New Plague

New Plague or Limit 115 is a socially transmitted plague which arose in 2053, killing approximately twenty thousand human beings in the United States, including cities such as Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs. The United States closed its borders and the first-ever national quarantine was declared. The source of the plague is unknown, but rumors persisted that it was a genetically engineered weapon.

The time of death from identification of symptoms was three to five days. Symptoms included many symptoms in common with the flu or chest cold, and eventually resulted in clogged respiration, killing the infected subject.

In 2055, The West Tek Research Facility started working on a new virus to kill the New Plague. Despite their efforts, they were unable to find the cure and the plague continued to spread in the 2060s, fueling national paranoia.

The West Tek viral research and close ties to the federal government eventually lead to them being chosen for the Pan-Immunity Virion Project in 2073, a project later known as Forced Evolutionary Virus.

Shortly before the War, an outbreak of the New Plague hit Denver. Rioters burned down large parts of the city in their fear of contamination and anger at their treatment. Many panicked and fled the city by car, clogging the freeways when they ran out of gas and trapping everyone behind them. And then the bombs fell, destroying some of what was left and killing everyone who had managed to live through everything else.

In February 2077, FEV Research was leaked to the world through an unknown source. There were protests in many major cities and governments around the world, as well as accusations that the US was responsible for the New Plague.

Through extensive research, the NCR scientist Victor Presper 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. He needed to get to B.O.M.B.-001 and use the nuclear weapons to clean the filth and wretch that currently occupied the surface.

Presper and his followers released the New Plague virus in the remote areas near Boulder and Denver. It was close enough to the quarantine prison to spur ULYSSES into action, but not near enough to huge populations to start a general panic. Once enough people were infected and ULYSSES “arrested” enough people to just about fill up the prison, Presper infected himself, Coleridge, and a handful of loyal soldiers with a lighter, non-lethal strain of the virus so they too could be taken into the prison. Once there, the rest of Presper’s men, who were not infected, would stage an attack on the prison which would allow everyone to escape. This event would start a countdown of sorts for missile launch on B.O.M.B.-001. ULYSSES would asses 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. By the time this happened, Presper had planned to be on, and in full control of, B.O.M.B.-001, and reprogramming targeting solutions to clean the areas he wanted. Humans of his choosing would wait out the second nuclear holocaust in the Boulder Dome, until the day came where he declared the Earth safe for pure blood humans once more. The only thing that really was a time consuming factor for his plan was figuring out the launch codes on the satellite. But Presper knew he was more than intelligent enough to eventually figure it out. After all, he was far more intelligent than the monkeys who originally programmed the launch computers on B.O.M.B.-001, or so he thought.

Appearances in games
The New Plague did not appear directly in any published Fallout game. It was, however, one of the major elements of the plot of Van Buren, the cancelled Fallout 3 project by Black Isle Studios. The plague was mentioned only once in Fallout 1, in ZAX's dialogue.