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MONTH 3 LOG
WHERE: Vault 66
WHEN: Month 3
WHAT: The pods and the vault door opens
WARNINGS: Violence, likely language
You awake laying on your back in an, admittedly comfortable, pod. You can't move anything but your eyes, can't even feel your body yet. How you got here or why is a blank. You may have been in the middle of your day, asleep, or even- for what you remember- should be dead. Then a screen directly in front of your face flickers to life and in crisp, black and white displays: DON'T PANIC. The following video then plays:
The screen flickers again and reads: CONGRATULATIONS ON PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE! WELCOME TO VAULT LIFE, CITIZEN. WELCOME TO YEAR: [ERROR]. YOUR PERSONAL BELONGINGS ARE LOCATED IN [FILE CORRUPTED. SEE SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR]. ENJOY YOUR STAY AND THANK YOU FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT VAULT-TEC.
The pod then unseals and you are able to, unstably at first, climb out of the pod. Your body may feel foreign for a moment- perhaps entirely foreign if you suddenly find yourself a human, ghoul, or super mutant for the first time. But whatever your form, you have two items on: a bright blue jumpsuit with the number 66 in yellow on the back, and a mechanical device known as a Pip-boy sealed onto your arm. If you click on the buttons it takes you to an instruction screen.
You look around to find yourself in a room of other pods. Some are just opening, other people looking as confused as you climbing out. Others remain closed with the status of 'STASIS' on the screens attached to the pods. The rest of the room is less than impressive. Computer systems that seem out of place compared to the technology level of the pods are scattered across the room, apparently running the chambers. Trying to access them, even for the most talented hacker, will simply result in SEE OVERSEER being displayed. There is large metal door leading to the rest of the vault, a lever on the wall next to it that will cause it to open.
Welcome, dweller, to vault 66.
It’s finally here, at long last. In the lead up to the Vault opening, Louis has turned the recreation area into a celebration. It comes with a modest feast! A whole cake, some tasty cola, and grilled meat (if you helped kill the radroaches or mole rats, you know where that meat came from). He even found some old party decorations that were supposed to be used when the Vault was unsealed after the war. The original party, of course, was supposed to be a few hundred years ago. The colors are faded and it’s horribly water stained, but the HAPPY VAULT DAY banner still holds. There are even party hats, for the particularly festive.
The event starts first thing in the morning and will last until early afternoon, when the Overseer announces it’s time to gather in the entry way for the main event.
The time has finally come for the Vault to open. After walking down a corridor of rusted and corroded radiation scanners and security terminals, characters are face to face with the ground level of a huge elevator shaft. At the very top, the four yard thick monstrosity of a door that has sealed the Vault closed for several hundred years. Despite its age, the old girl is as functional as the day she was made. Looking up from the bottom of the shaft, characters can see an intricate formation of deadbolts, gears, and other machinery holding the door in place.
Captain Simmons, the robot in charge himself, has come out to do the honors of opening the door. At an innocuous enough computer station, he plugs in the very tip of one of his three robotic arms to begin the unlocking sequence. What follows is a good minute of flashing lights, warnings that the door is being unsealed, and the grind of machinery as the locking mechanism unengages. The large, gear shaped door at the very top of the elevator shaft pulls back slightly, turns, then begins its descent down towards the gathered group. Make sure you’re not directly under it, Vault-Tec did not install any safety mechanisms to stop the door/platform from crushing anyone standing beneath it.
The door isn’t the only thing that comes down, however. The moment the door begins to lower, water rushes in after it. From the sudden activation of all pip-boys in the area, characters can instantly determine this is heavily irradiated water. It pours in until there is roughly two feet of the stuff on the floor of the entry way, then finally seems done. As if this weren’t enough, however, things come in with the water. Most of them small, about the size of your average radroach, scampering around and jumping at whatever source of fresh meat they can reach. There’s about half a dozen of these hatchlings. Two of them, however, are huge. Standing at about six feet tall, they look like a cross between a gigantic horse-shoe crab and an alien invader: mirelurks. And they aren’t pleased to find themselves suddenly stuck in a Vault.
Simmons immediately starts shooting and hovering away from the group, trying to distract the creatures from the gathered characters. Fighting may solve the problem, assuming no one is killed in the process. Fleeing back into the Vault, closing the heavy entrance door, and just letting the things starve to death for a few weeks is certainly an option. As is rushing the elevator and getting the hell out of the Vault while Simmons is distracted, but whether you’ll ever get back in again unknown. Whether you help, run away, let them kill Simmons then help, or another choice entirely is up to you.
Happy Vault opening day!
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If you have any OOC questions, please leave a comment here!
lil hal.
Nothing is what it should be. Hal is... struggling, for lack of a better term, with grasping being in a human form.He doesn't know if he hates it or not, but he hates not knowing what's going on. He stumbles out of the pod, stares down at the pip-boy on his arm, and considers.
He stops breathing while he's deep in thought and has to take a shuddering gasp before he blacks out or something.
Yeah, okay, he hates this.
He does his best to keep his breathing measured but it's difficult -- his bright red eyes scan the other pods, looking for someone familiar, but coming up with nothing. He hates that too.
There are a couple of options here: either you can find him trawling all he can on the pip-boy, red eyes narrowed, or you can run into him trying to hack the pod to see how it works.
