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This page lists Fallout Wiki's featured articles for the Van Buren portal.
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Presper was born and raised in the area formally known as Shady Sands, now known as NCR, where he spent many of his years as a scientific adviser to President Tandi before his disillusionment settled in – a disillusionment fueled by the Caravan houses that ate away at NCR. He and the others effectively grew frustrated with Tandi, the BoS, the caravans, and everyone else. They just wanted to start over by wiping the slate clean.
When his breaking point finally came, Presper became determined to find a way to rid the world of chaos and human impurities, and discovered his savior in the Limit 115 virus. Through extensive research, Presper discovered the history of Limit 115 and its genocidal potency, and also discovered a viable means to cleanse the world. Using ULYSSES, the Tibbets quarantine prison, and a ballistic satellite known as B.O.M.B.-001, the way to human planetary domination and order became clear.2[]
Reveling in their infrequent success (the ghoul procreation experiments have a 2% success rate), Dr. Sebastian and Dr. Willem Clark keep their born ghoul progeny close at hand and comfortable. To them, the born ghouls represent the future of the ghoul "species", and they will do everything in their power to make sure their "children" are well taken care of. There are only three Born Ghouls, including Measles and Belle.
At first glance born ghouls look like any other ghoul, but a closer inspection reveals that their lesions, exposed bone, and hair patches are very uniform and look like they even serve some kind of purpose. On top of that, these ghouls are a little tougher, a little stronger and a little faster.3[]
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Led by an aging, possibly insane woman of fearsome presence, the masked Daughters of Hecate collect tribute from almost all other tribes in the regions they control. Failure to obey the mandates of Hecate often results in crop failure, poor hunting, disease, and barren wombs.
For an unknown reason, the Daughters of Hecate reserve a special hatred for Caesar's Legion.6[]
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Bloomfield, surprisingly enough, survived the Great War – for the most part. Thanks to its very remote location in southwest Arizona, the only real damage that the space center received was from time and weather – and also the current occupants.
The current occupants in question are the Rusty Hooks, as they like to be called. Comprised of two-dozen raiders, the Rusty Hooks came upon the remains of the Bloomfield Space Center about one year ago, drawn to the sight by tall, pointed structures (two space rockets) that could be seen on the horizon. The leader, Kyle "the Hook", knew they had found a special location and decreed among his faithful that this facility would be their permanent residence and base of operations.11[]
Before the Great War, Diana Stone was a scientist working for Greenway Hydroponics. She was a brilliant woman with a career path that would gain her a place of recognition among some of the greatest scientific minds in the United States of America. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and given little time to live. The news of her impending death had a profound effect on Diana's life. She turned away from science and began to look into the spiritual side of life. However, with so little time left to her, she soon became frustrated and despondent. This was to change when she was contacted by Derek Greenway. Derek was proposing a new type of super-computer that would be years ahead of any system currently in production. Even the highly touted ZAX units would pale in comparison. He devised a system that would house a human brain with each hemisphere, logical/emotional, linked to a ZAX unit. The human mind would have vast amounts of computation power and almost unlimited storage capacity at its disposal. All he needed to find was a volunteer. With nothing to lose, Diana jumped at the chance.
When Diana awoke from the operation she was overjoyed at the success... at first. As the months progressed she began to doubt the wisdom of becoming part of a machine.12[]
Led by the charismatic and cunning "Caesar" (a former Follower of the Apocalypse), the legionnaires are a well-organized fighting force and absolutely merciless in their slavery. Mimicking the ancient traditions of the Roman Empire, the legionnaires dress in segmented football pad armor and decorated football helmets.
Caesar attempted to destroy the NCR's presence in the east, and actually succeeded in destroying one of their major fortifications, Fort Aradesh. When Caesar attempted to take Hoover Dam, however, the legion was badly defeated. Since that time, Caesar has moved east of Texas, past the legendary cyclones that rage for most of the months of the year. Despite this, packs of his legionnaires still operate in the southwest, collecting tribute from tribes in the form of goods and slaves.13[]
Much less cumbersome than the Pip-Boy 2000 Plus, it has all the functionality of its bigger brother, and offers two colors in addition to bright green for standard display: bright blue and bright red. It features a flip-up split-screen monitor and can be comfortably worn on the arm.
Despite its many advantages, the Lil' Pip 3000 was not a sales success. The device was more fragile than the 2000 models and it used integrated circuits instead of vacuum tubes to achieve its small size.14[]
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After the Great War, the NCR scientist Victor Presper, through extensive research, discovered the history of Limit 115 and its genocidal potency, and also discovered a viable means to cleanse the world. Using ULYSSES, the quarantine prison and a ballistic satellite known as B.O.M.B.-001, the way to human planetary domination and order became clear.
