Stanislaus Braun

Stanislaus Braun (2009-2277?) was a brilliant Vault-Tec scientist before the Great War and the creator of the G.E.C.K. He is alive 200 years after the war by living in a stasis chamber of his own design. The chamber houses a virtual reality simulation dubbed Tranquility Lane. He is the overseer of Vault 112. He was born in the town of Kronach in Bavaria.

When James approaches him for assistance in retrieving the one usable G.E.C.K. in the Capital Wasteland, Dr. Braun traps him in the simulation.

Biography
Dr. Braun is the Director for Vault-Tec's Societal Preservation Program, and notes from other Vaults suggest that he was an outside point of contact for Overseers during the Vault Experiment, either as administrative authority or scientific expert adviser. Though early correspondence showed him taking a larger role in activation and assignment of the Vaults, much of his responsibility has lapsed as he has become more immersed in, and obsessed with, the sole administration of Vault 112's Virtual Reality experiment.

For the past two centuries, Braun has been repeatedly creating and exploring new simulated worlds such as "Tropical Paradise" and "Snow Resort", but often becomes bored after a while and sometimes performs cruel actions to create some sense of entertainment for himself. A fail-safe terminal in Tranquility Lane shows that Braun commissioned the "Chinese Invasion Failsafe", a means of permanently killing the inhabitants of Vault 112 as part of the Vault's initial resources, but (much to his disappointment) it will not kill him, which could leave him trapped alone in the simulation.

In the current simulation world of pre-war Tranquility Lane, Braun has taken up the identity of a little girl named "Betty". In this world, he sends the player on quests that range from making a child cry to killing every resident, although the player may find another solution to find his/her dad. Killing the residents is apparently not permanent, as Braun is able to reset the simulation, the residents, and their memories.

His identity as "Betty" is explained simply as him being bored with his true form--in the simulator he can be anything he wishes to be, and he happens to feel like trying out the form of a young girl. As "Betty," Braun speaks in the perfectly simulated voice of a real little girl but once he is revealed, he tends to alternate between the "Betty" voice and his real voice. Most of the residents of Tranquility Lane are unaware of Betty's nature, though a few are vaguely aware she's important and one child says "she's mean."

Behind the scenes


The name "Stanislaus Braun" is most likely a composite of Stanisław Ulam (Polish mathematician, co-creator of the Teller-Ulam nuclear weapon design) and German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. In the 1930s, Braun was the central figure in Germany's rocket development program, responsible for the design and realization of the Nazi V-2 rocket during World War II. After the war, he and his team of scientists were brought to the United States to work on the US space program. Braun is known as the chief architect of the Saturn V rocket, and is generally regarded as the father of the US space program and the preeminent rocket engineer of the 20th Century.

In Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 film "Alphaville", the movie's hero is sent on a mission to kill a Professor Von Braun - the creator of a super-computer in total control of the inhabitants of a dystopian city.

This name might also be a nod to Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, and German Physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun (who won the Nobel prize in 1909 with Gugleilmo Marconi). Stanislaus Braun stated that he spent his childhood in Kronach, Southern Germany.

Braun's speech and demeanour also briefly resemble Dr. Strangelove from Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb".

Old lady Dithers's line "He calls himself Betty now..." may also be a reference to the film, Kung Pow, in which the main villain refers to himself as Betty despite being a twisted, old kung-fu master.

According to a recent interview in 1UP Emil Pagliarulo revealed that Betty was partially inspired by the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life," in which a small, willful child named Anthony (Bill Mumy), who was born with godlike powers, annihilates the entire human race except for the adults in his small Ohio town, whom he keeps as his own personal playthings, tormenting, torturing, and killing them at will.

Related quests

 * Tranquility Lane