Reservation Sub-Levels

The Reservation Sub-Levels were built pretty much like a typical vault.

Sub-Level 1
This level is the main sleeping area for the sub-level ghouls. This level is clean, crisp, and very well taken care of, unlike the Reservation Town. The contrast between the two should be somewhat shocking. The floors of the level are sparkling, the walls show no sign of wear, and the sleeping quarters are very well maintained, with two beds each and toilets that look like they’ve never been used (and with ghouls, they probably haven’t… do ghouls even poop?). Depending on the time of day, half the beds and/or rooms will be occupied by ghouls in clean white lab coats, and the other half of the rooms will not. In addition, each room will have two chests for the ghouls to store stuff.

Conversation is pretty limited here to just floats and such, except for Marty. Marty is a disillusioned ghoul who has the same type of thinking that Hank has; all is not right in paradise. If Marty feels like he can trust the player, he will divulge some of the things he’s working on. One of those things is the assembly of dirty bombs on sub-level 3. The player will get the opportunity to eventually help or hinder Willem Clark and his diabolical plans based on info from Hank and Marty. Of course, one of the best ways to earn trust from Measles is to snitch on Marty about his rebellious thoughts, but I’ll get into more detail in the quests section.

In addition to speaking to Marty, the player can hack into the General Computer on this level and find out little tidbits about the Nuclear Nellie, the dirty bombs, and just the very slightest hint at the ghoul procreation experimentation.

Main Elevator
This is the Main Access Elevator that goes back to the surface and to the 2nd sub-level.

Sleeping Quarters
The rooms in Sub-level 1 are pretty ordinary when it comes to vault sleeping quarters. Each room is very clean and well kept. Each room also has two twin size beds and a footlocker at each bed. The bathrooms are spotless, not so much because they are constantly cleaned, but because ghouls really have no use for a toilet… I think.

Locker Room
This is a pretty typical vault locker room, with two rows of lockers running down the center of the room, separated by a wall going down the center of the room. Each locker will be filled with an assortment of goodies the player can loot. What those goodies are remains TBD.

General Computer
At the end of the outside of the Locker room is Sub-Level 1’s General Computer. From here the player can access very generic stuff, like the work schedule of the lab techs, the guards, how many slaves were brought into the Sub-Levels, and how many had to be put into the incinerators after the failed procreation experiments… huh? Yes, the player can get a bit of information about the ghoul procreation process and see that the human slaves have something to do with it. A bit of good hacking will reveal the name of the chief doctor in charge of the experiments, Dr. Sebastian.

Also, the computer will give a brief history rundown of the Reservation’s great leader and founder, Dr. Willem Clark. The history will practically deify the doctor, basically proclaiming him the savior of the ghouls; their very own Christ, as it were. However, from conversations and reading the computer history, it seems that no one, except a very select few, have seen Dr. Willem Clark in a very long time –perhaps in over fifty years. There is no doubt he is still on the Reservation, but it would seem he has secluded himself to Sub-Level 3. Evidently, he wants to be closer to his “children� and the daily conceptions (don’t try to picture it, it will rot your brain and make you start thinking David Hasselhoff is a sexy man).

Sub-Level 2
Once the player has access to Sub-Level 2, he will have access to mechanics labs engineered for weapon, armor, and ammo smithing. However, the player may be in for a bit of shell shock once he enters Sub-Level 2. This level is very dirty, akin to an early 19th century English machine factory. The floors and walls are covered with soot and the air is a thick fog of mixed fumes generated by large boilers and burners. Evidently there is not a good air filtration system on Sub-Level 2, not that the ghouls would really need one. The player would be wise to use a gas mask down here (radiation is not as big a factor as on the surface. The sub-levels were well enough insulated during the Big War to keep out most of the radiation from above, but obviously not all).

