeah. I would have expected a lot longer than that.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

I guess, you know, avoid the spot that was directly nuked then, and I don't know, maybe maybe you'd be okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah, that those spots that were like d the direct impact crater. Probably want to give that a little more time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Let that one marinate.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:38

Yeah. Yeah. For 25 years the vault would function effectively with little to no incident, knowing that better times were around the corner. Vault 76 was in a very public location, unlike other vaults, which were intentionally hidden. The visible and public nature of the vault was initially viewed as a sign of hope for those that weren't able to go inside before it sealed, but as time went on, it would be viewed as an insult to those fighting so hard to survive outside. That is 100% a like a meeting where someone needed to step up and go, I I don't think people looking at something and going, There are people in comfort not having to fight for their very existence on a day-to-day basis over there. I now feel better. I don't think those people exist. I I'm just gonna go out there, go out on a limb, and say, essentially someone standing on a hill above you and going, I have infinite money when you are having to shoplift. That's not an aspirational thing. That's that's taking a piss.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

That's uh I'm going to take some of that infinite money kind of thing. Yeah. I think that was a bit in the World War Z book, too. That's the it's it's like poetry, it rhymes.

SPEAKER_05 21:58

Oh, yeah, there's a story about Vault being stunned by starving citizens in four-out four, and it doesn't turn out well. Yeah, it's shocking. You don't want to advertise that or something. By 2100, though, tensions were increasing in the vault. It was dramatically overpopulated and the hydroponics were struggling to keep up. Morale was beginning to nosedive, and reclamation day couldn't come soon enough. On the night of October 22nd, 2102, the dwellers put their differences aside and had one final blowout party, knowing that the world was ready for them to return. Spoiler alert, uh not true. Um in the early In the early hours of the twenty-third, the overseer would leave first to revisit the world that she had left behind, while also following a very special directive from Vault Tech itself. She would be given a task of the highest importance, and she would break protocol to explain it in a note she would leave behind. In Appalachia there were three nuclear silos that were used during the war, and they could not be used again. She was given the task to reclaim the silos or die trying, a goal that she could not do on her own, especially because of what may be waiting for them outside. Funnily enough, the thing waiting outside would be a terrorist start. Oh it's not. It's not. It's it's relatively relatively tame in a way. Because the only thing that was outside was silent. Like d literally nothing. And that's that's also something that uh that's also something that was present in the game, like you started out completely alone, like there's no NPCs or anything.

SPEAKER_04 23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:43

You just walk out and no one, nothing. Like maybe like critters in the trees, the sun in the sky, but other than that, just dead silence. There's the occasional ghoul here and there, but otherwise, everywhere is still.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

I I have to say that was better than what I was expecting. I mean, that much more of a slow dread kind of feel, but part of me was expec you know, 500 death claws.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

All ranked up, just waiting for posts.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Like a Roman, like a Roman legion. Yeah. When was the last time you thought about the death claw Roman Empire? Every day.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Every man thinks about it at least once a day. That's why that's what I go to sleep to.

SPEAKER_05 24:36

So at this point, there's nothing. There's ruins and silence. But the thing is, even the ruins would be not from the Great War itself, but a war in the aftermath. A war to save those who survived the bombs, but one that would have no winner and leave communities of hope in ruin, indistinguishable from the ruins of the Great War itself. The first of these ruined places would be the town of Flatwoods. Once a lively small town, the desolation in the town shows that it served as a makeshift shelter for a group that called themselves the Responders. Now this is a group of survivors who were formerly firefighters, police officers, and EMS workers. They banded together to form a new organization to help save those who were left behind, but the destruction of most of their terminals shows that they were not successful, which is uh a running theme, you'll be unsurprised to learn.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

I think in Fallout, when you are discovering what happened to the world at large, there's going to be a lot of, oh yeah, their good deeds not successful. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Don't go unpunished.

SPEAKER_05 25:42

Yep. As we go through the forest and past countless other abandoned homes, we come across a Vault Tech Agricultural Research Centre that now stands derelict, surrounded by robots whose targeting parameters had shifted to defend the centre against humans. Here we find a separate string of journals left by the overseer as she's making her way through Appalachia, but these ones are far more personal. As we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, she was born and raised in this region, and by the time the vault opens, time has certainly passed, but not a considerable amount. Twenty-five years is ultimately a drop in the bucket compared to most of the other games that are nearly a hundred years removed from the actual event itself. Like twenty five years ago, damn you possum for putting direct comparisons in here, was when the original Xbox was released, as well as games like Final Fantasy X and Super Smash Bros Melee and Shrek. Just you know, just to let you know Shrek is that old.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

Um I would have expected those were longer ago than uh than that, actually.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

I'm going the other end. I suddenly don't like this episode anymore.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

The existential dread is the real examples Possum gave, not the fictional ones.

SPEAKER_05 26:57

Possum addresses this, by the way. Sorry for the dose of mortality, but consider the passage of time in the eyes of the overseer here. Uh these people are getting well, I'm guessing uh apologies in the script for the reactions that Possum knows they're gonna get from us reading about being old.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

Fucking the overseer went into the vault playing Final Fantasy X and came out to uh PS V and Final Fantasy 16.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

And crazy in Fallout it still has no games.

SPEAKER_05 27:33

Instead of operating like her vault tenure was going to be in memory as it passed on to future generations, she knew that she would likely still be in charge when the vault reopened, and knowing the circumstances of the vault's closure and the inability to return early made it torturous for everything that she'd left behind. So as she strolled through the agricultural center, she remembered when it was a farm she would visit when she was a little girl and how it used to have seasonal corn mazes. She reflects that it also served as her first post when she started with Vault Tech, and recalls all of her ambition between those years. She couldn't just be a member of the Pioneer Scouts, she had to be a troop leader. She couldn't just be a good student, she needed to have straight A's. But seeing this makes her miss the days where her ambition was reserved for playing with her friends and hiding in corn mazes, and she wonders if her childhood home is still standing. There's I get horrid like that sentence alone, it gives me terrible flashbacks to the uh the World War Z book where it talks about the guy who in the US. Like he finds his home, his childhood home, and then he does not leave that home again. He just sits down and it's like, oh, there we go.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah, and then they had like the over like the overseer that wasn't a soldier, but they their whole job was just to be like, alright, hey, uh uh just so everyone knows this guy's out of the fight now. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 28:57

Absolutely brutal page. Really well written, but I was like, oh no, my heart. I don't like this book anymore. So in Sutton, the overseer does find her childhood home still intact and leaves a note behind, saying to her parents that she's finally home and apologizes that she couldn't get away. She implies that her parents knew what she signed up for as she jokes about how her father warned her what living underground would really be like, and says it was a challenge. But she misses the time before. She was an only child and she misses sitting around and listening to the radio and just being together. Time that is now lost. The houses of her old neighbours and other families remain still and empty with no evidence of life, just death. However, it does look like there may be some people nearby, but something is wrong with them, because of course it is. It's human and sort of moves like one. It's able to hold objects and use weapons, but something is very wrong. When they stand still, they hold their heads in screaming agony, and when they move, you can see horrific lesions that glow in almost neon green. They were human, that's for sure, but now there's something else, something horrific and angry that mutters to itself saying things like we are one. It's not clear what this creature is, but there may be answers deeper in Morgantown as this is where the responders were apparently based, specifically at an airport. So during the journey, we learn more about the responders. They were led by a woman named Maria Chavez, a paramedic that worked at AVR Medical Centre. The responders were created in the immediate aftermath of the war, but would dissolve only a few years before the vault would open. That is like a like a crushing detail by itself. Only a few years? Like if they could have held out a little bit longer, there might have been a proper organization of trained individuals to help with the vault dwellers, but they just couldn't quite last that long.

SPEAKER_03 30:58

Ugh. Well, it's it's um it's not a forgiving world this fallout, so unfortunately that seems like it's gonna be all too common a theme in in in this episode.

SPEAKER_05 31:13

As we get to Morgantown, we find the remnants of Morgantown High School as well as another one of the overseer's personal journals. She talks about how in her junior year she got word that her mother died in a mining accident. A story that she said was common for most families in West Virginia, but never something that she thought would happen to her. Her father never recovered from the loss of his wife, and the overseer would spend more time than before in the library. For the longest time, the predominant means to an end in Appalachia was through the mines, and even as post-World War II automation became more normal, the mining industry would remain a core factor in day-to-day life. Almost all family members had a connection to the mines in one way or another. The usefulness of this industry was bolstered by the megacorporations in the country at the time, and companies like Westtech Atomic Mining Services, what a name, and Robco would invest quite a bit into the continuation of the industry in the hopes that it would survive during the resource wars that started in the early 2050s. I do love atomic mining services. It's the most like foreboding company name.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

Little did they know how much an atomic mining company would be needed.

SPEAKER_05 32:26

The focus on mining and the shaking of other industries proved to be a benefit in disguise for the United States military, as the majority of Appalachia was free for them to develop a series of facilities and intelligence stations and silos. Oh no. Oh please, what is this little choice? Are you bringing real stuff into our definitely not at all um parallel nuclear test?

