#v9lore

So in the original post here we mentioned how Vault 9 objects don't have organs or bones. Instead, that blue to teal goop that we call blood is basically what animates them and seperates them from an inanimate Because they don't have organs, when they breathe the blood/circulatory system somewhat pumps itself through their body, similar to how a slime mold pumps through its body by contracting itself. Because of their object bodies/limbs its not visible, though it can be picked up like a "pulse" with medical equipment/checking the right place. The deeper into the body the blood is, the thicker it is in consistency. So surface cuts bleed but deep damage might have a thicker consistency.

It concentrates the heaviest around the core and/or face of an object in order to give their eyes/mouth/teeth shape and to have the best access to air/nutrients Like that myth about blood, it's usually only lightly tinted/colorless except when reacting to air (or when concentrated in one place under the ""skin"" like a bruise or blush) which is why you can see through Uranium Glass and Inspector's faces.

It's also why, in addition to it being their faces, why damage to the head/face can be worse for an object (Or even traumatic enough to kill them, like Handheld Radio Objects that are hollow like To-Go, Thermos and Uranium Glass have it thinned out more, which helps with damage being less concentrated in one place but can leave them more prone to becoming light headed and recovering slower from damage. Objects that are thin also have this problem, though its less severe since it can still be displaced evenly. When healing, the goop thickens to hold the object together, like holding cracks in place when an object is a shattering risk, and then it mutates to seal in the cracks and imitate the inorganic material that makes up the object. Organic objects are closer to the make up of the organic components of the blood, and allow objects like plants to heal and regrow more effectively than objects like metal or plastic.

This is why Blue Spruce grew back her needles after being burned but Uranium Glass had the chip missing from her head that whole time.

Objects can supplement their largely organic diets with things like extra iron or silicone to grow/heal/develop better.

Objects in the v9 verse are animated by basically a special blue substance we've just been calling "blood", it serves as not just blood but a general life force for an object. Like a living animal, an object needs to breathe, drink and eat to sustain themselves, and they can become ill ! Illnesses affect how functional their special blood is, which is why illness or infections have been deadly so far Anatomy wise, what makes up an object is the same as what makes up the real equivalent of them. So for example, Cornerstone is solid stone, To-Go is hollow and Nectarine has fruit flesh/a stone Objects don't have organs, their blood basically fullfills this role too, though some objects with more advanced components might have issues with a compotent that might cause them health issues. For example if Dive Light's battery were to corrode it could cause him long term health problems. If it couldn't be fixed, an artificial replacement (like hand making a battery the right size for him to replace it) could work

Objects can sometimes survive with suprising amounts of damage, even if parts of their bodies are missing orcompromised, but that is sometimes just luck. With treatment or good health, even severe physical ailments like Oxy's corrosion can be slowed, though she is helped by the foundation's advanced medicine. Bad Apple (a bandit from earlier weeks) wasn't handling his rot, which presented similarly to the corrosion, very well, and it spread between his appearances. For both though it cause them discomfort/pain/loss of function in afflicted body parts

While an object of course would die if completely destroyed, the sudden shock of a traumatic injury, especially if around a seemingly important part of them like their face or the core of the object, can also kill them

Even though objects are made of non-biological materials, they can still heal like a living creature, and even scar. Thats why though Kite has torn a few times the fabric has sealed back together, or Dive Light's gouge in the plastic remains. The materials from an object are often a little sturdier than their real equivalent too, though fragile objects are still more fragile than other types, like Tea Cup being prone to cracking Though because they may be hollow and stuff, things that might kill a person might not hurt an object as much. Impaling Kite hasn't scarred him yet Trauma to their bodies/limbs can still affect them after the injury has healed too, like Shovel's chronic arm pain They can't regrow their living features, like limbs or facial features. Some naturally growing objects (like Blue Spruce) can regrow missing features like when she regrew her needles after the fire, but Uranium Glass couldn't regrow the shard missing from the rim of her glass

Objects are basically completely sexless, though some might present ""gendered"" traits. Objects can also transition to different genders

When an object has a kid, the parents choose a small piece of an inanimate object to basically "link to". The more similar it is to the parents, the higher chance of success it is ! So for example, a Shovel is well inbetween a Trowel and a Rake and using the handle of one was a safe bet. Usually an object that is very similar to one parent, or an object that feels somewhere between both parents, is chosen.

The object is influenced by the parents, and fills out into a whole object. If using more than one shard, sometimes twins can occur, or if the linked piece breaks while developing, there could be identical twins ! An object may occassionally have traits from a parent that aren't common in the real version of it, like the hc that Apricot's leaves can cause irritation like his father Nettle, or a flower object having a different number of petals than the norm to match a parent.

Mountain Gods:

King Pin:

A legend, he's referred to by his gang with god-like reverence. The mountain gods are a huge organization, not a small scale gang like the bandits the vault members typically tussle with. The "wars" between them are nothing compared to the gods conflicts with other large groups like The New Order and other large raider gangs.

King Pin is so respected that if he told one of his members jump off a bridge they would. To keep control over his gang, he treats it in a monarchy fashion, planning for one of his 9 children to take over, and pushing them into often violent competition with one another for a chance at his approval. The fact they all look so much like him is intentional, making him into an almost immortal figure.

Like Charger, he enforces control with fear, but also respect. He rewards people generously and punishes them severely. It's important to him his 'subjects' eat well, stay healthy and feel indebted to him and the group. 