However, the people who do need protection from the fumes are the human slaves working in the large, but smog congested smithing rooms. All of them have scarf-like materials wrapped around their faces as a weak form of protection, though every one of them frequently coughs. Though one might expect to see a few large slaves handling the brunt of the shoveling, the opposite is true. All the slaves lurking about are quite frail. At first assumption, one might think that their frailness is a result of long term exposure to the level’s fumes and poor treatment of the slaves. However, a bit of investigation will reveal that all the working slaves are usually the weakest of the crop purchased. Evidently, the strongest human slaves are carted off to a room that emits a strange green glow through the door cracks on Sub-Level 3A slave or two may mention that at night, when they are resting in their holding cell, that they can hear screams coming down the hall where the “Green Room� is.

The first room the player will run into is the firing range directly north. It looks like a standard indoor firing range, except for the filth, comes complete with three ranges and, at any given time, a couple of ghoul guards trying out a new conventional firearm. Since the guards have a bit of an ego, they are anxious to challenge the player to a contest of skills. Best of ten shots at the maximum distance in the range wins the contest (prize is TBD).

To the northeast of the level is a large room used for armor manufacturing. Inside, there are two large furnaces next to makeshift anvils and tables. A couple of ghouls bang away at stretching leather and forming metal to make suits of armor. Several slaves toil away at moving around the scrap materials and shoveling coal into the furnaces from large piles of coal along the northern wall.

Just south of the armor smithing room is the weapon and ammo smithing room. It looks very similar to the armor smithing room, except that there a lot of medium sized crates filled with ammo and guns (a lot for the FO3 world, anyways). One side is filled with crates of non-functioning weapons, and another, guarded by four ghoul guards, is filled with functioning guns and ammo, though this side is much smaller than the non-functioning side. The two weapon smith ghouls toil away at dismantling the non-working guns to either piece together the different parts into a functioning weapon, or melt down the metal to forge new components. The slaves cart coal from the stockpile in the armor smith and shovel it into the furnaces in the weapon smith facility. Again, these slaves are frail and look like they are going to keel over at any moment. Even though the slaves are frail, the floating toxins do not help their health conditions. The slaves rarely live longer than a couple of years before the toxins kill them. The player will have the opportunity to either find proper gas masks or devise a makeshift air filtration system.

Running the whole show on Sub-Level 2 is Milt the Foreman. He can be found walking from room to room, making sure things are running smoothly. He’s a no-nonsense ghoul who tells it like it is, and he’ll waste no time telling the player what he thinks of human scum. In any event, Milt will serve as a focus point to augment current weapons and armor for the player to make them more deadly, provided the player has the blessing of Dr. Willem Clark. If not, he’ll call the guards and they will lay the smack down!

There’s also a Chem Lab on this level where the player can use the chem.-mechanic’s table to concoct stim packs, Rad-Away, and other such things. There is a science techy in here every once in a while, but he only comes in to get supplies and such – nothing to buy here. But if the player follow said techy, he will see that he takes a different elevator than the one the player came. This elevator is the only way to Sub-Level 3 and its big mysteries.

There’s also the requisite sleeping chambers for the ghoul workers, as well as a bathroom/locker-room complete with lockers for the player to pick.

The last place of note on this level is the Incinerator Room. Periodically during a given day, a techy will come up from Sub-Level 3 with a large, covered trash can. He will head into the Incinerator room and dump the contents into the very large incinerator. The player may try to investigate the ashes and such around the incinerator to determine what was thrown in there. A good Perception will uncover human bone in the ash.

Main Access Elevator
This is the Main Access Elevator that goes back to the surface and to the 1st sub-level.

Shooting Range
A standard, three lane firing range except with overly used targets at the far end of the room and a lot of soot and dirt on the walls. There are no working pulley systems to bring a target back and forth to the shooter. Every once in a while, the player may run into a ghoul guard or two who are practicing. These ghouls will challenge the player, provided the player is there with the permission of Willem Clark, to a shoot off. The winner gets an epithet or something like that. However, once the player does this challenge, he will not be challenged again. Hey, ammo’s valuable, even if the ghouls make most of their own.

Armor Smithing Facility
This room looks like a cross between a medieval forge and a turn-of-the-century machine sweatshop. Two large furnaces roar with fire and crackle whenever metal is placed close enough to melt. Two ghouls labor away making leather and metal armor, and four to six slaves toil with cleaning up the scraps and shoveling coal into the furnaces. There are a couple of large tables holding various tools, remnants, etc. Also, there are two makeshift anvils the ghouls use to forge steel, and two large tubs of murky, black water to cool the steel. No talking here, too much work to do.