SPEAKER_03 32:52

Oh no, oh no, shy, no.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

When you when you have look, when you the when you hit the mark of you have enough work nukes to single-handedly destroy the world, you might as well get creative with them. It's like and after world destruction the first time, you can't really blow it up twice. You might as well see what you can do in between that scale.

SPEAKER_03 33:17

The test succeeded in liberating large quantities of natural gas. However, the resulting radioactivity left the gas contaminated and unsuitable for applications such as cooking and heating homes. Shocking development!

SPEAKER_04 33:28

No shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:32

Like they they knew what it did by then. Come on. What the hell?

SPEAKER_00 33:36

I really I I know it's the word is used in like a you know the most like uh scientific way, but I like the uh the use of the word liberating. Like Ldivers are the ones planting the fucking nuke down there.

SPEAKER_05 33:51

I saw liberating and I didn't want to interrupt, but I was like, hell of America, fuck you.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

That doesn't sound very democratic to me, you two.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

It's very democratic.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

Are you uh uh are you questioning the democracy? Nukes to mine for gas. How dare you! I assure you this is totally necessary for freedom. And if you don't agree, go to this special room.

SPEAKER_05 34:23

You can press the button from a meter away. Uh you won't feel any pain.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

Turn off. Yeah, it'll just be turned into a black splotch on the wall behind you.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

I mean, it's like it, you know, a nuclear war, the best place to be is ground zero. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:46

Oh, Project Plowshow was the overall United States programme for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives and large non-nuclear explosions for peaceful, peaceful construction.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Oh, yeah, the the pad of a canal.

SPEAKER_05 35:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think you can use the word nuclear explosive and peaceful in the same sentence. I think that just should just be banned.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

It's just not it's just not honest. America's like, damn, we can't we have we have all these nuclear weapons and no one to use them on. Let's use them on ourselves. I'm here in Panama. Yeah. Panama, we're we're gonna bring our peaceful construction equipment right to your door. Oh, that sounds great. What is it?

SPEAKER_05 35:32

Don't worry about it. Ignore the radiation label on the side. Yeah. It's nothing to be concerned about. Enjoy your new canal. Just you know, don't go near it for about a hundred years or so.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

I'd advise investing in sunglasses.

SPEAKER_05 35:49

So the focus on mining and the shaking of other industries proved to be a benefit in disguise for the United States military, as the majority of Appalachian is free for them to develop a series of facilities, intelligence stations, and silos. But the relative seclusion also proved invaluable when it came to automation with these systems, and it was used as a staging ground for automated technology, including the usage of unmanned cargo bots and robotic construction systems that would allow for the reconstruction and resupply of nuclear armaments in only a few hours. Great. Definitely need more of those. As we mentioned at the start, Vault Tech's privatization of Morgantown was only the beginning of what would be a major corporate takeover of much of the infrastructure, especially as the threat of China grew unavoidable. The resources that were mined and refined in the region needed to be extracted at a more rapid rate. And in the southern part of the region, now known as the Ash Heap Oof for nice and foreboding name. Oh man, a little too on the nose, man. Hornwright Industrial Mining Company would develop a massive excavator known as the Rockhound to extract resources directly from Mount Blair. They proposed it would revolutionize the industry, but it only caused more environmental damage. But not as much as the north. The northern area, now known as the Toxic Valley, was torn to shreds by Grafton Steele, whose steel mill would poison the water supply without any regard for those working on location. Oh man, that's uh Oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

Yeah, we are we are firmly in Grimdark territory. We are firmly in acceptable I mean, and we've been in acceptable losses territory. Yeah. That's not great. That sucks.

SPEAKER_05 37:36

Or spend the what spend the day at Toxic Valley, West Virginia, and then top right, day trips, picnic area, hike, swim, and fish, campground, wavy willards water park.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

There is a Toxic Valley water park that they want you to visit.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

I mean, you know, this look, this is just the Chicago River. This this isn't anything different. This is just life as it is. You know, this is fine.

SPEAKER_05 38:09

The big slide is to truly die for. Everyone who goes on it, they only go on it once, but it's a memorable experience for them for sure.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Um you you have a fish from that water, and you'll have enough food to feed you the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

That's true. That's true. You'll never have to worry about food again once you try our fish.

SPEAKER_05 38:35

It's literally that thing of teach a man to fish and he feed him for the rest of his life. You always you just have to teach him to get that one. Just the one. It'll have to be a long lesson. You know, a lucky cast and he is set. That's all he needs.

SPEAKER_03 38:50

My brain immediately went to the perfect cast because we're, you know, time warping backwards. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

The the horrific uh orange clouds in the background waiting for what looks like an oncoming firestorm, really tie this lake together.

SPEAKER_03 39:05

God, that's what I mean. Look, I wasn't expecting it to look nice because it's the Toxic Valley. But you're telling me they're like, oh yeah, come swim in this lake. Fish in this lake, spend the day swimming through the Are you crazy?

SPEAKER_05 39:22

I want to see that review on uh on Google on Google reviews. It took Toxic Valley was somehow even shitter than I thought it would be.

unknown 39:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

I don't think they get too many, uh too many reviews for Toxic Valley, because I think once you go, it's kinda that's kind of it, brother. You're not gonna be alive long enough to make a review.

SPEAKER_05 39:44

There's also no signal just due to the air quality. So you can't even leave one, you know, as you're trying to leave, which you can't, because your legs have ride away. You just gotta put up with the fact that other people will also visit this not good holiday destination and make your peace with it. So before she died, the overseer's mother introduced her to a man named Evan, a handsome mine worker that no girl could resist. He stuck with her during the funeral and always checked in on her, never shying away from making her feel safe. Though Evan was an emotional light in her life, a career fair at high school would serve as a beacon to focus her ambition on. Uh you know what? Here you go, DK. This means you skip you this means you skip a lyric section though, so Darn it.

SPEAKER_03 40:30

When the career fair came and I met people from Vault Tech, it was like a light turned on. Protecting families, protecting their future, protecting America. The first thing I did when I got the acceptance letter to Vault Tech University was head over to mom's grave with dad. He was happy that I was staying in West Virginia. So was I. Aw, they're so hopeful. Wholesome.

SPEAKER_05 40:56

Like actually wholesome.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Yeah, actually wholesome. Not like full of holes because of the radiation or bullets. It's just kind of nice.

SPEAKER_05 41:06

Yeah. That's that's sweet. So the Morgantown airport once served as a meaningful place for the overseer. She remembered seeing air shows there when she was a child. Now it serves as a horrific graveyard littered with the still bodies of these strange creatures. The overseer would say that these things were called scorched. Whatever took over these people took over slowly. And it not only burns them with range, but also seems to burn them on the inside out. Those who are exposed to this for too long would freeze, becoming like the ash covered bodies you'd see in Pompeii. Called it. Nice. Unfortunately, the uh the thing that did this to them is not one to hide, then proceeds to do its own form of an air show. The overseer would see a horrific creature, something that may have been a bat at one point, but is now an abomination. Swooping around and screaming, its breath infects anything below it, and the weight of this situation is not lost on the overseer. This thing needed to be taken out. It could not spread, and desperate measures may need to be taken, including the use of what do we think?

SPEAKER_04 42:16

Nuclear weapons.

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Oh, so this is God, this is the thing that's just flying around and and infecting people and pompeying everything in sight? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:31

I mean, when you see the size of it, I can I can sort of understand the whole. I mean, we've got nukes. I mean, but look at it.

SPEAKER_00 42:41

I'd like that thing to disappear as quickly as possible, please. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

So is is there uh uh an is this just like, oh yeah, it's a bat that got horribly mutated because you know radiation. Uh and that's why it can do all this? Or is there is okay, there's more. Okay. I'm I'm sure you're gonna get to it. Yeah, okay. I won't. All right.

SPEAKER_05 43:04

Yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay, cool, cool, cool. So before they were torn apart, the responders looked like they were working on a cure. And thanks to the notes left behind by a responder by the name of Claire Hudson, a vaccine was able to be created. She left behind many notes of encouragement, and part of these notes involved encouraging anyone that found them to go to the Charleston firehouse, located at the edge of the forest and close to the ash heap. Such a good name.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

Sorry. They're looking for a cure to that big giant mutated bat burned me from the inside out. Oh, for the for the I think for the people affected by it as opposed to.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Oh, okay. Right. Yes, okay. I think I think the cure for that is don't be near the bat. I think that's kind of it.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

Yeah, yeah, right. Right, right. It also does the okay, sorry. Yeah, all right, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Oh, let's what do I have for this? Once again, this is not country roads, and I do not listen to this style of music very often.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Listen, anything can be country roads if you commit hard enough to it, brother.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

I am not that creative a person, but I appreciate that you think I am. Uh come listen, you fellers, so young and so fine, and seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines. It'll form as a habit and seep in your soul till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.

