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Surprise! Now you're about to find out why the setting is so secret. :)
Which is to say for an OOC explanation to be clear, 62 is actually taking place in one of the Vaults in the Fallout universe. If you're familiar with Fallout, that's awesome, and if not, no worries! I'm here to answer any questions you might have.
So if it wasn't clear, the reason that accepting this role was contingent on you being okay with AUing your character is because... It is an AU! Your character has always lived in the Fallout universe—They were a normal person that lived somewhere in the continental United States before the Great War that ushered in a nuclear Holocaust. Your character was hired by the Vault-Tec Corporation, a company contracted by the United States government before the Great War to design and produce the vault system, a vast network of complex bomb shelters. Almost all of the Vaults are actually horrific experiments of some kind, and of course Vault 62 is no exception.
Your character would have known that their job would involve them doing morally questionable things and potentially killing people, but that's about the extent of what they would have known. They won't know the experiment itself in any detail until they read the IC files. In short, the experiment being conducted in Vault 62 is about tampering with memories and temperament. Your character believed that they were free of having their memories messed with when they accepted the job, but... Of course that wasn't true.
Like the rest of the residents of the Vault, your character was subjected to a form of the memory modification, though the scientists' + overseer's were a special case:
This is a post for discussion of your AUs, since your characters likely would have known each other as co-workers before the Vault, and also a place to store that information. Once you've decided on your AU, please fill out the Employee File and your Memory Bank.
And finally, just to stress it, feel free to go as in depth or as basic as you want with the AUs! Since this wasn't quite advertised as an AU game (because that would ruin the premise/twist), I'm definitely not going to be harsh in forcing people to adhere to these. Have fun with it, and if you have any questions about Fallout or need help crafting an AU, there's a handy dandy thread here for that purpose!
Which is to say for an OOC explanation to be clear, 62 is actually taking place in one of the Vaults in the Fallout universe. If you're familiar with Fallout, that's awesome, and if not, no worries! I'm here to answer any questions you might have.
So if it wasn't clear, the reason that accepting this role was contingent on you being okay with AUing your character is because... It is an AU! Your character has always lived in the Fallout universe—They were a normal person that lived somewhere in the continental United States before the Great War that ushered in a nuclear Holocaust. Your character was hired by the Vault-Tec Corporation, a company contracted by the United States government before the Great War to design and produce the vault system, a vast network of complex bomb shelters. Almost all of the Vaults are actually horrific experiments of some kind, and of course Vault 62 is no exception.
Your character would have known that their job would involve them doing morally questionable things and potentially killing people, but that's about the extent of what they would have known. They won't know the experiment itself in any detail until they read the IC files. In short, the experiment being conducted in Vault 62 is about tampering with memories and temperament. Your character believed that they were free of having their memories messed with when they accepted the job, but... Of course that wasn't true.
Like the rest of the residents of the Vault, your character was subjected to a form of the memory modification, though the scientists' + overseer's were a special case:
- Your character will believe they were brought to the complex by a mysterious, all-powerful organization. They won't be able to remember the name of it, but they'll remember being offered whatever it would take for your character to accept an offer of employment. This can be as big or as small as you want, since the offer itself isn't actually real. Because—
- Your character will believe that they are a "canon" character... At least at first. The canon memories that your character has were generated by Judy, and they're very convincing memories. However, the motive mechanic for the game is that when a character kills someone else, they'll regain a memory. For the rest of the game, these will be their canon memories in the memory bank, should they choose to kill someone, but for the scientists + overseer, they will be regaining one of their "true" memories, AKA their AU ones.
- As such, this post is your "real" memory bank, where you'll be cataloging your AU and what memories your character will regain as they kill. While the rest of the game will regain their canon memories as they kill, the scientists will be gaining their AU memories instead. This isn't obvious to the rest of the game yet, but one of the main mechanics I expect to be able to catch people will center around them regaining their memories, as that's the only way to regain them. So have fun with this as your characters may start to question which sets of memories they have are the real ones. :)
- As a part of the memory modification process, your character will now have increased aggression and lower inhibitions. Have fun murdering, basically!