Weapon Smithing Facility
This room also looks like a cross between a medieval forge and a turn-of-the-century machine sweatshop. Two large furnaces roar with fire and crackle whenever metal is placed close enough to melt. Two ghouls labor away making gun barrels and components, then assemble them, and four to six slaves toil with cleaning up the scraps and shoveling coal into the furnaces. There are a couple of large tables holding various tools, remnants, etc. Also, there are two makeshift anvils the ghouls use to forge steel, and two large tubs of murky, black water to cool the steel. No talking here, too much work to do.

Chemical Laboratory
A large table and four big tubs of green goo are all that occupy this room. On the table is an assortment of beakers, tubes, measuring devices, and other assorted lab stuff. The player may use this facility to make stim packs, Rad-X, and any other chem in the game. If the player is allowed to be on Sub-Level 2, then the techy who comes into the facility every once in a while will not raise an eyebrow. However, if the player is not allowed to be there, then the techy will flip out and call the guards.

The Incinerator
This lovely room has a very large, rusty, burnt looking incinerator smack in the middle. The iron doors are kept closed and locked when not in use, but the heat and sound of the searing flames within can be heard and felt from out in the halls. At the foot of the incinerator’s big iron door is scattered pile of ash and burned debris. A perceptive PC can sift through the ash and discover that these are the remains of humans. A couple of time per day, a techy from Sub-Level 3 comes to the incinerator with a large trash can and dumps its contents into the incinerator.

Foreman Sleeping Quarters
This is the one room on Sub-Level 2 that is not nearly as dirty and sooty as the rest of the level. It’s far from clean, but compared to the rest of the level, it’s worthy of a king. There are four beds along the walls of the room, a footlocker at the base of each bed, and a cabinet along one of the walls. Inside the cabinet are old books and magazines of varying interests. During the night time hours, these beds are occupied by the foreman, during the day, they are not. It is not wise to wake a sleeping foreman, even if you are there by permission of Willem Clark. These guys are very grumpy and need their ugly-sleep.

Locker-room and Bathrooms
Understand the needs humans have to expel their internal wastes, the ghouls have tried to maintain the bathrooms on Sub-Level 2. The commodes are functional enough to get rid of most waste, but some waste does back up, providing an even more noxious odor than the soot smells. Since the ghouls do not mind really bad smells (hell, they smell bad enough), they have little sympathy for their slaves’ complaints of fouled toilets. The player may remedy this problem by fixing the clogs in the lines, or sending a cherry bomb down one of the commodes to blast the clog away. I’ll need a scripted cut scene for this event of water and waste blowing out of the toilet. The bathroom might be really messy after this, but hey, these pipes are clean (HA! A “Cabin Boy� reference – which is in this doc for my amusement only and will not be in FO3)!

Elevator to Sub-Level 3
This is the Elevator that goes only to and from Sub-Level 3.

Sub-Level 3
Sub-Level 3 used to be the meat and potatoes of the Reservation back in the day. Little has changed in that regard. While Sub-Level 2 maintains manufacturing of armor and arms for trade on the surface, the true research and development, and the means by which Willem Clark fulfills his dream, occurs on Sub-Level 3.

The only way for the player to access this level is through the southern elevator on Sub-Level 2. The use of this elevator requires the visual approval of Willem Clark himself. The player’s options to gain entry are to earn the trust of Willem Clark through completing quests, going Rambo and killing everyone topside and the first two sub-levels – this brings Willem and his cronies to the player for a final showdown, and by doing this Willem forgets to reset the security on the elevator -, or the final way is to sneak down the elevator using deception. However, since Willem visually checks everyone in and out of the elevator through a heavily protected camera over the elevator, and he is personally familiar with all who works for him, the player would need a very high Deceive skill to pull off the scam.