SPEAKER_03 44:34

Yeah, that uh don't don't love that. I mean, you you did fine. It's just oh boy, that's uh that's sitting a little too close to what's happening in the lore.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Dark is a dungeon. Darkest dungeon is canon to follow up, confirmed.

SPEAKER_05 44:52

They're all playing it. They're all playing it in the vault. Um some of the vaults are basically just darkest dungeon. It's crazy. Um I'd have a better chance at surviving Darkest Dungeon. You're less likely to get turned into a weird infected by a giganto bat, that's for sure. The responders then had converted the fire department building into a training ground. It's evident that they were working desperately hard to retrain and help as many people as possible during the hellish years after the bombs dropped. This more active part of the responders was known as the fire breathers and were led by Melody Larkin. In the notes found at the fire breathers' headquarters, you learn about a particularly ambitious fire breather by the name of Hank Madigan, who had theories on how to eradicate the scorched. But while we're here close to the mines, we need to explore a bit deeper within the ashes, and this also takes us on a trip further down memory lane with the overseer. So she attended Vault Tech University, fully engrossed herself in the experience. Learning living and breathing Vault Tech's research and ideology, she graduated with honors, and even her father came out to watch her accept her diploma. Even though he had started to get more sick.

SPEAKER_03 46:10

Oh, yeah. Does he have those that that miners lung that just kind of sticks with you and oh no.

SPEAKER_05 46:19

Her high marks and unshakable ambition resulted in her being offered the next available overseer slot. Something that was supposed to take years, but it seemed that they were fast tracking. Maybe they knew war was inevitable. It was around this time she learned about the plans to construct Vault 76 right in West Virginia, and she was so excited that this could be so close to home, and she knew that the presence of the Vault meant that Appalachian would be safe no matter what. Evan decided to propose to her right then and there, and a few months after they moved in with one another, her father died. He wanted to walk her down the aisle, and the overseer reveals that she didn't get a chance to walk down the aisle at all. She ends her log saying that she thinks she needs to go home to Welch, where Evan lived, near the mines themselves. Like the context of wandering around a completely abandoned world where there's a few ghouls and some critters and reading this person's like life story whilst everywhere is just wrecked and there are no people is is like it's pretty brutal. Like what a way to start out.

SPEAKER_03 47:27

Yeah. That's that's yeah, that sucks. That's that that's a lot of no mass right there. That's mm.

SPEAKER_05 47:35

The demands of the government in the mines were so extreme that it exceeded the ability of normal human labour, of course, especially human labour that was beginning to feel the seismic impact of the rapid industrialization of the region. Thankfully, or unfortunately for most citizens, atomic mining services had been running an experiment very much in the open that would solve this problem. In February of 2042, they would unveil the city of the future known as Watoga. Watoga was designed to be a fully automated city. Outside of the one human mayor who served more or less as an administrator, the entirety of the town's municipality and civil services were handled by robots that were programmed specifically by Robco and General Atomics. The mayor of Watoga would be selected randomly and would be provided with the mayoral artificial intelligence assistant to guide them in their duties because the candidate would likely not have any political experience. The position was designed to be completely random and to select people who were far outside of the potential corruption of most political institutions.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

Gosh, what could go wrong moment? I was I was literally about to say, gosh, what could go wrong with robot government and random mayor listening to robot government? Sounds perfect. You really solved all the problems.

SPEAKER_05 49:00

Also, I love the thing of you know people who aren't familiar with politics. If there's no if the administration is you but you're just overseeing robots, you don't need to be good at politics because you're not negotiating or being political with anyone.

SPEAKER_04 49:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:23

Cool. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Uh glory to the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

SPEAKER_05 49:34

So the success or seeming success of this automated city proved to be like proved to the corporate entities that automation was something that was possible beyond the measure of government. Quite rapidly, Robco would begin to introduce mining robots known as auto miners that were not susceptible to the increasingly toxic and dangerous environments. Of course, this was immediately successful, and they would expand outward and start to replace civil services here and there with more automated alternatives. Protr protr pr oh my god, I read this out loud earlier and I still struggle now. Protect protectrons, there we go. It's not even that difficult, but I keep trying to put a second. Protectrons.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

Protectorate. I s I see what you mean. There's too many there's there are too many R's in there, and so it's like, oh yeah, you want to do like a protractrons type of thing.

SPEAKER_05 50:22

Yep, every time. That lot uh would begin to replace normal police presence, and military bases would become the home for more war-based robots led by Master Sergeant Gutzy, and even the mayoral AI system Meyer would become the norm in most government offices in the region. The automated nature of these systems would allow for things like election and promotion to be fully automated. Soldiers could train at military bases and earn ranks through automated testing, and government officials could prove their worth and automatically gain further promotions. So such a good idea. What again, what a what great thinking that. What could go wrong?

SPEAKER_04 51:03

Well, the effect of this is devastating to the population. Great segue, brother. That's a hell.

SPEAKER_03 51:12

What could go wrong? Well, it was absolutely devastating to everyone involved, and they all died.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

I I do like this fine gentleman's mustache, though. You know, that's Dapper, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Yeah, that's nice.

SPEAKER_05 51:30

Entire generations had grown up with a reliance on the mines for work and stable income, and instead of doing something more collaborative, the industry was inflated heavily before being taken away almost immediately. Homelessness immediately began to rise, and the people who were suffering thanks to the deterioration of the ecosystem would now have no insurance to aid them with their terminal illnesses. Luckily again, an area where there are no parallels with real life. It's not like things like factory jobs and manufacturing have had huge changes due to automated production and people who, you know, worked on the lines for years suddenly had no job. Nothing like that at all. It's fine. It's all good.

SPEAKER_03 52:08

We're all good. Yeah, it's like like poor Charlie Bucket's dad in the Johnny Depp, Charlie in the chocolate factory. He was he was the guy that screwed on the the caps of toothpaste and robots came in and stole his job.

SPEAKER_05 52:26

What a incredibly specific poll for that example. That is that's wild.

SPEAKER_03 52:36

You are welcome, dear listeners. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 52:42

I just I just I'm blown away by that. I just wasn't expecting it. I like how Kyrie had to do a factory reset over the Johnny Depp, Willy Wonk and the chocolate book with I just I don't think I've heard that film referenced for literally anything outside of did you ever see the Johnny Depp, Johnny and Chocolate Factory film? I don't think I've outside of that specific thing. I don't think I've thought about that film in any way, shape, or form. And knowing, remembering what the dad did as well, I just hard reset required on that one for me.

SPEAKER_04 53:22

I strive to innovate, brother.

SPEAKER_05 53:28

Oh my god. These these events, all this automation, would cause some people to fight for a revolution and a change to what they saw as the destruction of their nation. Now, as we finally reach Evan's house in Welch, the overseer leaves a note saying that she found out what she wasn't supposed to know back before the Great War, the societal preservation programme, and the experiments that some of the vaults had planned. She'd told Evan because she needed to tell someone, and Evan wanted her to tell the press, but she didn't. VaultTech found out that she knew and dispatched agents to speak to her. She was afraid they were going to fire her, or worse, to be fair to say or worse, because my first thought wouldn't be, they're gonna fire me. My first thought would be, oh cool, I'm going to be lost in one of the mines, and no one's going to know what happened to me.

SPEAKER_03 54:15

No, you know, them firing me sounds about accurate as to what they would do, but in a much more literal sense than figurative. Like actual fire. They're going to put me in the ash eat.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:32

Instead, though, they did neither of those things. They confided in her. They told her that Vault 76 was going to be a control vault, but this came with a catch. She was to be the overseer of Vault 101 in Washington, DC. But she couldn't let them let them do that to her, and she couldn't leave West Virginia behind. She wishes she was able to leave Vault Tech behind and spend the rest of her life with Evan, but she couldn't. She says that if she could do it all again, she would rather die in that house with him. She never stopped thinking about him, and she would not rest until she found any trace of what happened to him. Since he was not here and there was no evidence of a body, she assumed he would be in one place only, which would hopefully be safe from all of this, and that would be the mines near Mount Blair. Now at the top of Mount Blair, you find her personal like her final personal private journal in front of a door. In this note, she states she was given an ultimatum on how she could be overseer of Vault 76. She could have it, but she could not be married. They would have had to give a spousal exemption for him and make room in the vault, but they couldn't. Someone was more qualified than Evan for the vault. Vault seventy-six was for the best and brightest, and a civil engineer with skills to help rebuild had the slot that Evan would have had, and they would not sacrifice someone as qualified as him. She knew Vault Tech made the right choice with their decision, but it pained her nonetheless. In order to stay close, she broke off the engagement. She sacrificed him for the vault. A knocking on the door on the other side of the door reveals something else. Something that she leads the log with. Oh, DK, you're up again. You are you are dodging the song lyrics like an absolute pro at this point.