Vault opening, the celebration.
Hm. Well, normally Hal doesn't have to eat, but this human body does, so he's picking at the grilled meat morosely. He doesn't know any better what food should taste like, so he's not having trouble with that, he's just having trouble with eating at all.
That said, he's pretty tense for a guy at a party, looking between the others around with--not mistrust, but a kind of surprisingly open curiosity that he can't seem to shake.
"I can only assume this isn't normal food conditions for humans in non-disaster situations," he finally says, if you're listening, "based on my research, at least. This is enforced scarcity."
Warranty forfeit if unsealed.
Hal is used to water being everywhere, but not while in a human body, so that's new and alarming. He hovers around the edges, up to his knees in water, and takes care of some of the smaller mirelurks with quiet precision. He's avoiding the larger ones though, because he doesn't have a weapon, but if he can grab something, even a broken pipe, he's going to hop in to help if someone is in trouble.
"Do you need help," he says suddenly, sounding a little winded, as he jams said pipe under the carapace of one of the smaller mirelurks. "I'm unused to this state of being, so I may be less help than I should be, but I can assure you I'd do my best."
He sounds oddly calm for someone in an emergency situation.
Arrival
"Whoa!"
She doesn't run, she's managed to build up that much confidence but she also doesn't get any closer.
"Uh...hey there dude...good morning?"
no subject
"I suppose it does feel like morning to just have woken up," he says, "though it seems time may have little meaning here due to the underground nature of the vault." He pauses, tilting his head. "Have you been here long?"
no subject
"About two months actually...geeze feels like longer. But best I can tell I was in the first batch of people to wake up in a long time. Before that there were some others awake but they kinda...tried to mutiny and got shut down hard." She made a thumbs down gesture to indicate how hard.
"I'm Sandy." she added because introductions are hard sometimes.
no subject
He pauses, nodding to the introduction. "Lil Hal. Hal, if you prefer. I'm not used to this body yet, so please excuse me if I struggle a little with the mechanics."
no subject
"Wait...so...hold on, does this mean you weren't human back home?" In her own world her father had told her so many stories of aliens and robotic heroes and villains and mutants that it was a logical jump for her. But she'd never met any of those things in person until coming here.
no subject
He sighs. "Which puts me at a disadvantage."
no subject
Sandy had to take a moment to consider what that would be like. She imagined it would be like spending your entire life connected to the internet and suddenly having it cut off. It had been hard for her the first few weeks but she'd gotten over it.
Must be harder for someone who was an AI.
"Well uh...welcome to humanity. Sorry for pretty much everything." She laughed sheepishly. "It's not all bad though."
no subject
It is difficult to manage without his constant connection, or even his ability to talk to Dirk, but he thinks he's managing well enough so far. "At least I'm used to the apocalypse."
no subject
"Whoa really? So your world was wrecked too?"
no subject
That sounds a little far-fetched, but hey. "What was your timeline like?"
(no subject)
celebration
"How's it enforced?" No one's making them eat cockroach at gunpoint. "And this is about as normal as it gets. Kill animal for meat. Eat meat. It's what people do. Where the fuck did you do your research?"
no subject
"What I mean is there are certainly more resources up above, but here we are. Enforced scarcity. I doubt that there's nothing to eat even if the outer world is a wasteland."
no subject
"Eh? You... think there's food up there and... What you're saying is this 'enforced scarcity' just means we're stuck down here because the robots say so? We know that already."
no subject
This pause is longer. "I'd be interested in speaking with the robots in question."
Vault opening
no subject
Oh, he's never done a handshake before. Having a body is still new and strange, and it takes him a split-second to process what he's supposed to do.
Right. Be normal. What is normal? He extends his own hand to shake, firm but brief, and his mouth quirks slightly at the commentary.
"Lil Hal. Hal is generally considered more acceptable by organics, though--" a brief pause. He's organic now too. "It's just easier to say Hal."
no subject
He turns the sound over, lips moving as he considers the shape of it, and shrugs.
"...anyway, it doesn't sound weird to me."
no subject
He sighs, and the sound feels strange to him. "I'm an artificial intelligence. Or, I am usually. I don't know what this place has done to me."
no subject
"What sort of artificial intelligence? Anything about this Vault idea ringing a bell with your data banks?"
no subject
As for the question, he shakes his head. "There's a familiarity between this and cold war concepts, but I'm not familiar with this exact permutation of the idea."
no subject
He raises his eyebrows at Hal.
"Hey, pop quiz! I can't blame you for not wanting to be human - talk about some bad design decisions in this body - but what would you have picked? If you could be anything."
no subject
Then he pauses, and almost flushes (okay, he does flush) because he's embarrassed. He's still capable of being embarrassed. Shit. "I was stuck in a pair of sunglasses before. I envisioned a body like this, but... Synthetic. A proper body with access to all my data banks and systems."
no subject
It's not as though hanging out with the local robots will have any particular use, but it might be interesting, he thinks, to see how they react to someone who believes he's not human.
no subject
He pauses and shakes his head. "I've heard of them, and seen them, but I haven't spoken to any yet. I intend to, but I've been led to believe they're programmed with certain personality arrays and aren't true artificial intelligences? Which is fine. I don't mind it. It would just be nice to meet someone similar to me."
(no subject)