As Sub-Level 1 is sharply contrasted in appearance and feel to Sub-Level 2, so is Sub-Level 3 to both previous levels. Not only is Sub-Level 3 very clean and tidy, but it is also eerily dark and cold, both figuratively and literally. The halls are permanently lit by red power back-up lights, and the purple glow of the force field at the end of the hall accentuates the dark mood. During the daylight hours, the entire level is deathly silent, save for the hum of the force fields. During the night, inconsistent screams of terror and pain can be heard coming from within a room; a room known to the slaves only as the “Green Room.�

The first room to the right from the elevator in Sub-Level 3 is a long room consisting of three smaller rooms. The rooms are regular, square rooms each with a single bed and a cabinet against the wall. If the player has entered this area during the day, the rooms will be empty. However, at night the rooms will be occupied by their respective owners getting ready for a good night’s rest. These rooms, as it turns out, belong to the successful results of the ghoul procreation experiments. Like Measles, these three ghouls are Born Ghouls. However, only Belle will give the player the time of day, the other two will brush the player off.

Elevator to Sub-Level 2
This is the Elevator that goes to and from Sub-Level 2, exclusively.

Born Ghouls Quarters
At the southeast section of Sub-Level 3 is an entrance to a medium sized corridor. Along the north side of the corridor are three sterile looking, square rooms, each with a nice size bed and cabinet. Other than the slightest hint of blood drops here and there, and the occasional bone fragment, there is nothing extraordinary about these rooms, save for their owners. These three rooms belong to Born Ghouls; ghouls, like Measles, who were not created through exposure to the FEV virus, but ghouls who were actually born into ghoul-dom. Through cruel experimentation on humans by Dr. Sebastian, these ghouls gestated and were birthed. Reveling in their infrequent success (the ghoul procreation experiments have a 2% success rate), Dr. Sebastian and Dr. Willem Clark keep their Born Ghoul progeny close at hand and comfortable. To them, the Born Ghouls represent the future of the ghoul “species,� and they will do everything in their power to make sure their “children� are well taken care of.

Measles’ Room and Dr. Willem Clark’s Room
To the southwest is a large room. Upon passing through the steel door, there is a purple force field due west and a small room to the north. The room to the north is exactly the same size and style as the Born Ghoul rooms to the east. This room belongs to Measles’, Willem Clark’s right hand ghoul and sometimes personal bodyguard. However, since Willem never really leaves his chambers, Measles has been assigned additional tasks. In fact, the only time Measles is in this room is when Willem calls for him or it is nighttime – time to sleep. During the day, Measles is usually topside at the Trading Post making certain all is running smoothly.

To get into Dr. Willem Clark’s room, the player either needs to be invited, kill everyone on the previous levels which draws Willem and some of his cronies to deal with the player, thus leaving the force field down, or use his super mechanics skill on the purple force field. Otherwise, the player may only dream about what is inside. However, once inside (and as long as Willem is not dead), the player will be greeted with almost sheer darkness, except for a soft glowing light resting next to a shadowy form. There is a bed, a cabinet filled with books, and a computer in this room, but they are hard to see in the darkness. As it turns out, the shadowy form is Dr. Willem Clark. He will say he prefers the dark because it allows him to be alone with his thoughts – and he has many, many thoughts. If the player feels brave, Willem will be happy to convey these thoughts.

Bottom line, though, is that the computer in Willem Clark’s room holds the launch codes for the Hermes-XIII space rocket. There are several ways to get these codes, which I will go into greater detail later in this doc.

Scientists’ Sleeping Quarters
Similar in style to the sleeping quarters on Sub-Level 1, but a bit wider, this room is for the exclusive use of the techies and scientists of Sub-Level 3. There are four beds, a few cabinets, and foot lockers at the foot of each bed. Other than that, there’s not much to look at.

The Green Room (Ghoul Procreation Laboratory)
Like something straight out of a 1950’s horror move (in living Techno-color!), this is the laboratory where the madness of ghoul procreation takes place. There are two tables filled to the brim with tubes, bottles, beakers, a Tesla coil, and anything else that emotes a mad scientist feel. At the far end of the room are two big glass tubes filled with a viscous, green liquid. Inside this bubbling goo are two floating humanoid forms attached to tubes and wires. Closer examination reveals that the occupants of these tubes are human. Even closer examination will reveal that there is a large hose burrowed into the distended abdomen of each floating human, and from the wild, terrified eyes of the occupants, it becomes clear that the humans are terrified and in a great deal of pain.