SPEAKER_03 56:16

Possum knew how this was gonna go, and he was like, I don't need to hear that that idiot sing. I don't Possum knew. Possum structure this in such a way that, like, ugh, we don't we don't need nobody needs to hear that boy sing. Anyway, I found him! Evan! He's down there, just like I thought he'd be, but I I I didn't I didn't think he'd be one of those things. The green lesions on his face, oh god, I did this to him. It's all my fault. I know what I have to do, but I I just can't. I love him. I already killed him once. I can't do it again. Please, I gave 76 everything. You were all so brilliant. The first few years were hard, but we learned to trust each other. You learned to trust me. I was young, so young, younger than most of you, but you accepted me as your overseer, so I need you to do this for me. Let Evan rest. He didn't deserve any of this. Oh, this is awful. And then there's a knocking on the door. Oh, brother. And there he is. Poor Evan. Yeah, and there's there's there's old Evan.

SPEAKER_05 57:26

It's it's it's true. He did not deserve any of that. Nope. Okay. What the hell?

SPEAKER_01 57:31

Yeah, yeah. Oof.

SPEAKER_05 57:34

So, yeah, behind the door in mining gear he wore to protect himself from the horrors of the Great War in hopes of living just a little longer, we find Evan. He's feral, he's scorched, and it's up to us to grant a mercy to him despite the idea of peace dying so long ago. With the mercy provided to Evan, we need to get back on track and find the member of the Fire Breathers. Tracking down the footprints of Hank Madigan leads you to the Top of the World Ski Resort, a location where a broadcast is coming from. So uh here we go, another lyric for you, Bank Res. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

Oh wow, that's quite the song. Uh I didn't I didn't know the gun was loaded, and I'm so sorry, my friend. I didn't know the gun was loaded, and I'll never, never do it again. I've that I feel like I might have gone a little bit too upbeat on that one.

SPEAKER_02 58:28

Ooh, sorry about the murder. Boom doom doom. Didn't mean it. Won't do it again. Bada bum.

SPEAKER_05 58:36

You couldn't see the jazz hats, but they were there. Ooh, another poster. Oh, what have we got? Top of the world, savage divide, breathtaking vistas, gondola rides, mountaineering, observation area, pleasant valley ski resort. Now, at least that one doesn't look like it's an actual nightmare. This one looks fine.

SPEAKER_03 59:03

Yeah, but then I'm just like, huh. I'm gonna do all that in the what's this place called? The Savage Divide. I mean, yeah, the name is a bit rough. Not sure I want to go for a pleasant valley ski trip in the Savage Divide.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

But go on. What could go wrong? It's funny.

SPEAKER_03 59:24

Everything on my ski lift. Fallout 76's universe.

SPEAKER_05 59:28

Literally everything can go wrong. The ski lift is obviously nuclear powered, so that's that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

Um well, I mean, what else would be powering it? Come on now. Yeah, of course, of course. Cowards here.

SPEAKER_05 59:43

Nice exposed reactor core as well, just to keep people warm as they go walk through the through the reception. So the overseer leaves a log remarking about whoever is control of the old ski resort that yells insults out over the various nearby channels, saying that she's selfish, but maybe that's why she's still alive. All the good per good people she's learned about so far have died, and for some reason, this sociopath still lives. As you enter the top of the world, you find Hank Madigan. Unfortunately, he's been killed, and his body is displayed prominently in a cage next to a rather mouthy robot by the name of Rose. It's the sticking him in a cage as well, but it's like, yikes.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:25

That's that's that's a choice.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:28

I thought you were gonna say he's gone mad again, but you know. They should have done that for the pun. Yeah, they should have they should have had him go berserker and like, oh my god, he's mad again. Anyway, you get the idea.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:41

Hire this man. Um It's here that we learn about the raiders that were once in this neck of the woods. The cutthroats were a tight bunch, and their leader was David Thorpe. David Thorpe's second in command was a woman named Rosalind Jeffries, whom David was deeply in love with. In 2082, Rosalind would seek out a Christmas present for David in an attempt to bring some normalcy into their lives while David prepared to propose to her when she came back. She would go to Charlestown with other raiders to raid it for stuff on Christmas Eve, but she would never come back. Rosalind would be captured by the responders and would be interrogated by Melody Larkin. The raid done by Rosalind and her cutthroats would kill seven responders, and Melody would seek out information on where Rosalind's leader was. Instead, she would learn of her relationship with David, and she would use this as leverage to allure David out of hiding. She'd leave Rosalyn locked up in Charleston and would make her way to the top of the world to strike a deal. David would learn of the raid's failure and would assume that the love of his life was killed. He would then choose to send a message to the responders in kind. So on Christmas morning, he would rig the Somersville Dam with mini nukes and detonate them, causing the Somersville lake to empty onto Charleston, wiping out the city, most of the responders, and inadvertently drowning the still captured Rosalind Jeffreys in the process. Oh David. Oh dear.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

Man, that's uh really, really like the throwing in and and then someone also drowned to death just on top of all the other horrific stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:21

That's that's that's uh also uh what what what height are you marking her as? I mean, I'd like you you're marking her as uh five six or six one.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:34

I'm gonna I'm gonna be generous. I'm gonna say six one. Like you're in the apocalypse and you've still managed to get your hair to stand up like that. I mean, that's mind you, I suppose enough dirt. We'll do that eventually on the court, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:47

That might just be a couple years without a shower. Could be. Could be a something about Mary situation, too. You never know. Oh, dear God.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:57

Well, needs must when hair care products are hard to come by. You know?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:01

I love how I say that you're like, well, when needs must, it's like yo, okay. All right, buddy. Easy, easy, down boy, down.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:12

It's time, it's time to go on the raid. Quick, crack one out because I don't look as good as I could. And frankly, if we're gonna kill people, I want to look my best. All right, let's let's do this properly if we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:24

We've broken him, dear listeners. We've we've finally done it. We broke carrion.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:30

Oh I don't I don't like that sentence, the phrase we're going on a raid, crack one out.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:37

That's not all bad. And in the Fallout universe, that has so many different connotations and not just a sort of, you know, self-pleasurement. That could mean any number of that could mean a nuke. It could mean a nuke. Statistically, it probably does. Better chance that it's a nuke than anything else in this universe.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:57

Oh, what an incredibly versatile phrase, but it turns out it really just means bring me a nuke. That's all it means every time.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:05

Cracking a cold one with the boys takes on a way different.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:11

Cracking a cold fusion with the button. No, that's the one. Now let's just move on. You killed it. We're done. We're done. It's not even it's not even the same thing. Yeah, we're done. I'd say cut that, but I know it's not gonna happen. So as Rose begins to trust you, she will lead you to a vi a device that the fire breather Hank Madigan had that allows people to track the movement of the scorched, but it's broken. Fortunately, Rose's memories allow her to recall the location of someone else that was working on an anti-scorched measure. A great scientific mind that was forced to hide deep in the swamps due to her affiliation with an organization known as the Free States. She doesn't believe she ever met this person, but provides her location and makes it very clear that these swamps were home to many of their bunkers. The overseer leaves a log after observing these bunkers and remarks about how they're traitors, stating that the structure of them would never have passed Vault Tech inspections, and this is likely the reason why they died. Still all in on the on the Mega Corporation bandwagon. We love that. Great. Now I have more lyrics here, and I think, I'm afraid, DK.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:21

I haven't missed it, huh? All right. Let me see.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:24

You haven't skipped this one.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

Oh, it's look at that.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:30

I hate it here. I was so excited when I screwed the gun. I was like, oh yes, it is in here, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:37

Hello the 16 tons, what do you guess? Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter, don't you call me cuz I can't go. Oh my soul to the company's door. I can't believe that's the one I rolled. That's fucking wild. That is amazing. That's crazy, dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Crazy. Serendipitous.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:05

Possum is preempting you in ways that we simply never thought possible.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

Yeah, Possum's like, I know this idiot's heard the 16-ton song. I'm gonna, I'm gonna I know how Kyriath rolls, and he's gonna do this one first. I got him.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:21

Oh, amazing. So in 2077, the Appalachian Prosperity Act would be introduced as a measure that was sponsored by the then Governor Evans. Known as Ballot Measure 6, the proposition was to result in the full automation of the state and local governments with a final goal of phasing out all human government officials by 2087. I fucking love this universe. The governor was heavily bankrolled by the Citizens for Automation Fund, and he believed that this would cause him to rise to national fame. That is an insane sentence. It was presented as a way to remove unwanted bureaucracy, but the optics were horrific. The rising financial crisis and housing crisis in the region were a direct result of automation, and the harm it was doing to the livelihoods of civilians was impossible to ignore. Fortunately, there was an organization that had already been around for a few years prior that served as a strong protectorate to those who were disenfranchised by the actions of the government. The Free States started out as an anarchist group that were tired of the actions of the government and particularly Vault Tech. They would form in Harper's Ferry, which the town actively disliked. Their doomsaying was scaring the tourists. The residents found them to be nothing more than scared extremists at best and traitors at worst. They would use resources and networking in Harper's Ferry to build their own bunkers in the region known as the Meyer. Great name again.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:51

