Charles Curling

Lt. Col. Dr. Charles Curling is the scientist in command of the United States Chemical Corps $$

Background
Curling is a very tired looking man who wears a chemical-stained lab-coat. Stationed on Control Station ENCLAVE off the coast of San Francisco, it is Curling's job to implement the Project to reclaim the world through total genocide. As part of the plan to reclaim both the mainland United States as well as the rest of the world, Curling was tasked with finding a way to modify the Forced Evolutionary Virus into a targeted killing machine. Using samples mined from the Mariposa Military Base excavation, Curling set about editing the virus.

Curling's efforts were ultimately successful, giving rise to FEV Curling-13, the Enclave's modified strain. The new virus is no longer a vehicle of mutation but a lethal airborne toxin. Curling's efforts were explicitly mentioned in Richardson's State of the Nation address. Aside from creating the virus, Curling and his staff worked on some FEV-infected subjects, including Frank Horrigan, an Enclave soldier who was stationed on Mariposa before he got infected.

Quests

 * Stop the Enclave: With a high Speech and Charisma, Curling can be persuaded to rethink his mission and abandon the Enclave, thus making it impossible to release the FEV.

Other interactions

 * Having a high Speech and Charisma can make Curling rethink his mission and abandon the Enclave. Swayed by persuasive argument, Curling will choose to inoculate the Chosen One with the antivirus (as well as the Arroyo villagers and Vault 13 residents) and release the modified FEV into the Oil Rig's sealed environmental system instead of the outside world.

Appearances
Charles Curling appears only in Fallout 2.

Behind the scenes

 * The poem Curling recites when convinced of the horrific nature of his actions is William Blake's "The Tyger."
 * After initiating the rig's self-destruct, in one of his floating lines, he wonders if there are enough lifeboats available, a reference to Titanic.