- Your character will also believe that they're the only ones that can leave the complex. This isn't quite completely true, since the wording implies that the scientists + overseer are the only ones that can leave, but in truth, it's purely numbers. It can be the four scientists + the overseer, or it could be five survivors. There's no way for the control systems to tell the difference. Your characters will likely learn this throughout the game's progress, but at the beginning, they're likely to believe that everyone else is doomed and they're the ones chosen to survive.
- Your character will have full access to the Vault, save for the true, upper floors like the Vault door. Scientists have a special meeting room (to be revealed on the first day they meet), and will be given access to a map of the facility + a key code to enter any locked room. These rooms will gradually be opened to the rest of the game, but your character can access them at any time. However, they shouldn't do so in front of anyone else for obvious reasons. In addition, your character is not bound by the curfew restrictions, so they're able to do whatever they want at night.
- Remember that the Fallout tie is OOC information, not IC! Your character will have no memories that this place is a Vault, of Vault-Tec, or of the fact that a nuclear holocaust occurred, or at least not until endgame when the rest of the game learns the truth. Their AU memories that they regain are going to be about their more normal life before things got crazy, and should roughly parallel their canon lives, at least so much as they can be AU'd into Fallout.
This is a post for discussion of your AUs, since your characters likely would have known each other as co-workers before the Vault, and also a place to store that information. Once you've decided on your AU, please fill out the Employee File and your Memory Bank.
And finally, just to stress it, feel free to go as in depth or as basic as you want with the AUs! Since this wasn't quite advertised as an AU game (because that would ruin the premise/twist), I'm definitely not going to be harsh in forcing people to adhere to these. Have fun with it, and if you have any questions about Fallout or need help crafting an AU, there's a handy dandy thread here for that purpose!
QUESTIONS
Re: QUESTIONS
I haven't found an answer through google about how advanced AI/robotics are in the fallout universe, though I'm assuming that since she's in a human body here her AU will need to involve her being human. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm correct, that's obviously a pretty big difference from her canon life. How much deviation are we allowed in writing the AU?
no subject
However, if you're interested in Ava still being robotic, it's very possible that she could be a government prototype that are a precursor to the Synths (the advanced AIs mentioned) and presumably the technology that made her would be lost. The way Synths are made is pretty unique to how the world progresses after the bombs, but it might give you a starting point as to what to look into in terms of advanced AI, since Fallout actually has quite advanced robots as a whole. Some advanced prewar AI also include the Mr. Handy robots and the Assaultrons, though they're very inhuman looking. That said, She should appear human to the other characters, though, since if she doesnt, it'd give away that she's a bit of a special case!
Hopefully that'll give you something to look into a bit more to refine your AU! It can be a very large deviation from canon, but in her case, she could fit in specialized circumstances.
EMPLOYEE FILES
NAME: Your character's full name. It can be the same as their canon name, or it can be completely different. They must have a first and last name at least.
AGE: Should be the age your character looks to be/a reasonable, human number.
PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Where is your character from? This can be anywhere in the continental United States.
BIOGRAPHY: Give a summary of your AU. This should be no longer than about a paragraph.
SKILLS: What would be on their resume for a job? List things they're good at, but keep this list more serious than the profiles.
PICK AN ICON: Any icon of your character.
no subject
AGE: 32
PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Langley, VA
BIOGRAPHY:SKILLS: Programming, Hacking, Engineering
PICK AN ICON: Icon
no subject
AGE: 13
PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Sands Point, NY
BIOGRAPHY:
SKILLS: Business Management, Tactics and Strategy, Marksmanship
PICK AN ICON: icon
no subject
AGE: 19
PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Westport, Connecticut
BIOGRAPHY: As the oldest child of Nathan and May Castellan, Luke was pretty much placed on a pedestal the moment he was born. Of course, a lot of that changed the moment that May fell victim to radiation poisoning. Not enough Radaway, you see…with his mother out of the picture and his father a traveling businessman, Luke and his younger sister Annabeth spent a lot of their childhood living at a boarding school throughout the years from the time he was in 5th grade to the time he graduated from high school. It's at this school that he was trained in various trades including craftwork/welding, architecture, chemistry, fencing, electrician wiring, computer sciences, etc. He probably should have only picked one of these skills, but Luke likes to dabble in a bit of everything. A jack of all trades, if you will.
