#falloutthoughts

It has been far too long; sorry about that. Life has been life. I wanted to share a section of chapter 2 Out of Charge (following story to overcurrent) Eddie & Volt flashback post story, pre-realization. (spoilers)

Eddie stared at the bulbs over the bar.  The warm amber glow reflecting in his now, lively steel eyes bringing out the copper of his pupils.  Moments passed peacefully in the aftermath of closing hour; that strange near silence which takes a while to settle in after the loud, chaotic buzz of crowds and activity. 

He breathed deeply, allowing his chest to fill, then breathed out, unable to remember the last time he felt he could just exist like this without immediate pressure or action.  The lights shone, absent of the predictable dimming or flickering that accompanied the burning seizures in his chest.  They just… worked.  Without thought or permission the corner of Eddie’s lips lifted into a smile, while a huff of air somewhat resembling a laugh escaped him.  It was nice.  Simple.  It worked.  The lights worked without fuss, or worry, or threat.  And Eddie could just stand there, doing nothing, beneath them. 

There was work to do, of course.  There was always work to be done.  Being the power source for the whole house meant an unending list of tasks and needs and demands.  But he felt steady now.  Stable.  Eddie felt like he could handle it, although this renewed access to a work-life balance and having people to count on was taking time to settle in.  He didn’t fully trust any of it yet, and the difficulty of challenging old traumas and learned habits had his brow furrow.  The light grew brighter, energy flowing stronger at the approach of the only other person in the club.  Eddie could feel Volts smile more than see it and felt the assessing gaze sweep over him. “You look almost serene,” Volt commented, his hand reaching in to press one, long finger at the dent in Eddie’s forehead.  “If not for this.”  “Hey! Cut it out.”  The reprimand fell short of any true strength or rebuttal, even to Eddie’s own ears.  He lifted a hand to rub the point of contact, where a static shock had charged through him.  Volt chuckled, and in their circuits both could feel energy flow more freely through and around them.  Livewire had taken to unplugging unused appliances during the night to save on electric output.  The habit reduced the never-ending task list for a few hours while also giving those appliances a fuller night of sleep themselves. “Are you thinking of her?” Volt’s perception caught Eddie off guard.  The man stalled and stammered in the way that told he was deciding how much to say and how open to be.  “Not specifically,” he eventually told.  “I was, thinking about everything.  How none of it feels real yet.” “You’re overthinking things Eddie.” “I guess… maybe?  I d’no.. this… this just feels like something I need to think about.  To process it.” Volt remained silent, eyes gliding over him again with a faint concern.  “I keep expecting to wake up and find everything like it used to be.  With just the two of us, struggling to keep it together until things either worked out or-“ A long, dark pause lingered at the end of the ‘or’.  “-or it didn’t,” Eddie finished the sentence, needing to hear it spoken out loud for himself.  That dark outcome he’d fought so hard against for years, all while trying to ignore it. 

“You won’t,” Volt stated firmly.  “The wire is fixed, the system reset.  We don’t have to worry about breaks or power drains anymore; live wire saw to that.  Just sit back, relax, and leave all the front of house details to me.” 

Not for the first time Eddie wondered if he’d sent all of his optimism Volt’s side during the split, or if Volt was just particularly talented in promoting the positive charges.  Either way, his words reminded him of something else that had played on his mind.  The one break in character he’d seen in his partner which had shocked him at the time, even with Volt’s reasoning.  “What made you so sure of her?” “Hm?” “You’ve always been protective of the club.  Of what we do here,”  ‘of me.’   “What made you tell her to reset the system?  You could have-..”  Even now, with the worst moment over, and the best outcome achieved, the core deep fear of Volt going out and being lost still had the power to choke the air in Eddie’s lungs and dench him in a cold sweat. 

Purely headcannon stuff.

Structure

The Institute is part of a working city beneath The Commonwealth.  The game did a good job of giving players an impression of The Institute and how it looks, feels and interacts with the world of Fallout.  However, data limits, time frames and necessity always keeps things to a minimum.