Presper and his followers would release the New Plague virus in the remote areas near Boulder and Denver, close enough to the quarantine prison to spur ULYSSES into action, but not near enough to huge populations to start a general panic. Presper's men would then stage an attack on the prison which would allow everyone to escape. ULYSSES would assess the viral spread, try to gather up the escaped prisoners, and once 90% of the prisoners had been retrieved, launch nuclear missiles to "clean & prevent" any further infection.16[]
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Belle is unusually attractive for a ghoul. In fact, if it weren't for her lesions and symmetrically exposed bone, she would look like a pretty, though pale, human. Even her hair is fairly full and long. And thanks to the born ghoul's ability to rapidly grow into adulthood within a month, she is also very curvy and fit looking.
Since Belle is such an interesting success in the procreation experiment, Dr. Sebastian keeps a close eye on Belle and interacts with her very frequently. However, Belle does roam around the town on a daily basis, causing the other male ghouls to almost lose their jaws as she walks by.18[]
The salvagers were forced out of their original camp by the dogs and now are struggling to get by in their new, temporary camp. Tensions are high because the dog threat is constant, they have heard nothing from NCR in quite some time, and basically the only thing for them to eat is dog meat. In addition, there is a rival group of salvagers trying to steal claims, and a mysterious group of military guys making their lives even more uncomfortable.
The salvagers live in the partially-constructed buildings of Denver, several stories up and clear of the dogs (which cannot climb).19[]
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During a standoff in one raid on a small ranching community the ranchers called a truce and offered to pay the raiders "protection money" to keep them from raiding. The raiders agreed and that became the start of a successful relationship. As the raiders had few places to spend the money they ended up spending it on equipment, food, and liquor from the ranchers, and the two groups became intermingled over the next decade as disaffected rancher sons went to join the raiders and older raiders "retired" to start ranching.
About 20 years later a sickness depleted their available number of younger people, so they took again to raiding other tribes for children and teens in order to replenish their numbers. Eventually this scope broadened into slaving for laborers as well as adoptees, and slaving for profit soon followed. Now they are slave-raiders with a fixed base, despised by all others near them for their predation.25[]
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Brixley began her career in the Brotherhood as a scout/explorer. She was originally sent east to confirm the existence of Maxson Bunker and to use it as a staging area for her explorations. She was accompanied by a team of four paladins.
After the war broke out between the BOS and the NCR, Andrea was promoted to commander and placed in charge of the bunker. She also received the title of Elder Paladin, as did her four companions. Andrea is not comfortable with leadership and would prefer to spend her time exploring. She isn't very organized and is content to let people do what they are best at with little supervision. Fortunately, her supporting staff recognizes her flaws and cover for her.27[]
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Unfortunately, leakage from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (a nearby toxic waste dump/weapons storage location) caused a poisonous cloud that killed a lot of people in Denver. As an apology, the military funded a program to create a self-sustaining research dome, capable of withstanding a nuclear attack. This "city of the future" was to be a prototype for settlements on the moon and other planets.
After the War, the Boulder Dome is still standing in midst of the blasted remains of the city, poisoned by radiation and toxic waste. Inside the dome is a desperate team of scientists infected with a strange disease and trying to keep their ZAX unit from cannibalizing it memory to such an extent that it stops working. Beset by glowing ghouls and a large pack of cannibal primitives, the dome faces extinction.29[]
The leaked documents include the designs for Tibbets Prison, Denver, Boulder, Blackfoot Tribe, Twin Mothers, Ouroboros, Mesa Verde, The Nursery, Maxson Bunker, Jericho (and its predecessor New Canaan), Burham Springs, Hoover Dam, The Reservation, Bloomfield Space Center and B.O.M.B.-001. The documents for a few other locations such as Fort Abandon, Circle Junction and the Grand Canyon were not made available.
Aside from tidbits released by developers during and after development, these documents are the primary source of information for the content of Van Buren.30[]
Intending to preserve as many achievements of the Old World as possible, the scientists began painting and carving electronic schematics into the walls of their new settlement and insisted that mathematics should be emphasized when educating the village children so that their descendants would be able to understand the schematics. Over the years the villagers heavily integrated mathematics in their culture and even speech. Their confusing, cryptic way of speaking, permeated by math terms, has caused them to be dubbed "Ciphers" by educated wasteland dwellers who thought they might be speaking in some type of code. The Ciphers assign an almost mystical significance to specific numbers - it is the closest thing to a religion they have.
Nearly a century after the refugees' arrival at Mesa Verde, the descendants of the original settlers had outgrown the space and resources available. Many families chose to adopt a nomadic lifestyle to avoid the perpetual thirst and hunger. Only families with very young children or Ciphers too old to travel remain full-time in the village.31[]
Later, he became the lead designer of a project codenamed Van Buren, which was canceled in 2003 and revealed to have been Black Isle's attempt at developing Fallout 3. During this time, he also compiled the Fallout Bible.
After leaving Black Isle Studios, Avellone, together with Feargus Urquhart, founded Obsidian Entertainment. At Obsidian, Avellone has worked on such titles as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights 2 and its expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, and was lead designer on the upcoming title Alpha Protocol. He is currently a senior designer on Fallout: New Vegas.