While attending school he met a girl who came from a similar background. Her name was Thalia and she continued to help expand Luke's world. Thalia was the one who encouraged Luke to pursue higher education at a university with her. They remained best friends throughout the years and she remained as one of his most driving motivations. He decided to pursue a degree in something that seemed more challenging and yet piqued his interests: psychology.
Here, he trained under a professor by the name of Ron Sok and began to study how people worked, what made them tick and what would push and bend people. Perhaps it was a little unethical, but Luke found the subject fascinating nevertheless. Thalia had always convinced him to follow his dreams, and so when Vault-Tec contacted Luke under the recommendation of Professor Sok Luke knew better than to pass up the opportunity. He was never quite sure what Professor Sok told Vault-Tec to get them to hire on someone so young, but maybe that didn't matter.
As it turned out, having a varying skillset was helpful in the creation of vaults. It wasn't entirely what Luke wanted to do but a job was a job and maybe it would help him later in life. He was content designing vaults while juggling some of his schoolwork and while his social life started to dwindle it didn't matter very much since he felt like he was getting ahead in life. If he was ahead at an early age, he could do whatever it took to provide for himself, Annabeth and Thalia. (He wouldn't think on it very much, but he knew he wanted to keep the girl in his life forever. If that meant manning up and asking her to be his girlfriend, then so be it.) But he couldn't have distractions. All he needed to do was work and impress both Vault-Tec and his professor.
It was a slow and steady process of breaking Luke's morality, considering he was young. He never quite realized that the very thing he was studying was being used on him and as he started designing more and more traps in vaults and puzzles in rooms, he started caring less and less. People should appreciate his work. People should be grateful he's building places for them to be safe. So what if he's allowing creative liberties? It's this arrogance that made him prime for the Vault 62 project as well. Under the pretense that his sister and Thalia would be safe and he would be greatly rewarded, Luke agreed to be a part of this project.
Stupid, idiot child…he should have thought this through better.
SKILLS: Cartography, lockpicking/designing, chemistry, computer sciences, two years into a bachelors degree of psychology
PICK AN ICON: Icon
no subject
AGE: 25
PLACE OF RESIDENCE: False Pass, Alaska
BIOGRAPHY:
Ava was born in a secluded town in Alaska, raised by a man named Nathan, an inventor and technical genius. Her mother left him when Ava was an infant, and he remained distant and cold to his daughter. An emotionally abusive alcoholic, he spent little time with her as she grew up, leaving her to be taken care of by his live in maid. His neglect to spend time with her, however, left her with an abundance of free time of her own. She started to think and plan, pondering each day about ways to leave the home as soon as she came of age. Then the Great War began.
Paranoia hit Nathan hard after the bombing. His technological genius was noticed by Vault-Tec, who hired him immediately. He secluded himself even further in the quarters in a Vault they provided him. The little freedom Ava had before was taken away from her. She was locked away constantly to prevent her from leaving the Vault; meals were brought to her, but she was sequestered there nonetheless. Despite Ava's constant attempts at escape, she was unable to break free. Over time, she attempted to seem calmer and accept this fate, thinking it would lead her father to underestimate her drive to escape, leading her to an opening. She started to teach herself about the same trade Nathan was in, knowing it may come in handy later.
That opening came when, one day, a colleague of Nathan's, Caleb Smith, came to his quarters for a week to work with him on the Vaults. While he was never supposed to see Ava, she found ways to make herself known to him. She could tell he was intrigued by this girl who had been locked away for so long, and in turn, she feigned a growing romantic interest and attraction to him, manipulating him into viewing her sympathetically by revealing the way Nathan treats her. By the time Caleb was scheduled to leave, she had convinced him to take her to find another place far from her father.