We got a ‘feel’ for The Institute and that is all we needed but people have been living here for over two centuries and they have been digging and expanding along the way – as is evident when we have to visit the ‘old sections’ during the quest for Virgil and also when we invade to destroy the place.

My personal vision of The Institute is something like Esthar city from Final Fantasy VIII but on a much, much smaller scale with the ‘core’ of The Institute being the area that the player character visits.

Currency

Within this city synths are the main workforce and currency is more of an allotted allowance of privilege points.  How many points per annum a family has to spend is based upon how much that family contributes to society.

So for example; The head of one of the main scientific sectors at the core of The Institute would earn more privileges for their family than a store manager would.

The reason for this is that knowledge and progress are the greatest ‘need’ of The Institute.

In the world above once the bombs had fallen purified water quickly became the main trade item in the world as it was the greatest ‘need’ anybody had and access to clean water was limited and/or difficult to come by.  Water is heavy to carry however so people exchanged ‘caps’ – of which there were plenty - to represent how many units of clean water they were trading/in ownership of.

Already having access to food and water supplies The Institute instead traded in deeds and contributions.  The more a family contributes to society, the more privileges they are allocated.  Privileges come in the forms of food, clothing, area access and synths for business use. (Businesses may apply for synths to be sent to work agreed hours within a business but all synths are considered to be owned by the director and SRB.)

 Society

Ultimately all people are answerable to the Director but the day to day running of The Institute is arranged by the strongest (the most successful) families. The ‘strongest’ families are those who are contributing the most to The Institute.  For example all heads of the core 5 sectors will have family members attending events and debate groups.

Debate groups and social parties are held at regular intervals for designated family members to gather and discuss current issues inside The Institute.  Any propositions for changes, new functions or laws or applications for funding areas of the city are forwarded to the Director who will ultimately decide on what goes ahead and what does not.

 Synths

Synths are used in The Institute in the same way robots were used pre-war.  They are manufactured in batches and put under the charge of the SRB.  The admin section of the SRB deal with designating each synth with a task sending the units out to different locations around the city.  Some families spend privilege points to ‘loan’ synths to work for them in family ran businesses.  The newer the generation the higher the load cost.

All synths cost time and resources to build and then maintain.  The quality of technology and amount of time spent on each batch of synths is dependent on their intended roles.  Each synth is ‘graded’ to determine what area in The Institute it would be best suited for.

 Gen 2’s Standard Issue:  General workforce.  Upgrades are made to standard issue gen 2’s to focus their purpose.  Ie, Striders have more elaborate combat protocols downloaded into their memory banks.  Miners have greater load bearing capacity etc.  

 Gen 3’s

Standard Issue: Low cost (still expensive) general work force.  No false memories, no unique personalities.  Low aggression levels, low confidence levels.  Facial structures are different to help Institute members tell them apart. Skin tone varies little within group batches.

These synths are often found sweeping, catering, mining, tending shops and local businesses.  

Replacement Synths:  Highest cost, state of the art technology.  Memories, physical appearance and attributes, personality & habits all lifted and mimicked from the original human.  Modifications are then made and carefully programmed to adjust the synth to fitting the life of a double agent.  

Field Agents: Mid cost.  An upgrade of the Standard Issue design offering greater problem solving capabilities, moderate combat training and a physical appearance based upon requirement.  Coursers are more often selected from this group than any of the others.

In the ‘Big Dig’ Quest if you side with Bobbi and kill Fahrenheit she opens a carriage that seemingly has nothing in it, but she is routing through old boxes for something that - to her - has far more value than caps or any other treasures that might have been stored there; information.  Mel on the other hand seems rather disappointed.  

In ‘The Cleaner’ Quest given by Whitechapel Charlie in The Third Rail you can overhear some of the npc’s talking if you sneak around the old warehouses. One of the exchanges is; “Have you found it yet??” “I’m looking!  There are so many boxes!”