GECK



The Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.) was a device created by Future-Tec, a division of Vault-Tec Industries, which was meant to revitalize areas of a post-nuclear wasteland. The concept of the device as well as its design was completed by Doctor Stanislaus Braun, a brilliant, if egotistical, Vault-Tec researcher.

Characteristics
The Kit looks like a small, silver briefcase emblazoned with the letters G.E.C.K.; and, according to Vault-Tec advertisements, it contains all the seeds, fertilizer, and other equipment - including a cold fusion power generator and a basic replicator - necessary to start a new settlement in a post-nuclear world after emerging from a Vault shelter. Each Vault was presumably issued with two GECKs, except for Vaults 8, 13, 112, and 101; Vault 8's extra GECK got swapped (whether by accident or some nefarious scheme, this is not known) with Vault 13's surplus water chips that had been ordered as backups. Vaults 112 and 101 were never issued GECKs because they were intended to never be re-opened; each was an experiment in permanent confinement.

The Garden of Eden Creation Kit is a terraforming device capable of radically altering the Wasteland and transforming dead, irradiated soil into viable land suitable for farming; it is implied, though not confirmed, that this is the usual mode of operation for a GECK in Fallout 2. However, there is significant disagreement as to what a GECK actually does; the only time we see one properly in action (rather than merely the results) is in Fallout 3.

Actual contents


The GECK was billed as a matter-energy replicator and miraculous terraforming device, transforming an area into energy and then reforming it according to a certain molecular pattern. Certainly, the actual devices built to the specifications of Stanislaus Braun, Vault-Tec's "Sorcerer-Scientist" were such.

As a way to reconcile these two differing accounts of the GECK - the way it was originally intended, and the way the latter-day games portray them - one could say that only a few GECKs were actually built to spec, with the others being mere "promotional copies" to hand out to West Coast Vaults. However, even if the GECK is taken at face value - that is, if they were indeed the miracle devices promised by Braun and Vault-Tec - they would be consistent with the portrayal in Fallout 2, as seen at Vault City and New Arroyo.

Fallout 2
The tribals of the town of Arroyo, which was founded by the Vault Dweller, passed down stories of the "Holy GECK," which they came to believe was a sacred, magical item which can change the Wasteland into fertile land again.

Though the GECK may not have been the holy cure-all the tribal inhabitants of Arroyo intended it to be, in the right hands it was a very useful piece of pre-War technology that could help establish a viable new community in the post-nuclear wastelands. Alternately it was indeed a miraculous device, capable of transforming the Wasteland into something more. Either way, after the destruction of the Enclave, the dwellers of Vault 13 rescued from the Oil Rig used it to create the town of New Arroyo.

The GECK was instrumental in the creation of Vault City by the former inhabitants of Vault 8 (though whether the city's success can be attributed to the GECK alone is debatable). By combining their GECK's contents with power from Vault 8's fusion generator, the residents of Vault City were able to erect their settlement's first buildings and generate arable farmland.

Fallout 3
When the Lone Wanderer locates his/her father in Stanislaus Braun's Vault 112, he learns that in order to make Project Purity work properly, he requires a GECK. After James' demise at the hands of Colonel Augustus Autumn, the Wanderer makes his way to Vault 87, a horrendously irradiated location, where he acquires a single GECK unit.

This version of the GECK is a far more advanced piece of technology than the implied agricultural starter kit the developers of the previous games intended it to be, possibly containing some sort of chemical fusion based molecular assembly-device: In this case, when included as a component within Project Purity's Purifier, the GECK helps that other technology remove all radioactive particles from the water of the River Potomac that flows through it.

In Fallout 3, it is possible for the Lone Wanderer to reach the GECK instead of allowing Fawkes to retrieve it, thus allowing the player to activate it. If activated on its own, a blue energy ball expands around the GECK killing the player's character and, after a burst of white light, the nearest save game is loaded.

Mutant GECKs
The stories of Fallout Tactics 2 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 were to revolve around "mutant" GECK units, which had become infected with radioactive pathogens and caused mutant plant and animal life to expand and consume huge swaths of land. While the origin of the Tactics 2 GECK is unknown, the GECK in Brotherhood of Steel 2 was found by a former Jackal called Miles Reese. In both situations, the GECKs were "terraformer" type units, like the Fallout 3 GECK.

Appearances
The GECK is mentioned in the Fallout game manual, but doesn't appear until Fallout 2 and Fallout 3. GECKs were also scheduled to appear in Fallout Tactics 2 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2.

As the SDK
The Fallout 3 SDK (Software Development Kit), called "The G.E.C.K.", has been released and is up for download at the official Fallout3 website.

Behind the scenes

 * According to Chris Taylor, the GECK was created by Jason Anderson and Leonard Boyarsky for the Fallout game manual - it wasn't intended to be used in Fallout 2. But as far as a McGuffin goes, it was there when it was needed.
 * The GECK (or more precisely, its intended function in Fallout 3) might be a reference to the movies Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: The Search for Spock, which revolve around "Project Genesis" and the Genesis Device. Like the variant of the GECK encountered in Fallout 3, the Genesis Device is intended to be used to create life out of lifelessness (whilst killing every present living thing in its working radius upon activation).
 * At present, there is no clarification from Bethesda on how to reconcile the two radically different views of the GECK. The view of the GECK as a miracle device is a far cry from the view of the GECK as a pretty useful piece of Pre-War agricultural technology. This article errs on the side of regarding the information in Fallout 3 as more valid than the Fallout Bibles, as the Bibles themselves contain speculation and errors, and as the results of the GECK in Fallout 2 are consistent with both views.
 * Knowing Vault-Tec the way most Fallout players do, it could be surmised that the radically varying models of G.E.C.K. could be the product of typical Vault-Tec corner cutting. At some point during the construction of the originally developed terraforming device-style G.E.C.K.s Vault-Tec realized they didn't have the time/money/resources to build a true G.E.C.K. for each of the more than hundred vaults (or just simply didn't feel like expending the effort). So instead they halted production and mass produced what basically amounts to a home-gardening starter-kit in a really nice box, distributing the "Value G.E.C.K.s" along with the true G.E.C.K.s to all the vaults (likely under the assumption that too few of these people would survive to worry about two groups of survivors running into one another and raising questions about why their G.E.C.K.s are different).

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