Calvin van Lowe

Calvin van Lowe was an inventor and engineer working for the Bysshe Company before he was killed by one of his own inventions - a modified assaultron unit he was designing to capture a cryptid known as the "sheepsquatch."

Background
A psychological evaluation described van Lowe as having extremely high mental acuity and cognitive skills. However, he was also described as having a dissociative view of the social world and an inability to associate context with stimuli.

Prior to being hired by the Bysshe Company, van Lowe was a member of the 'Truth Seekers' with his friends Scott "Scoot" Conroy and Ray Gary. The Truth Seekers were a group devoted to hunting cryptids spotted in West Virginia but split up when van Lowe began attending Vault-Tec University in August 2072.

Despite knowing deep down that the sheepsquatch was not real, van Lowe was unable to shake his obsession. Following his graduation from Vault-Tec University, he was hired by the Bysshe Company who looked to exploit this obsession for their own gain and given the code name "Blacksheep." The Bysshe Company organised for van Lowe to move home to Lewisburg to continue his sheepsquatch hunting exploits. Living with his sister Shelley in the family home was intended to be a temporary arrangement, but Bysshe invested in building van Lowe a secret basement lab while they were meant to be finding him property of his own. The Bysshe Company also provided him with two assaultron units to undertake his work. His first attempt was a failure but he did not respond well to Bysshe's attempts to accelerate the process with threats.

At some point, Calvin received one of the "vigilant citizen's notes" asking people to distribute a series of discoveries and findings related to the "Treasure of Appalachia." The anonymous sender, in reality Flavia Stabo, recognized Calvin's "less than stellar" reputation, but admired his commitment to finding the truth, no matter what society said.

Just before the Great War, he was killed by a malfunctioning assaultron unit in his own lab. At the time he was attempting to reprogram the unit with 'Sheepsquatch Mating Rituals' but the reprogramming went awry when the unit misinterpreted the word "overwrite" for "override." The assaultron unit escaped the lab after killing him.

He was presumed mysteriously missing by his sister, Shelley, who had no knowledge of the secret basement lab. After the police were too distracted by the beginning of the War to continue investigating Calvin van Lowe's disappearance, Shelley van Lowe posted posters around Appalachia, hoping that someone would be able to bring her some closure with regards to what happened to her brother.

Appearances
Calvin van Lowe is mentioned in the Fallout 76 add-ons Wild Appalachia and Wastelanders.