Airship Bunker

[TrooperScooperMKII]

During the height of the Pre-War era, when science yielded its greatest triumphs, those with the capability- or the currency- to think big would be rewarded with creations of grandeur. Opulent palaces, stunning cities, sophisticated lifestyles, the exorbitant wealth of the elite surpassed all that had gone before it. Wealth had always been associated with power, but now it embodied it. Every man, woman and child would dream of living the lives of the wealthy, would yearn for the sweet labors of success, and would be envious of those who succeeded at scaling the ladder to the top of society, but they nonetheless respected them, believing them to be not only socially but also ethically superior.

But power corrupts.

For every person that lived the life of luxury, ten thousand labored in poverty. It could not last, and it did not. The finite resources of the earth could not sustain the infinite greed and ambition of the elite.

The bubble burst as it always did, when the illusion of wealth was destroyed by the harsh reality of war. So long as the working class could believe that they could one day attain the heights of the wealthy, they tolerated the social discrepancy. But whan the resources of the world ran thin, their admiration became envy, which became anger, then finally hatred. In turn, the wealthy no longer saw their workers as people, but rather as peasants. They ceased to be philanthropists and became plutocrats, and in the process they came to fear the envy of the poor.

Fear became prejudice, which became paranoia. the wealthy no longer flaunted their lavish lifestyles openly, but hid their wealth in private, shrouding their success in secrecy and admitting only the most trusted into their world of wealth.

And in time, they came to trust no one- for power corrupts.

The era of opulence was most evident in the creations of the age, and none captured the imaginations of the world like the airships of the day. Built with cutting edge technology and filled with every luxury, they were flying palaces that advertised the wealth of the owners to all beneath them. But as the era of wealth ended, the airship was seen not as a source of inspiration but of oppression. The openly displayed wealth was no longer tolerated, and was even hated. No longer did the elite construct their private mansions, and many of the existing vessels were sold or dismantled.

 

The airship Ethereal Evanescence was one of those ships. Constructed late in the era, it was powered by flexible solar panels and fuel cells and equipped with condensers capable of capturing water vapor from the air. It could remain aloft for nearly indefinite periods of time...

which attracted the attention of the army.

Its original owner was forced to sell his prize when his company was nationalized after a corporate scandal. The vessel was converted into a flying safehouse for government officials, and bunkers were constructed to house it under tons of rock. It was considered a contingency plan, a means for the elite to escape the terrors of the looming nuclear war in the air.

It never left its base.

The bombs dropped too quickly, without warning, and the officials who had planned to escape to the skies died with the world. Buried under mountains, its existence recorded only in top level files, it was forgotten by the few who remained to find it.

Until now.

The Brotherhood of Steel has unearthed files hinting at the existence of the contingency plan. Though the ship itself is a fine prize, it also contained access codes to high level government files- files that can access a recently unearthed armory containing some of the most advanced technology of the pre war military. It is with the intention of retrieving this data that the brotherhood seeks the lost airship.

You chance upon the sole survivor of the team wandering the mountain passes, battered and bruised, barely capable of speaking. Before he dies, he tells of a massive bunker hidden under the mountains, and creatures that cannot be seen but only heard, screeching in the darkness...

[dominique120]

You have illuminated me with ideas. I was doing an underground bunker with a whole story behind it.maybe I will turn it into an airship, or maybe I will make a mobile base stationed at the bunker I am making,

[TrooperScooperMKII]

I'm currently working on the parts of the bunker I can construct- namely, the entrance to the bunker as well as the tunnels leading up to it. My idea is to have a dead squad of BoS troops scattered throughout the bunker, with their journals located in several locations. The journals will, obviously, provide info on why they were there, what they found, and how they died. I plan to have new enemies, like a Ghoul Assassin and a Nightclaw, both of which are invisible. The ghouls are what did in the squad, as there are a LOT of them, and they are smarter, faster and tougher than regular ghouls...

The nightclaws are "runty" deathclaws that can become invisible, but they are only found in the heart of the bunker itself, and can be dealt with in several ways. I plan to have an option to flood the basement where the nightclaws are with hydrogen gas...

The main base itself will be deep in the mountains, but it is low on power. The main objective is to salvage several (eight to twenty five, depending on how much of the base you want to access) power cores, which will be a new item that require Microfusion cells to create- there's a ghoul trapped in the base, and he'll create the power cores if you gather the materials.

Once created, there are several power stations (one for the mainframe, eight for the bunker, three for the hangar) that require them to function. Installing the power cores unlocks new areas of the base. Once all power cores are installed for the hangar, then the airship itself (and all of the other stuff inside the hangar) is unlocked, but this is entirely optional, as only the mainframe is required to access the armory keycodes. Alternatively, the player can reroute power from "nonessential" systems (like a prison block filled with ghoul assassins) to reduce the number of power cells needed to unlock an area...