King Pin wasn't the original founder, but he led it into its greatest 'era' after a fight to the death with the previous head after serving as their right hand man for years.

They control the whole mountain range, making it difficult for groups to pass through, and leading to the vault built into the base of the range's isolation. They're unaware of it having opened, but as long as the vault continues to keep to itself, would tolerate its existence.

Bowling Pin: 

One of the younger children of King Pin, he bears the closest physical resemblance to him, leading to him being feared by other members of the gang without having to do anything to earn that reputation.

Privately, his father sees him as a bit of a screw up. Bowling Pin has never been the best fighter of his siblings, and they'd often become easily distracted, starting flings with other gang members that die out due to how hard it is to establish a real connection with a reputation like his.

Despite being considered a failure, and lacking the cruel edge and competitive streak of his siblings, Bowling Pin's progress is kept secret from the other members. The danger with staking your legacy on your children is that when they make mistakes you have to cover them up.

Bowling Pin fled the gang after [REDACTED] and is now hiding out at the vault, where for the first time people actually got to see the real him without his father's shadow constantly hanging over him. 

The Hush Bandits are currently unaware of his uprooted life, and avoid stepping on his toes lest he lets his father know about the defected new gang. 

Amongst his family, who are all bowling pins, and the gang, he was known as Seven, or Lucky Number Seven. 

2-6 are his older siblings, 8-10 are his youngest... 1 is Kingpin himself.

Charger:

Charger is a little younger than King Pin and grew up along side him. From childhood friend to attack dog, Charger saw all of it.

Charger grew to be an enforcer of Bowling Pins, and with his unnatural size and strength, was often made to inflict punishments with just his bare hands, giving him a terrifying beast-like reputation. No one ever crossed him- and by extension - no one crossed King Pin.

When they were both young, in their 20s, King Pin had almost complete control over Charger. He was hardly his own person. No one even knew him as one at least, just the dangerous extension of his 'friend' the pin. At one point in his life, King Pin and the previous boss even had him kill one of his own parents who committed treason against the group. 

But despite knowing the pin so long, Charger's role in his life became smaller and smaller with each passing year. King Pin surrounded himself with people that would get him further than Charger ever could. Smarter people, people with more connections, etc.

When King Pin took over the gang and became King Pin, Charger was still Charger. 

Charger finally snapped, and voiced his frustration to a small group in his unit, and they defected to become their own group. Some out of the hope that they'd have a better chance at personal power by forming their own group, others out of fear or disagreements of King Pin (or fear of Charger himself).

To the rest of the gang, the disappearance of him and the small group he took is unsolved, but they're thought to be dead after a rockslide occurred the night they left.

Vault 9 is built into a cliff face, and behind it is a mountain range.

The vault was built for much more people that currently live there, and large portions of it are ominously empty. You can genuinely get lost in there, even Timer/Shovel/Mousetrap can even get turned around in there and they were born and raised there. Had Car Key survived he was intended to be the one that knew the layout almost perfectly, being the head security officer (and lone survivor of the security teams prior to the opening of the vault). If I were to draw less visited parts of the vault, portions of it would be roped off. The largest open areas in the vault are the farm (above) and the cafeteria

Vault 9's structure and culture when established was less individual, there were not a lot of rec rooms, rooms were all bunks to hold multiple people, etc. A lot of stuff involves some degree of depersonalization, etc. So thats why despite there being so many empty rooms presumably, most characters are shown to share rooms when their rooms are shown. Lcukily, especially with a colorful cast of characters from different backgrounds and over a century past its establishment, people are more encouraged to be themselves here There's a few rooms set aside for professions, there's the clinic, plus a larger room beside it for long term patients, though with the small population Mousetrap keeps people close to better monitor them There are classrooms, pretty much always empty, Spade/Shovel/Timer/etc are among the last to "graduate", and school years were not hosted every year due to the diminishing amount of people being born. So while Timer is a little older than Spade and Shovel, and Push Pin was a little younger, they likely all attended the same "grades/classes" together. Usually the family will teach basics (basic math/reading/writing) before the official vault curriculum, with classes starting for older students (like 10+) instead of starting at kindergarten

The intention of Vault 9 was mostly on self sustaining populations, so most people were intended to be involved with the care of the farm over anything else. Other roles were security/education/medical/culinary/etc, as well as leadership roles like a peoples court and the overseer The armory is very small and depleted/half destroyed, and there is only one or two quarantine/prison rooms

The floor structure is built in a way that the further down you go, the less likely you need to be there, this is my vague idea of it but with floor plans some things might be rearranged The surface level is only the door, airlock and door controls. Some storage is kept up there too Second floor down/B2 is the largest area. Farm, cafeteria, public rooms, clinic, classrooms, etc. There's a small library Third floor/B3 down are the living quarters, as well as the overseers office, peoples court, and locker rooms for showering and stuff. The overseers office is the best furnished room in the vault, and it had personal living quarters for the overseers family that were nicer too Fourth floor/B4 are guard armory/small training room/most storage/certain aspects of vault maint, etc. Fifth/B5 is storage and machinery for the most part. The boiler/furnace/etc, there's also a work shop down there and where Hehe/Apricot/CoG hang out. There's also the columbarium and morgue down there

Lowest level, heavy clearance, is where the power is. It's still nuclear power, the intention is to keep it buried so a failure might destroy the vault but cause less damage on the surface