The Whitespring Bunker

The Whitespring Bunker, also called the Congressional Bunker, is a location in the Forest region of Appalachia in 2102. It is the primary headquarters of the Eastern Commonwealth Enclave.

Background
The Whitespring Bunker was built beneath The Whitespring Resort by Vault-Tec at the behest of the United States government. Publicly, its function was to ensure continuity of government by providing protection and shelter for Congressmen, Federal officials and military personnel in the event of a nuclear war. In reality, the bunker was intended exclusively for members of the Enclave. In 2077, Eastern Commonwealth Enclave members traveled to the bunker when the United States' early warning systems were activated as the Great War began; members of Congress also made the trip, but were denied admittance and unceremoniously executed.

In the days after the war, Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Eckhart assumed command of the Eastern Commonwealth Enclave in accordance with established succession rules following loss of contact with the President and the demise of both the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of the Treasury. Since contact with Enclave leadership (which included the president) at Control Station ENCLAVE had been lost due to damage sustained by the bunker's communications array, Eckhart considered himself de-facto leader of the entire Enclave and focused on his driving obsession: the eradication of communism. To this end he sought to gain control of the three automated nuclear silos in Appalachia, Site Alpha, Site Bravo, and Site Charlie, in order to launch a final retaliatory strike against China. First, to secure his own authority, Eckhart had Enclave personnel hack into Appalachia's automated election systems in order to run for President of the United States in January of 2083; he won handily, as his Enclave soldiers cast the only votes. He then forced Colonel Ellen Santiago to use the automated promotion system at Camp McClintock to gain the rank of general, as only a U.S. military general could access the Congressional Bunker's command wing, which could remotely control the nuclear silos.

Eckhart's plan never came to fruition. In 2086, after Santiago opposed Eckhart's increasingly unethical actions, he had her incapacitated and hidden away. Soldiers loyal to Santiago later discovered this and organized a rebellion against Eckhart's rule, which was commanded by Major Ragnarsdottir. The rebels succeeded in reviving Santiago and arresting Eckhart, but an attempt to destroy the primary systems of MODUS failed to eliminate or even cripple the AI. Instead, MODUS lost much of its memory and became corrupted, causing it to violently retaliate against its attackers. It deliberately destroyed the bunker's weapons lab and released a lethal toxin into the air supply, suffocating Eckhart, Santiago, Ragnarsdottir, and all other human residents of the bunker.

In the years after this event, MODUS regained some stability and used the bunker's robots to repair much of the damage, but remained unable to contact Control Station ENCLAVE for further instructions. It patiently waited for a prospective assistant to arrive from outside to help it restore communications until 2102, when a Resident of Vault 76 entered the bunker.

Layout
The Whitespring Bunker has two exterior entrances: the main entrance is a blast door built into a hillside a short distance from the Whitespring Resort with a parking lot that is accessed by a side road, and a secondary entrance can be found near The Whitespring service entrance. A third entrance in the form of an elevator is accessible within the Whitespring Resort's main building and is concealed behind a sliding wall panel. All three entrances are protected by laser grids that prevent unauthorized individuals from passing through them; these can be deactivated with Sam Blackwell's congressional ID, which is obtained from the abandoned waste dump. Beyond the laser grid at the main entrance is an additional layer of security: an unmarked cog-shaped blast door, Vault-Tec.

Immediately inside the bunker is the orientation floor. Those that enter the bunker must first be photographed and then led through a decontamination apparatus to remove any traces of radiation. Past orientation is a large window exhibiting the room containing the apparatuses that hold MODUS. Next is the admittance floor, where new residents must register themselves and optionally take a questionnaire about pre-War U.S. history. To the right of admittance are two elevators which lead back to the orientation floor.

Individuals with proper clearance can proceed north of admittance to the foyer section, which has connects to the communications wing, military wing, science wing, medical wing, production wing and robotics wing. The military wing contains the brig, which is equipped with two cells and a prisoner interrogation device, and also connects to the command wing, which requires higher clearance to access.

Individuals with the rank of General or above in the United States Armed Forces can proceed to the command wing, inside the military wing, right from the wing's enterance. In the command wing, Generals can view gradually decoded keywords for each nuclear silo around the Appalachia, used to unscramble Appalachian launch codes, view information relating on how to launch nuclear weapons and access surviellance terminals, which have the ability to start radiant quests, viewing the location of a single launch code piece specific to that of Site Alpha, Site Bravo or Site Charlie.

Connected to the command wing, is the bunker's armory, in which Generals can access and purchase a wider variety of products to help them above-ground, compared to the production wing stock, one such item being the prototype X-01 power armor plans. Archives relating to the previous human inhabitants of the bunker can also be viewed in the archive terminals, found to the far side of the armory.

Notable loot

 * Prototype X-01 power armor plans - Can be purchased from the bunker's armory.
 * Enclave officer uniform - Can be purchased from the bunker's armory.
 * Enclave plasma pistol - Can be purchased from the bunker's production wing.
 * Scout armor - Can be purchased from the bunker's production wing.
 * Urban Operative underarmor - Can be purchased from the bunker's production wing.
 * Hunting rifle or combat rifle - On a shelf or on floor, in the brig of the military wing.
 * The Sam Blackwell interview - On a table in the security room just inside the bunker.

Appearances
The Whitespring Bunker appears only in Fallout 76.

Behind the scenes
The Whitespring Bunker is based on the Greenbrier bunker, underneath the Greenbrier luxury resort in West Virginia.