Also I love that picture. Do not enter. Free state! Do not enter. Wild.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:59

Getting mixed messages to some degree here. As the war against China escalated in 2077, they would begin to purchase more and more goods for reasons unknown. The shop owners didn't really care as they were getting paid in cash, but their anti-government ideology began to boil over with the people of Harper's Ferry, who began to actively fight the Free State's members in the streets. This boiling over occurred not only in Appalachia but across the country as the insecurity caused by the rapid automation of random sectors around the nation and the elongated war's anxieties resulted in upheaval. Violent riots known as the automation riots that would impact Appalachia, but also cities around the country, including Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. Citizens being forced out of Welch by atomic mining services would fight back and the insurrection would be violent. Miners would seize the Rock Hound and it would be used to damage resources owned by Hornwright. Elsewhere, vanity structures that were owned by Hornwright would be bombed by rioters and former miners. Oh dear. It's bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:04

It's getting really bad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:07

Also, has Fallout 76 ever partnered with Displayed or someone to make like uh these posters of like the Meyer and like the the Toxic Valley? Because these are like obviously we look at them very satirically because oh really, the Meyer has historic Harper's Ferry swimming, canoe fish, and shopping and dining. But I mean, as like just a poster to hang in your room, that would go kind of hard.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:36

Yeah, they're they're great. I don't know. I I kind of hope so, or at least because I would I would 100%, I would 100% get the get the one that's the toxic wasteland. Or the one I just posted, yeah. Yeah. Both of those. Only a communist spy turns his back on him. I wouldn't have that one. I'm not gonna lie. That might be a bit dodgy in the background of a YouTube video.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:01

That might look a bit weird.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:03

No, you you you you put that one behind the camera. You don't put that one in the shot. No, no, no, no, no. That's uh that poster's for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:12

You've gotta make sure you're staring at it all day so the message really sinks in.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:20

People think it's weird because I'm English, but the message still stands.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:29

The Free State flag is kind of dope though. I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:32

The color scheme and the government would get involved and attempt to reseize property bought up by the Free States and would list them as seditious actors. In September of 2077, the Free States would openly secede from the US and would retreat into their bunkers. The government would back off on further action against them, as their entrenched nature would result in a prolonged campaign, and they had a bigger war to worry about. Abigail Abbey Sing was one of those people who retreated to a Free States bunker with her father Niraj, brother Calvin, her dog Dax, and members of another Free States affiliated family, the Coens. The tie quarters and the rush nature of the retreat into the bunker strained Abby's mental health, but in 2079 her family would exit the bunker and begin to check for other survivors. Fortunately, the members of the Free States were surprisingly well prepared due to their prepper nature, and they were able to form a fairly strong presence in the mire. They received word that the primary point where they'd rebuild would be whatever was left of Harper's Ferry. This is where she met Ella Ames, who was working on a device that was used to track the radiation signature of death claw droppings as a means of detection. Yeah, that's yeah. Yeah, the m well, yeah, yeah, that's that sucks. Let's put the tent up in a different place. In 2086, Harper's Ferry was overrun by Scorched, and the rebuilding efforts were completely eradicated, forcing her and her father to hide. Her, her father and her brother retreated to their bunker in order to survive the attack and cut off contact with most of the outside world. Her father would begin to work on modifying the device that Ella Ames was working on so that it could track the Scorched, but he was unable to properly complete it. He began to show signs of advanced Parkinson's and eventually succumbed to it. God damn.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:35

Yeah, that one's just uh like just unfortunate. Like there's no fallout thing, that's just that horrible thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:44

Yeah. At some point as well, her brother oh for I forgot this forgot this line. At some point as well, her brother would also die. Fah as as as we all eventually do, but Abby would continue to work on the device and would serve as a free state's point of contact for other factions in the region, but reality started to weigh on her. She would conclude that she was the last surviving member of the Free States, and that the worst mistake they made was attempting to leave the bunkers in the first place. She couldn't live like this anymore in total isolation. But fortunately, she would get a message from Hank Madigan, and she would pack up her unfinished scorch detection device and head toward the top of the world to broken an alliance with the fire breathers and potentially the raiders, leaving her notes behind. Abby would never be seen again. Her life's work would be shattered. Yeah, of course. And and the stuff she was working on would be shattered next to the body of Hank.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:48

Man. Oh boy, it's just oh gosh. It's just all it's all bad. Oops, all terror. Oh oops, all dreads.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:58

This blows. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:00

Oops, all awful. God. So her someone dies of Parkinson's, then her brother dies, and then she dies, and then her life's work gets completely destroyed. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:13

Yeah. You know, I really appreciate when someone specifies and then their life work was just completely dismantled in front of them. That's always that's always nice.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:25

Yeah. Oh god, that quote, Shy.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:30

Oh boy. Good luck out there and thanks. If this holotape is playing, it means our lives, and all this work meant something. Her words recorded on a tape in dead wasteland overrun by scorched plague. Love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:42

Oh, fallout. You you you sometimes goofy, but quite often horrible franchise. Cheeky bastards. Jeez. She would leave one final message about a potential means of stopping the scorched and the scorched beast that creates them, and mention the name of another organization. The Brotherhood of Steel, whose base of operations was at Fort Defiance, which was previously known as the Allegheny Assi Asylum. Of course. The Overseer has no concept of the Brotherhood of Steel in the first log she leaves behind about them. Were they survivalists? The army? She knows they took stuff seriously, and they were efficient in their organization. Hell, in her eyes, they should be ruling the entirety of West Virginia by now. So where are they? So at this point we are moving to the Toxic Valley slash the cranberry bog. And uh I have more lyrics for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:42

Oh I need to I I need to hang out. I gotta figure out that I gotta figure out how I'm gonna pretend this song goes as the problem I'm facing here for all of these. Praise the channel.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

Sweet child of mine. Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:55

Oh, I I was gonna vaguely go church him.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:58

Uh yeah, I was I was gonna say this is church hymn all the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:00

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, and we'll all stay free.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:09

Amen, brother. Amen. As an American, I say hell yeah, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:16

I get made fun of for ammo calibers, so I'm angry now.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:24

So you'll love Cranberry Bog, local cranberries, unique foliage, floating bridges, scenic strolls, minutes from Watoga. And meanwhile, in the background, it's two heavily armed people in body art.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:38

Yeah, lovely.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:39

Absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:40

Also, I I I love that one of the um tourism board posters to visit this place is well, we're not far from that one place you actually want to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:53

Minute's from Watoga.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:56

I mean, you know, being nice, like there's I shouldn't dox myself. There, there's there's there's places like, you know, some places you live and it's like, hey, look, it's not far from X, like, you know, for living near somewhere that can be a selling point. Now it's fallout. So the selling point is look how close you're absolutely right. The selling point is look how close you are to somewhere that doesn't suck.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:18

Suck, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:19

But you know, that can be a legit selling point for a place.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:23

I mean, that's pretty much like the the town I live in on every single property listing for the town. It basically says, plus, you can get a train directly to London from here, and it's on a major motorway route. Like those are the two sites that are always there. I'm just like, there's easy ways to leave this place. Don't you worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:47

There were a few of those for where I live now, yeah. I was like, oh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:51

We've scoped it out for you because we don't want to be here either.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:56

You can be on the train to Chicago in five minutes. Well, that's where I'm avoiding, but thanks for letting me know, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:03

The townside is you know that Chicago is only five minutes away.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:08

It's forever looming in the distance. Can you give me something a little farther from Chicago, please? A five-minute drive, too close.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:19

So the origin of the Brotherhood of Steel in Appalachia comes in the form of an army ranger unit that was founded by Lieutenant Elizabeth Taggarty. Sorry, Taggetty. Taggetty's Thunder were in the midst of participating in land-based war games with the Marines. They were in the caves of Spruce Knob when the war broke out, and they thought that the initial strikes were a part of the simulation, but it soon became very apparent that this was not the case. They would attempt to contact other units, but it was all radio silence. They would eventually hear back from someone, but it was not from someone they expected. Captain Roger Maxon on the West Coast got in touch, and as we mentioned in the first fallout episode, he seceded from the country just days before the war broke out. So word from him was questionable. But him and Taggadi were friends before the war. He went into detail with her as to what he saw and why he chose secession, which she didn't fully believe. But she did begin to question her loyalty to the armed forces. Instead of taking up his offer directly to work with him, she decided to work on setting up her own base. Honestly, kind of sensible. Clearly got a good head on it, that one. Just like, well, you don't sound fully sane anymore, but we did just have a war break out after all weird automation stuff happened, so catch the bets a bit. Desperate times and all that. Desperate times call for turning an asylum into a military base. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:49

Look, look, I've played Project Zomboid. Sometimes you have to make do. Yeah. At least it's at least it's got walls and it's not irradiated, and you know, it's better than like 80% of this universe with those two things alone.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:06

It's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:06

And also it's not a vault.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:10

