When the player stumbles across University Point inFallout 4, it’s clear that the place used to be a settlement and quite recently at that. The place still has beds, makeshift farming grounds, and merchant stalls, but there are no settlers in sight.
Just a little to the northeast of Jamaica Plain in the map ofFallout 4, University Point was once a bustling community. It was a location that caravans frequented, trading and transacting with the settlers there. However, an unfortunate discovery by one of the settlement’s residents would lead to its ruin.
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Before the Bombs Dropped in Fallout 4
Before the Great War, University Point was an institution known as the Mass Bay University. Professor Stuart Campbell was one of the employees who worked there, and at the time, was working on a project for the US military, which involved energy research. However, this research began without approval from the dean, Alan Patterson. Despite this, Campbell continued his research and even had a laboratory built underneath the university’s admin building.
Construction went through with no problems as the dean was on vacation at the time, but when he returned, he was furious at Campbell. Even then, Campbell didn’t stop his research project, explaining that the military wouldn’t be too happy if he did so. So, if Patterson wanted him to stop, he would have to talk to Colonel Rosemont, the project’s contractor. Suffice to say, Patterson failed to halt Campbell’s research. He and his two students — Leslie Mathews and Curtis Marsh —worked on theFallout 4research projectin peace.
However, the team would be hindered by the bombs falling, well beforethe events ofFallout 4. During this time, only Mathews and Marsh were in the lab. The military officials had left to investigate, and Campbell never arrived. Without much else to do, the two students continued working on the research project. They managed to survive for a few weeks on the facility’s stockpile of food and water. This was enough for them to perfect the energy research.
Unfortunately, the achievement couldn’t save them from running out of resources, so they left. It’s unclear what happened to them or any of the other staff of Mass Bay University, but a significant amount of Campbell’s research data can still be acquired and salvaged byanyone with theFallout 4tech skillsto do so.
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Unearthing Pre-war Research in Fallout
Fast forward to 2285. The ruins of Mass Bay University have beenadapted into a sizableFallout 4settlementheaded by a man named Bert Strickland. The place is inhabited by quite a few families, including the Spencer family. Gerald Spencer is a widower who lives at University Point with his child, Jacqueline, and she’s fond of tinkering with tools and such.
Jacqueline has always shown prowess in electronics. At some point during their stay in University Point, she managed to repair the area’s mail relay, allowing the residents to send messages to each other using terminals. Her own terminal entries also suggest that she’s regularly called on by the other settlers to fix theirmalfunctioning machines inFallout 4.To do this, she scavenges for parts around the university ruins.
Duringone of her scavenging runs, she finds an intact hard drive. With some work, she manages to salvage some of the data from the hard drive. It’s research on reactor efficiency. Excited by the find, Jacqueline talks to a passing caravan trader, asking them to find someone willing to buy the data. Unfortunately, this move would attract unwanted attention.
Fallout 4: Rising Tensions Among the Residents of University Point
Somehow, knowledge of the reactor research would reach theFallout 4faction, the Institute. They then send Kellogg to University Point to demand the data. He gives the settlers two days to hand it over before they “do this the hard way," and the mayor then holds a meeting with the town council to tell them what happened. Gerald is present in the meeting and immediately realizes that the reactor research is what his daughter found.
Though the mayor tells the council to keep the issue under wraps, it doesn’t take long before rumors spread. Some start thinking that theInstitute wants their children, while others think they just want to take Jacqueline. Others also believe there’s a nuclear bomb underneath the settlement and that the Institute intends to detonate it. Eventually, the settlers set their sights on Jacqueline, blaming her for the whole situation and even sending her hateful messages — on the mail relay system she, herself, got up and running.
Fallout 4: The Fall of University Point
Gerald grounded her daughter to protect her from the Institute as well as their own neighbors, but tensions were still high. Another resident sent Gerald a message, explaining that perhaps the best thing for them to do is leaveFallout 4’s Commonwealth. Because even if the Institute didn’t attack, they’d still have the other residents to worry about, and many of the other residents were more than happy to condemn his family.
Meanwhile, Jacqueline headed back into the university ruins, going against her father’s wishes. She wantedto find the research the Institutewas looking for. Maybe she thought giving them what they wanted would save the residents. In a holotape to her dad, she cites that the research has something to do with “that professor” — likely Professor Campbell. Jacqueline successfully finds out where the rest of the data she needs is but is unable to get it as the Institute already issued an attack on University Point.
With no research to present to Kellogg, the Institute sent hostile synths to attack University Point. The settlers tried to fight back against the onslaught but failed. They’d also asked for help from the Minutemen, but according toPreston Garvey, the residents were wiped out before the Minutemen could respond. By the time the Sole Survivor arrives at the former settlement, it’s still teeming with synths, all probably looking for the research Jacqueline had sought. Should the player choose, they can kill the hostile synths and take the research for themselves (which comes in the form ofa unique energy weapon).
All of this, for what amounts to a weapon.
Fallout 4is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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