The individual running this show is a ghoul named Dr. Sebastian. He relishes in his work and is eager to talk about it, provided the player has permission to be in Sub-Level 3 (Willem let’s everyone know if the player is allowed to be there – after all, how many healthy humans are actually allowed to roam the dark halls of Sub-Level 3?). While all the sordid details of the ghoul procreation process will not be revealed, the player will get enough disturbing imagery to convince them that the process is not fun in the least – for the humans, anyway.

Force Fields and the Main Generator
To the north are a series of force fields that lead to the main power generator. The first force field is only accessible with the proper security pass (yep, search for a keycard. There are several on the persons of the lab techs and Sub-Level 3 guards, plus the player may finagle one from an amorous ghoul.) Of course, the force field can be circumvented by a talented mechanic. Once passed the force fields, the player has access to the Main Power Generator. If the player has aspirations to blow the generator up, he may. However, this will only knock out main power and the backup generators will kick in. And, even though the Main Generator is a sub-reactor, the heavy insulation in this room will keep the explosion confined to this room, thus not endangering the other rooms. The design thinking was that if anything would go wrong with the generator and is melted down, the resulting explosion would not “domino effect� with the nuclear warheads for the B.O.M.B. missiles.

Nuclear Weapons R&D and Reservation’s Main Computer
This massive room was once used to research and then develop the missiles and warheads that would eventually be used on the B.O.M.B. satellites.

The first thing the player will run into is the Reservation’s Main Computer core. This machine holds all the information about the B.O.M.B. and Hermes programs, and it also includes the launch codes for the Hermes-XIII space rocket. However, the launch codes are encrypted and require a heavy science skill to extract. This is just an alternative to meeting, face to face, Willem Clark, and gives the science/stealth boy another opportunity to advance.

At the center of the room is a very large, Howitzer looking cannon. Named “Nuclear Nellie,� this gun was originally designed to fire a ten megaton nuclear warhead shell, cannon style, to a target some thirty miles away. In it’s current state, Willem Clark changed Nuclear Nellie’s design a bit to fire a dirty shell thirty miles away. The dirty shell uses the few, but remaining remnants of uranium and other radioactive material to distribute over a two city block area. The resulting contamination, Willem hopes, will cause the occupants of the newly radioactive zone to disperse and flee. Willem intends to one day use this device against an enemy, once he finds one that is a suitable threat. Until then, Nuclear Nellie waits.

Another road block for Nuclear Nellie is the broken equipment lift. Some time after the Big War, no one knows exactly when, the heavy cable for the lift snapped, rendering the lift useless. If the player ever finds a replacement cable, the lift will once again function and Willem will be one step closer to fulfilling his dream.

Finally, at the northwest section of the room, the player will find the hallowed husks of four nuclear missiles with the acronym B.O.M.B.-001 painted on their sides. These missiles look like they have been rummaged over more than a hundred times and truly have nothing left of value attached to them, except maybe the metal shells.

Slave’s Quarters
A filthy den of hopelessness, this large room is used to house the two-dozen or so slaves used in the Sub-Levels. The floor is filthy with dirt, blood, urine, and excrement, and there is a dead body or two protruding from the cave-in dirt and boulder piles. There is nothing pleasant about these quarters, and the ghouls make sure that there is nothing pleasant about them. Since the ghouls of the Reservation hold most humans in utter contempt (yes, the player would have his work cut out for him to woo Willem and his followers), they figure that treating the slaves as badly as the humans treat ghouls on the outside is justice served. Granted, much of the ghouls’ hatred towards humanity has been fueled and exaggerated by Willem Clark, but that does not make it less real for the Reservation ghouls. Besides, the ghouls figure humans are easy to replace at this time thanks to Caesar’s Legions and the Blackfoot slave trade.