That's a that's a big one. Also, not vault. And and not flooded from people blowing up dams out of a bit of madness. It's actually, you know, it I'm shouldn't have. Solid place. Good choice. We found a lab where they used green goo to turn civilians into eldritch abominations, Lizzie, and then we executed all the scientists and seceded from the country. Yeah, you yeah, you're right. You're right, Shy.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:41

You would be like, uh you keep doing that. I'm gonna go this way, you don't follow me, and we'll just pretend like this meeting never happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:00

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:04

So the establishment of her own base of operations near a WestTech research center resulted in her investigating deeper into the centre and unfortunately confirming the experimental horrors that Maxon talked about. Elizabeth Taggarty would renounce allegiance to the government and would accept Maxon as their commanding officer. She would work on recruiting other survivors in the area into their ranks, and in the early 2080s, Maxson would announce the formation of the Brotherhood of Steel. Elizabeth was sceptical about this, but Maxon assured her that the formation of this would serve as political immunity in the event of any politicians emerging from vaults that try to declare themselves as commanders of the military and attempt to, you know, blow up the earth again. Again, yeah. Taggady would focus on recruiting only individuals with military experience, and she had trouble interacting and cooperating with other factions in the area. They would need a bigger base of operations, and they opted to seize the Allegheny Asylum and rename it Fort Defiance. Shortly after their movement into the Cranbury Bog, they would encounter a scorch beast for the first time. Believing it was just some strange stuff from the bog itself, they chose not to take it seriously, especially since it would flee at the sound of automatic gunfire. I mean, most uh to be fair. Yeah. Most most things do.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:26

It's a very final argument, gunfire. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:30

You hold me animals, so like uh nah, I'd win.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:34

You know, generally they generally they tend to take a sprint. I yeah, you know, unless you're the Brotherhood of Steel, which most people are not.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:44

So it was around this time that Maxon would issue the core mission for the Brotherhood. Become preservationists, keep civilization alive so that the Brotherhood can be the catalyst for a new future. This isolationist venture would dramatically impact the favour of the Brotherhood in Appalachia, but they would soon have bigger fish to fry. The Scorched became more prominent, and the Scorched Beasts were not just weirdness. They posed an existential threat that needed to be eradicated. Maxson ordered Taggarty to hold the line and to form a counterattack against the beasts, but forbade the usage of nuclear weapons. I mean, for this for this universe, that is the most sensible thing I've heard so far. Nah, it's lame.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:26

They're right on our doorstep, sir. What should we do? Ah, drop a nuke on them, I guess. What could go wrong?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:33

I mean, there's a scale to that in fallout, though. Like a fat man is a nuclear weapon, but like it's not that big. It's only a little nuke, though, which you know it is based on a real weapon. Which of you didn't know that. Fun fact. Shaq, can we make a just a little nuke t-shirt? Yeah. The US Army made nuclear mortars.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:56

Yeah. Just it's just a little nuke.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:59

No, like a mortar, but a nuke.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:02

I did not know that.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:04

I believe the reason development wasn't continued is obvious reason is obvious. Danger closed blast uh radius, among other reasons.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:15

I was gonna say there are a plethora of reasons to not continue research on nuke mortar.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:21

We used to be a real country.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:30

Was this around the same time that nukes were being used to to mine natural gas, or was it was this a bit?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:37

I think I think I think it was earlier. I thankfully, question mark.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:42

Okay, look, we we've tried we've tried making nuclear like uh personal weapons. That didn't work. What if we use it for mining instead? We will use it for something other than the biggest bomb we can build. We will, we'll find a way.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:59

Look, we we look, we we found the the point of you know too far, which is McCarthy's sea of irradiated cobalt over North Korea. We had to figure out if there was a minimum we could get away with.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:19

I know as well that there is there is plans for a well, I say a plant is probably a strong, a strong term for what actually happened. But I know someone came up with uh like a nuclear-powered jet that would just fly over the earth, radiating and polluting everything underneath it. Oh great. I know that. That's that's that's a that's a thing that was suggested. It didn't go very far because uh really I think it was supposed to I think it was like when I when I read about it, it was a kind of okay, everything's gone to shit, and we need to make sure that the enemy can never rebuild and to have this god-awful aircraft that just destroys the airways for eternity. Like once it sets off, it just stays up there. And reading it and being like, oh no. Yeah, someone thought about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:08

Massive massive shout out to the 50-year period where we weren't quite sure if we were gonna blow everyone to the Stone Age yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:15

But we damn sure wanted to try. That was a dream, damn it.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:21

I have a dream dreams are just dreams.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:24

That's not the dream speech you want to hear.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

I have a dream that the Soviet Union will be the largest parking lot in human history.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:31

I don't think I want that dream. No, we don't want that dream. No.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:37

That's a that's a two-way street.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:40

Yeah. In an event that would be known as Operation Touchdown, Taggetty would lead the Brotherhood's most well-trained troops into the Glassed Cavern in the Cranbury Bog on January 28th, 2095. Formerly a quarry owned and maintained by Atomic Mining Services, you'd never know with a name like Glassed Cavern, would you? Um, this seemed like the place where the Scorched Beasts were coming from. An explosion would be seen from the surface and the cavern would collapse, claiming the lives of all the soldiers inside, including Taggady herself. The remaining senior knight Wilson would call this a victory after a week of no visual contact of any Scorch Beasts, but this would be somewhat preemptive. By June, the sighting started again and seemingly increased. Operation Touchdown was a failure, and the Brotherhood was facing extinction.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:32

Yay, we did it.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:37

What was it, ladies and gentlemen? We got him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:45

Perfect. The remaining members could not risk another mission of the same level, and they reinforced at Fort Defiance. By August, only five members remained, and they made a final stand there against a swarm of scorched. It was an effort in futility, so they're last. Information on what they learned on the creatures and the failures they encountered, especially the fact that the only thing that could truly end this was the usage of nuclear armaments.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:12

I love how like the use of nuclear armaments in Fallout has gotten to the level of just sheer comedy. Like at the beginning, it's like, oh man, I can't believe we're using, you know, nuclear weapons to mine stuff. They're crazy. They're out of their minds. This is a whack a new world that could never happen. And now we're just like, they're using nukes to try to kill everything again. Lamel.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:37

You know, you say that there were plans to nuke the moon. Well, that's real life.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:49

Well, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:53

What is the benefit of this? Eat shit, Soviet Union. We can do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:58

Can't land on the moon if there isn't one, bitch. Checkmate asshole. Hell yeah, freedom.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:12

We're gonna blame you, and you're gonna you're gonna build a new one and you're gonna pay for it.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:17

Oh no. We're veering way too close to what might actually happen again, dude. I don't like it here.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:26

You like so-fi?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:29

Yeah, you like you like sci-fi, right? So you like fictional grimdark air quotes, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:29:35

Can we uh can we also have a you like nukes, right? t-shirt. Can we have one of those, or is that that might be a bit too much? I want the just a little nuke shirt if we do. Yeah, the just a little nuke shirt I feel has got enough comedy behind it that you could get away with it in a public setting. Simply you like nukes, right? Almost feels like a threat, but how.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:55

It's crazy. Everyone buying the shirt has a thousand hours or more in Hearts of Iron 4. Like the good old days after a certain event. What do you mean by that, sundowner? No, he was very clear with what he meant.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:26

So the uh the final the the final brotherhood, the Steel Brotherhood would send a final message before being completely eradicated with simply the words defiance has fallen. Now the irony of a mental asylum serving as the headquarters and last stand location of the Brotherhood facing off against the Scorched is not lost on the Overseer in her last log about the Brotherhood. They were brave, crazy brave even, but also blind and arrogant. She wishes they survived, as having them around would give her some degree of comfort in this wasteland. The notes that were left behind insinuated that there may be a government presence in Appalachia still, and the first place to check would be in Charleston. According to the Overseer, if automation still rules West Virginia, then Charleston is the heart of the machine. Bureaucracy is still pumping away without any people to serve. Her frustration on not being able to find anything but the ruins of a failed attempt to save the region would pain her, as made evident in one of her logs. Don't believe it, DK. I think you're gonna skip a skip a lyric again.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:28

I cannot believe I skipped all the lyrics except 16 tons. That's crazy. That's absolutely insanity. That's that's just that's like this feels planned. Like I I swear to God, this was not an entirely scripted episode. If it was, we wouldn't have started the way we did. Let's put it that way. So true. The more I travel this godforsaken wasteland, the more I realized what truly destroyed West Virginia, and what destroyed any chance the survivors had of actually surviving. Mistrust. All these divergent groups, responders, brotherhood of steel, whatever. Separately, they had everything necessary to beat the odds. Brains, Brawn, and Bravado Despair. And what did they do? Close ranks, get paranoid, refuse to work with one another, and it cost them all their lives. People of Vault 76, if you're listening, do not fall into the same trap. You find each other, you work with each other, only together will you win. Not bad advice. Yeah, actually not bad advice.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:39

Not terrible, not terrible advice at all. Also hope that someone else doesn't blow up a dam and uh destroy your entire town. There's not much you can do about that one, admittedly, but admittedly, not much Unity's gonna do against that, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:53