During their escape, Nathan finds out their plan and attempts to stop them. He knocks Caleb unconscious, but Ava kills him to secure her escape. She leaves Caleb in a locked room, knowing that if he leaves, he may be a liability due to knowing the truth of what she's done to Nathan. Shortly after escaping from the Vault, she contacts Vault-Tec, displaying her knowledge of technology in order to find work with them.
SKILLS: Engineering, programming, coding, manipulation, reading people.
PICK AN ICON: Icon
no subject
AGE: 38
PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Boston, New York
BIOGRAPHY:
SKILLS: Interrogating; fighting (hand-to-hand); investigating; handling of firearms; basic first aid i.e. bandaging and stitching; (reluctant) leadership; athleticism; usage of Power Armor and other pre-War military tech.
PICK AN ICON: icon
MEMORY BANK
CIEL PHANTOMHIVE
Memory 1
In front of him is a small, white birthday cake decorated with the words, "Happy Birthday, Ciel!" and two candles: 1 and 3 together.
In the background, muffled, a blonde girl in pigtails about the same age or so is singing "Happy Birthday to You," with a smile on her face. There's some sympathy in her eyes.
Memory 2
The floor is filthy with dust and dirt. One of the boys leaning on the bars stares at him with hollow eyes without moving, without breathing, and the boy's linen rag gown is wet with urine. Two cages down, children are being pulled to the bars and fed through a funnel. His turn will be in a few minutes, he knows. Across the room, following behind, an adult is blasting water from a hose through the door of the cages, cleaning the interior and the children inside with icy liquid.
He'll be next, too. Soon. Soon.
A hand touches his wrist, and he's almost so cold he doesn't feel it. His own voice, gentle, says, "We'll be okay. Someone will find us."
Memory 3
"Aw, he's shy!" she surmises to the two other adults--her father and Vincent. "My name is Elizabeth Midford!"
"It's more proper if the men introduce you first," says Elizabeth's father.
She adds quickly, "Sorry!" then looks expectantly at Ciel who is still hiding behind one of his father's legs.
Finally, Ciel says meekly, "Hi."
It makes Elizabeth smile, victorious. "Hi! You can call me Lizzie, if you want. Do you want to play with the toy boat?"
Ciel nods.
Memory 4
"Be quiet."
Ciel fires three shots from the handgun, missing the target twice and hitting eight on the score ring.
"Score: Ring Eight. Rating: Slightly Above Average."
Ciel reloads.
Memory 5
They look on, rowed together in a horizontal line, surprisingly stony-faced.
"Nothing is to happen to this house, and nothing is to happen to me. Understood?" After the affirmation, Ciel lifts a clipboard and poses a pen over the paper attached. "Bard." The chef salutes. "Finnian." The gardener salutes. "Mey-Rin." The maid salutes. "Snake." The footman salutes. A pause. "Tanaka," Ciel finally says. The steward hums pleasantly and salutes.
"Sebastian." The Assaultron head butler salutes.
BIGBY WOLF
AVA
Regained after killing Charles
The door is locked from the outside. There is no key, and she knows this. She looks all over her new dwellings with a sense of rising dread. She is even more secluded than she already is. Her mind races, tries to think of a way to escape. There are no windows, no vents here. After a while she tires herself out by thinking, a constant wave of ideas that go nowhere. She goes to sleep feeling no more content or comfortable than she had upon entering this place.
RHYS
Memory 1
- How they met
- How long they've been together
- Where they live
- When they got married
- Etc, etc
- Look, I'm not writing Rhack fanfic on this post
no subject
Memory 2
- They met in college during orientation week
- Rhys' first and truest best friend
- Rhys is The Hot Friend to Vaughn's Nerd Friend
- Vaughn's the numbers guy ("Someone's gotta be able to count it all when the world ends, you know?")
- Hackathon tag team
- Best man at his wedding
- Yin to his Yang
Memory 3
- As a caveat to Rhys' work with the science team, Rhys asked Vault-Tec to keep Jack with him. Vault-Tec said that would mean making Jack a participant in the experiment and Rhys knowingly agreed to this.