Hey, you can die together.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:57

Yay! Friendship with a real nukes we found along the way. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:03

I don't I can attest that people of Fallout 76 did not follow this advice and proceeded to grief at game team kill the fuck out of each other being gamers.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:13

Well, if look if I recall right, Shy, didn't we play Fallout 76 relatively close to its inception? And I think we too also killed each other and griefed each other for being gamers.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:30

Look, uh the first option in any game is to see if friendly fire is enabled. The second option is how can I cause my friends the most pain? Then you find the nearest big red barrel and look That's true, we do God God forbid a gamer just be a little silly with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:56

Yeah, level 3,000 dude found a pack of level fours and was like mowed our asses down. It's still the finish tradition of online multiplayer.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:12

Second broken dam is straw quest for gym.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:16

Every time you get PvP'd in Fallout 76, just go over voice comes and be like, the overseer is ashamed of you. And then get shot. Then get griefed even harder.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:32

Well, the overseer would eventually find the sites of the nuclear weapons in the Cranbury Bog region, and upon arriving in Site Alpha, she would remark that no one's there. No survivors, no military, nothing. If there were, she'd likely be killed for trying to assert jurisdiction, but she's locked out. It's restricted to the highest ranking officers, and she simply cannot get in. The same with Bravo and the same with Charlie. The systems are still active, and so is the security. There has to be clearance elsewhere. There's got to be some sort of a government presence that she has no access to. Fortunately, with the notes from the remnants of the Brotherhood, a discovery would be made by the citizens of the vault. You see, as we mentioned before, the government had done a lot of work within Appalachia to in order to establish a strong foothold in the region before the war started. And this involved the construction of a very large bunker located at the White Spring Resort, a bunker that had remained sealed. Now at this point, we're going to talk about our old friends, the uh the Enclave, and Desmore, lyrics for Pancreas.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:36

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:40

My fur coat. That immediate, immediate tripping over my own tongue. My fur coat sold, oh Lord, ain't it cold, but I'm not gonna holler because I've still got a dollar, and when I get low, oh I get high. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:59

Excellent. Love it. This bunker was the product of Thomas Eckhart, who was two things prior to the breakout of the war. Secretary of Agriculture and a member of the shadow government group, the Enclave. The White Springs bunker was built with money moved around mostly in secret. The incremental nature of it made it innocuous at best, and government officials would get an early warning notice prior to the breakout of the call of the Great War, and they would rush to the bunker. Whether they knew about the enclave or not, Eckhart knew who was and wasn't a member, and any official or individual who attempted to enter the bunker would be rounded up and executed.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:38

God, is this a picture of the guy?

SPEAKER_03 1:36:41

Because like he looks like every corrupt politician merged into one awful looking corrupt politician.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:49

Someone's sort of composite photo of just corruption. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:53

That's what it looks like.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:57

God, I would not trust him with anything.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:02

No, absolutely not. Though they started off with a connection to other enclave holdouts, I've just realized I started out saying enclave and now I'm saying enclave. I don't know what the correct one is. It's fine. Um the radio side was a little bit more than a lot of things.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:14

Farsight one is the right one, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:17

Oh yeah. Which one is that again? Don't worry about it. The enclave in Appalachia was completely isolated, and Eckhart couldn't be happier. He pronounced himself as the new leader of the enclave thanks to the rules of pre-war succession and would outline his plan for the enclave going forward, destroying whatever remains of China was that all what a very simple and clear goal to have.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:49

Jesus.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:58

Yeah. When the war kicked off, they had a goal. Just because the entire country is an absolute irradiated shithole filled with mutants and ghouls and insane giant creatures. That doesn't mean that you can't still chuck an odd nuke at China now and again. Okay? It's it's that's the goal. That's just what they want.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:25

After all, the enclave are a bastion of democracy, and they needed to eradicate communism once and for all.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:35

Radio. Gotcha. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:38

Cool. He asked those who agreed with him to stand on one side of the meeting room in the bunker, and those who opposed to stand on the opposite wall. He would stand up and leave with his supporters, and those who opposed would remain locked in the room. He would then order the bunker's AI to seal the door permanently.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:57

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:58

Yeah, as you do. I mean, I was first time I read this through, I was like, and then shot them all? But no, didn't shoot them. Let's starve and die, huh? Yeah. Also, he's got the AI to do it. The uh the multi-operational directions and utility system, known as Modus. So nice to know the AI is complicit with the horrific death of an entire group of people because they didn't agree with a guy. Well, it's AI, it doesn't know any better.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:29

It's just following the commands. Yeah. Oh, I mean, MODIS clearly enjoyed it. Alright. Yeah, no, MODIS probably suggested the damn thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:39

Yeah. Looks like a half-life scientist put through like that new NVIDIA awful filter thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:46

It really does. People keep saying that this new AI we've built looks evil. I don't know what they mean.

unknown 1:39:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:54

What could they possibly win? What do they mean by that? What's the problem? That's a trustworthy face, says the to the Secretary for Agriculture, who looks like a composite of corruption.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:06

Yeah, let me let me program my completely harmless farm AI to look like this. God damn, that fourth one is insane.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:16

Shesh. Only forty-eight people would remain, and Eckhart's plans needed to continue. He would recruit members in a covert manner through the responders by enticing them and brainwashing them.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:28

His uh his and I was right about this guy. He looked like a smiley piece of shit and blow emuls. Would you look at that? Sometimes you can't judge a book by its cover.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:43

That's exactly what I was about to say.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:48

The thing is, his anti-China plan had one issue. Though he was the leader of the enclave in Appalachia, he was not president, and in order for him to properly attack China, he would need the nuclear codes that were only accessible by the president that had a high-ranking general by his side. He already had that general in the form of General Harper, but the presidency eluded him. His agent's topside would reveal that the automated election systems that remained in Appalachia could be hacked. While the exploits were being figured out, Eckhart needed that they like knew that they needed not just to bomb China, it needed to be devastated. This guy is really, really dead set on quite a horrific end goal here.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:31

Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:33

Old research labs would be found by his agents, and they would take the remaining forced evolutionary virus VATs and do their own experimentation. I mean, we learned about that in the other episode and uh FEV. Not good. Not great. Don't want to mess with that. Any Norman already does. Sure, why not? Look, when you want when you absolutely have to bomb China into oblivion, sometimes you need to do more experiments with a well-known disaster virus that causes awful things. All right. Do you know you gotta break an e break a few eggs to make an omelet? Worst infomercial ever.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:11

For when you need to bomb and destroy the ever-loving piss out of China, we've got horrific experiments outside of human comprehension. Call 1-800, God know, no, no, no. Like, course.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:25

Call in the next 20 minutes and get a free nuke.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:33

It comes on a keychain.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:38

So ev Fev in the region, particularly uh Huntersville, was common well before the war, as mutated creatures and monolithic monsters would be spotted randomly before being whisked away, and the revitalization of experimentation increased the presence of these beasts, as well as mutated humanoids reminiscent of the supermutants that would appear on the west coast, but of a more brutish temperament. Part of this research would be done underground, and the exposure of these chemicals to the bat populations in these caves would result in the accidental creation of the first scorch beasts. There we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:11

Yeah. We finally got human tomfoolery. In an attempt to destroy China.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:22

It's just a different type of human interference than flat out nukes. It was the awful virus they made instead. Great. Yay. The uh the aggression and unusual nature of these beasts warranted further study, so they were moved to abandoned mining shafts in the cranberry bog. Eventually, the reprogramming of the election machines would be complete, and with two votes, Eckhart became the president by name and by digital title. Unfortunately, he would run into a snag. His general would die of a heart attack, and he would need someone to act as general so that they could get access to use the codes. He's doing his damnedest, he sure is. Colonel Santiago, who did not trust Eckhart, was told to go to Camp McClintlock and utilise the same workaround on the automated military training and ranking machines so that she could advance in rank and serve the purposes of the enclave. She would do this and her actions would disgust her. After a long search, the three silos would be found, but they would run into one more issue with the forced automation of the region. The nuclear weapons would not launch unless the automated system determined it was a DEF CON 1 situation. Currently, there was no imminent threat of war due to the fact that the world had already been destroyed. But you know, not Eckar needed to change this, and the world already being destroyed apparently wasn't enough to dissuade him. Um so he needed to, you know, change it fast. He would order his agents to release pre-reprogrammed liberator robots into Appalachia as well as smaller monstrosities created by the FEV experiments in order to potentially trick the system into thinking it was in DEF CON 1 status. This would not impact the DEF CON rating even in the slightest, and this would drive him mad.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:22

All that worked for not even a single number higher on the chart, huh? No, not even a point one. Nothing.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:28

Unfortunately. Oh boy. Santiago would stress to him that he was being narrow-minded and that revenge was not worth destroying the region. And in response, Eckhart would incapacitate her. Because of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:41

Well, I'm surprised it was just an incapacit. I'm surprised it wasn't just straight up murder. Yeah. I guess he does kind of need her alive, doesn't he? Yeah, no, you're right, Shy.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:51

With nobody in his way, he would order his men to release the Scorched Beasts into the skies as a last ditch effort to force a DEF CON 1, and the terror they reigned from the sky would successfully trigger the system into DEF CON 1's status. The members of the enclave who were loyal to Santiago would stage a revolt before any further action could be done, and they would arrest Eckhart. Santiago would come too, and she would determine that Eckhart needed to be disposed of. She made the decision to destroy Modus, but this was a tragic mistake. The explosion that rocked Modus would rock its programming and cause the AI to defend itself. It would detonate an explosion within the weapons lab, killing Santiago immediately and would begin to fill the bunker with toxins. It would then seal all exits, and on February 27, 2085, all the members of the enclave in Appalachia would suffocate and die under the ambient light of a grinning artificial intelligence system that was carelessly partially lobotomized. Well that's like sci-fi, huh?

SPEAKER_04 1:47:01

At least Eckhart's gone.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:02

That's something. Yeah. I feel like he got like the the least of the pain, which feels somewhat unfair, but uh welcome to Fallout, I guess. Uh welcome to accept the losses, period. Yeah, and also it's also not before he killed everyone in the area.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:24

So actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:26

Can't help being a Gemini.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:30

Mercury's a yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:33

Hey, at least we have cute little spider robots. You you gotta take the good with the bad.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:39

Yeah, silver linings, right. Everyone in Appalachia is dead, but you know, cute little spider robots.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:50

Over time, MODIS would begin to repair itself and would work to repair the bunker through its automated systems, but it would fail to develop far enough to contact the remnants of the enclave offshore. It would, by default, become the only member of the Appalachian Enclave, and this would serve as both president and general, meaning that it had the launch codes and the keycards in order to launch the nukes at the respective silos. However, despite all the fail-safes, MODIS was unable to launch the nukes due to the fact that it needed to be done by a human. Modus would desperately seek out individuals who could assist in ending the threat, but the barren wasteland of Appalachia had no survivors. Until now. Because now we've got members of Vault 76 who would find Modus and get access to the codes, allowing them to finally end the threat of the scorched beasts and of the scorched plague itself. Yay.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:43

Yay, I guess, question mark.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:46

After a successful nuclear strike, I just I don't know if I can't read. I just can't read like nuclear strikes, nuclear bombings. It's it's like it's reached the saturation point of absurdity now, and it's just become funny every time it's it's just white noise at this point.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:05

Like it that's the alarm clock of fallout. Someone's launching a nuke. Yeah. Even odds whether it's a powerful government official or some half-naked raider who found it in a bin.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:21

I feel like one of those uh one of those workplace accidents boards, but it should it just says a day. Yeah, that's opening. So after a successful nuclear strike, the Scorched Beast designated as the Queen would successfully be killed, stalling the spreading of the Scorch Plague, leaving only remnants lurking through Appalachia. However, temptation would get the better of some vault dwellers, be it in an attempt to further destroy scorch remnants or an accidental launch, another nuke would be fired and would strike a location not related to the Scorched Beasts at all. Who could have seen? It coming.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:04

Isn't there a future in Fallout 76 where you can literally launch nukes at people if you get enough stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:10

I think so.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:12

Yeah. Which, you know, makes sense given everything we've learned today. It's like, oh yeah, someone just haphazardly launched a nuke because they were mad at a raider.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:22

If I remember correctly, uh Todd Howard had a base at one point. Had is the opposite one.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:30

Yeah. Guys, just pretend we didn't announce Eld. Anyway, let's not talk about that. That's a whole different episode. Oh, that's how you bite the Scorch Beast raid boss, you nukeer Larry. Oh, okay, okay, cool. Oh, that isn't even killer. That's the opening act.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:48

That's that's how you get that's just how you get retention. Jesus. At this point, Vault Tech had ultimately won, and the mission of the Overseer would be complete. They would have the power of the nuclear weapons in Appalachia again. A fact that would terrify the overseer in one of her logs to the members of Vault 76 left in one of the nuclear sites. Oh my god, wait. The pattern has been broken. Actually, actually, no. I'm I like the pattern. So, DK, you can you can have this so that Pancreas can do the final lyric at the end.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:21

Let's go. I had a directive from Voltec. Secure the region's three nuclear missile silos. I we had to make sure they didn't fall into the wrong hands. I knew I couldn't do it alone, so I asked you, my Vault 76 family, for help. And what did you do? My god, why? How could you do this? We were supposed to take control of the nukes, not engage in an appalach appalacian arms race. Please stop this madness. The cycle of destruction has to stop. I I haven't lost faith in you. I know you are good people and will do the right thing. If anything, I've lost my faith in Voltec. They gave me a mission I could never accomplish on my own. They must have known I'd need your help. Did they also know what you do? It's just so hard not to feel manipulated.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:14

Oh my god, she's finally she's finally realized.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:18

Mm-hmm. All it took was more nukes.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:24

Duly noted and ignored. Yeah. Just near Site Charlie we find one final log. Outside of an old bed and breakfast surrounded by fresh blood, the log is frantic and pained. She was attacked. A creature that pre-war was a minor, but thanks to radiation, has become a mole man. The abomination struck her. She remarks that it looked human but wasn't. She's out of stimpax. She's leaving this log with the last of her energy. She ends with one final sign off, but ominously with the words hopefully not for the last time. Of course, the former vault citizens would continue their efforts to take out the pockets of scorch still roaming around, as well as other creatures and monstrosities, but they would do so alone, only guided by the hope the overseer had in them to rebuild. They would not act as heroes or saviours to the surviving population as they were too late. As they waited in their comfortable safe haven and celebrated the clock winding down on their eventual reclamation day, another war would be fought right outside in plain sight of Vault 76 door. A vault that was built in honor of the 300th anniversary of the founding of the United States would not only watch it die once, but would stand silently while it watched it eat itself alive. Eventually, people would come to Appalachia, seeking to expand, seeking treasures or seeking a new life. They'd build settlements of their own, they'd claim abandoned forts for the old factions as their new basis of operation, and they'd begin to write their own mythos for the region. In time, the struggles of the very recent post-war events would fade into the realm of myth as factions would claim to be finishing what they'd started, but it would never truly be the same. The events that shaped Appalachia ended with a bang, and the silence it left behind still echoes through the empty homes and mines across West Virginia. And we have one more lyric for Pancreas.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:22

Altogether shout it now. There's no one who can doubt it now. So let's tell the world about it now. Happy days are here again.

unknown 1:54:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:34

Yeah. Okay. What what a what a horrible crushing story.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:42

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's uh that's that's uh that's a whole lot a lot of good grief. Yeah. I mean that sucks. That's just that's just all it all sucks. That's that's just that's all terrible. I guess at least we got the Scorch Beast.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:59

Yeah, yeah. Mission mission successful. Ladies and gentlemen We got him.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:11

Oh brother, that's uh yeah, you know, mmm Look people settled there again, you know?

SPEAKER_05 1:55:27

That's something, but it's not much. It's not much. Yeah, that is that's the uh the end of the original plot of Fallout 76, as Shai says, You found this wasteland, there's no raiders attacking innocents, no brother of steel hanging around, no people in bunkers, literally everyone is dead. And then the game just explains to you why. How everyone is dead, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:49

Because no one could cooperate, nobody trusted each other, some asshole wanted to destroy China because sure, I guess, and uh that sucks. Eerie as hell. Very, very dark and eerie. That you're just walking the steps to human obliteration in this area is just wild. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:15

Well, there we go. Thank you again, Possum. That was uh that was uh horrifying.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:20

Yeah, that that sucked, Possum. You did a great job, but boy, that that sucks. Congratulations. Sucks. Yeah. So yeah. Boy, if you feel like supporting the grim dark horrors that you just witnessed, go to the Patreon and do the stuff Kira said to do at the beginning of the episode. If you would like to continue supporting, head on over to Orchid 8, buy a shirt, be a weeb for Lincoln, buy a coin, buy a thing, do a whatever. And yeah, pancreas thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:01

I think more nukes would only improve matters.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:06

In Fallout, you're in the Fallout universe, you're you're by and large right.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:10

I'd be in a position of power, if anything. Well, how do we a nuke will solve things?

SPEAKER_02 1:57:17

Uh do you want to shout yourself out before we sign off?

SPEAKER_00 1:57:21

I'm from Pancreasnow, and I too have an orchid ate thing now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:27

Oh, let's go! Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:31

It's really cool. I fucked up the date for releasing it, so Bricky probably wanted to shoot me. My bad.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:43

Kirath, any parting words? Um uh no. I think that's it. I think I'm sad now, and uh that's uh probably what you're here for. So that's good. Mission again, mission accomplished. We are we are collectively down.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:00

From all of us here, from all of us here to the accept the bosses podcast to you with the most ut with the utmost sincerity, we're sad now. Goodbye and see you next time.