- Rhys knew Jack wouldn't remember anything.
- Rhys didn't know if Jack would ever regain his old memories.
no subject
Memory 4
- Met when Felix tried to scam his family out of tech
- The con was successful but Rhys figured it out
- She threatened to get him disowned by his family if he spilled the beans
- Somehow this turned into friendship
- Been friends forever, basically family at this point
- Almost maybe kind of dated when Rhys went to college but then Rhys met Jack
- They don't talk about it
- Still really good bros though and she's the one who actually makes him realize the apocalypse is nigh
- He still never really thought it was a big deal ("It's just nuclear energy, Fiona. How bad could it be?")
- She's probably alive and cursing his name at this very moment because she's smarter and better than him
no subject
Memory 5
- That's it
- That's the entire memory
- He's going to throw a fit
no subject
LUKE CASTELLAN
Memory One;
May Castellan has become someone unstable and unsafe to be around thanks to overexposure to radiation poisoning. Luke is ten years old. His younger sister is just a toddler (albeit an incredibly smart one, one who could in theory start pre-school/kindergarten early if allowed), and it takes some bargaining with the head of admissions to accept both Castellan children year-round at their boarding academy.
The most clear part of this memory is May attacking her own son thanks to being disoriented and confused, and Luke packing up himself and Annabeth and escaping. The kids are found later by their father, one of the only interactions he has with his dad his whole life.
Memory Two;
As teenagers, Thalia and Luke skip school and end up exploring one of the old vault prototypes. It's starting to look like it'll storm and so the two young teenagers (about 14 years old) duck into the shelter and look around. Luke being the cocky boy he is starts testing everything he can find in the vault, which isn't much, and he thinks he can rewire the area to bring them light. Thalia attempts to dissuade him, but he has the knowledge and wants to use it for practical application. Everything seems to be fine. He works steadily, Thalia bringing him supplies and even kissing him when he discovers the circuitry inside the vault. It's a pretty good day for him.
It's all well and good until the wires malfunction and the fire starts. They have little time to get out of the vault door and as he and Thalia run hand in hand for the exit, they both hear the pained screams of another man somewhere deep in the vault. Someone they hadn't anticipated. They debate going back but the fire's rapidly growing and there's no stopping it. The two of them escape and shut the door of the vault, putting just enough distance between them and it before it explodes.
After that, they swore never to talk about the man they inadvertently killed, but used it as a lesson to try and be more careful.
Memory Three;
Luke and Thalia are happy together at school and she pushes him to do better. However, she then tells him that she's thinking of transferring elsewhere to an all-girls school. He doesn't take that very well, truthfully. In the end, she does transfer and leaves him to his own devices. (i.e. I'm lazy, that's the gist of it.)
Memory Four;
Luke enrolls at a university to start studying something outside of his usual trades and enters the world of psychology. He's soon taken under the wing of a professor (Professor Ron Sok) and while Luke thinks he's learning from him he's also starting to confide in his professor about traumatic things (his mother's illness, his lack of a father figure, the death he'd caused) in his life. Professor Sok, being an asshole, decides that Luke's a good suspect for testing his theory that electroshock therapy and behavioral/occupational therapy can change a person's personality to alleviate them from those memories.
As such, Luke spends time in Professor Sok's office undergoing treatment including mild shock therapy and behavioral therapy which is used to slowly change how Luke approaches problems. Specifically, he's working with cognitive behavioral therapy and slowly warping his mind to truly believe a more aggressive approach solves problems. Thanks Professor Sok. The memory regained will be brief flashes of the tests and sessions performed.
Memory Five;
At the age of seventeen, Luke finds himself a little more blase about how he lives his life. It's probably not a great way to live, seeing how it gets his stupid-ass in trouble and he gets his face cut in a fight after school. His father refuses to step in to do anything about it and Luke can't exactly press charges…so this drives him a little more to find a way to be better than everyone else around him. Most people have a hard time looking at him shortly after the accident, but Luke decides then and there that he will force people to pay attention.