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Sugar Grove is a location in the Savage Divide region of Appalachia in 2102.
Background
Sugar Grove was an officially designated Naval Radio Station Sugar Grove housing Sugar Grove Sigint, billed as simply just another installation supporting the war effort. However, beneath the veneer of legitimacy, the concrete walls of the installation concealed one of the most important intelligence facilities in the United States: A black site focusing on homeland security using any means necessary. This meant monitoring the miners in Appalachia for seditious sentiments (such as calls for unionization and anti-automation, considered "mostly harmless),[1] complex investigations of money trails for Chinese connections,[2] and as the situation in Appalachia escalated following the increase in automation and the Free States' secession, investigating strikers for communist connections[3] and keeping tabs on the secessionists. The Free Staters were considered to be a minor problem, as long as they stayed in their bunkers.[4] All collected intelligence was documented and deposited in the facility's vast archival system.[5] Naturally, the facility's commander had a vested interest in keeping everything that took place within Sugar Grove secret. Gould implemented a strict policy concerning outside communications: All inquiries or requests for information from outside sources had to be cleared by either him or Captain West, to protect the incredibly sensitive nature of the work.[6]
It goes without saying that Sugar Grove played a role in suppressing dissent and opposition, going beyond just watching. In just one instance, Edgar Aarsen, a random Appalachian, attracted attention for his union attendance in March 2075. A surveillance warrant was issued on August 13, with an arrest warrant following just two days after New Year's. Within three months Aarsen was dead, with his children, Martin and Olivia, adopted within a month. He was hardly the only American to meet this fate.[7] The facility was also experimenting extensively with a variety of surveillance technologies through the Advanced Research Projects Division, many of which were ethically challenged. Perhaps the most notorious of these projects was the Somnus Initiative, an initiative that used hypnosis and drugs to turn willing folks into sleeper agents used by the Navy. Disguised from other analysts as external contractors, the initiative started in late August 2077 and the numerous Appalachians were abducted and processed, with a rather spotty success record that included maiming, mind damage, and accidental creation of superhuman martial artists.[8]
Other projects were less successful. These include BR-04, Project LOCUST, which sought to develop a self-directed Vertibot swarm capable of covertly accessing enemy installations, hacking into mainframe systems, and extracting data of interest. It was abandoned after engineering estimates indicated that Vertibots equipped with Project LOCUST technology would be approximately the size of a consumer sedan, making covert actions by a swarm of such robots infeasible.[9] RD-68 BARRIER attempted to develop an electromagnetic suppression field capable of dampening gamma radiation, providing a counter to radiation weapons and enabling operations directly after a tactical nuclear strike. Although initial tests were promising, the field emitter required exponentially more power to operate at scale: Shielding an area 20 feet (6 meters) in radius would require three industrial nuclear reactors. It was also scrapped.[10] KM-41 SPOTLIGHT was an attempt to develop a neutrino pulse emitter capable of remotely scanning enemy installations and reconstructing an internal map of the facility. A field test of conducted on a civilian office building on June 22, 2077 resulted in mass civilian casualties following a sudden mass psychotic episode. The project was scrapped, though its potential usefulness for military applications was noted.[11]
There were two semi-successful projects. The first was CX-15 or Project SIPHON, an attempt to develop an automated data exfiltration holotape by Patricia Nunes, capable of scanning hostile networks, detecting data sources of interest, compressing the data, and extracting it for later analysis. By June 2077 it achieved a successful data compression ratio of 200:1, but the cost of iridium-infused magnetic tapes ($15 million per), and multiple personal use issues resulting in two lost tapes, forced the project to be put under tight control.[12] Access was strictly limited to covert operations specialists of Grade-V or above with prior authorization, with the head of the SigInt Analysis team forcing the system to log every check-out of the holotapes. After all, a single SIPHON was twice the annual budget of the entire SigInt Analysis division.[13]
However, while SIPHON was a siphon for resources, it was dwarfed by Kyle Lockhart's EX-72 PULSAR, attempting to develop tactical electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons for use by agents in disabling or destroying turrets, robots, and other electronic security systems.[14] Although the project called for extensive testing and analysis, progress was slow. A test cycle required the analysts to fire the weapon, break down the robot, analyze the damage, reset and recalibrate, then wait for a new robot. Even with a fabricator on-site, they could only perform four tests in a day, at best. October 4, 2077, represented that peak capacity.[15] As a talented engineer, Lockhart soon managed to create a workaround: He can set up the fabrication pod to assemble a robot, pipe the fabricator's steam release into a hydraulic actuator to trigger the weapon, and then have the fabricator disassemble the robot and save off the results. The whole cycle took about eight minutes. Lockhart took the next week off for a well-earned vacation, leaving the testing on automatic.[16]
This lack of discipline quickly started to affect Sugar Grove operations, especially since Lockhart neglected to inform his colleagues about the experiment. By the 9th, auxiliary generators had to be brought online.[17] By the 11th, the routine started to consume runaway amounts of storage[18] and forced the facility to tap into the Monongah power grid after the tests burned out eight generators. The tap siphoned enough power to cause brownouts.[19] By the 13th, the routine consumed all available space, forcing a secondary tape drive to be brought online. Then the third. And fourth. It capped out at 58, i.e. all the available storage in the facility.[20]
Lockhart returned to work on the 18th, to a mound of garbage data filling up the drives and no way to sift through it all. Worse yet, General Thomas McAllen, responsible for oversight at the facility, took notice of the impact Lockhart's test had and threatened to sack Lockhart for interfering with a facility crucial to the war effort. Lockhart was given a week to provide a report and an explanation for the incident.[21] [22] In his own words, the automated test routine has eaten all the data storage on the base, enough power to run Watoga for a year, and more raw materials than the 81st Armored. And he had to dig a golden needle out of it in less than a week.[23]
He realized the futility of the work by the 21st, with less than four days to go. The test data was fragmented across the mainframe and the system couldn't handle the volume, leaving him with no means to access the data, much less analyze it. His only hopes lay with the SIPHON holotapes, but ever since the project was taken out from under his jurisdiction, he was not on the list of people permitted to access the holotapes. The strict controls instituted after repeated misuse also made "borrowing" it impossible.[24]
Mercifully for Lockhart - less so for the entire humanity - the Great War prevented General McAllen's visit. The operatives apparently used the base for a length of time, even preparing to destroy the intelligence they've gathered using gas cans, turning the whole archives into a bonfire. However, they never seemed to complete the task by throwing the lit matches on the pyre, allowing the robotic staff on-site to preserve it and the system operations. In 2102, MODUS would target the facility, seeking to reestablish its severed connections and tap into the vast Appalachian surveillance network.[25]
Layout
The facility is nested on the side of a hill, easily recognizable for the concrete walls surrounding it and the massive bunker attached to an otherwise welcoming office building. The parking lot is densely packed with derelict cars.
The opening area contains offices and a reception desk, together with a number of robots and a turret. Access to the facility and the bunker is through the door in the back. Player characters can access the roof of the structure by crossing one of the fallen trees from the cliff overlooking the building. The complex can alternatively be entered through a hole in the roof.
Interior
The interior is divided into three distinct sections. The first one entered is the office area, where analysts tried to crack the secrets of the intel provided to them. The main feature is the pile of once secret documents in the center of the room, surrounded by gas cans and ready for a send-off. The adjacent rooms are mostly empty, save for minor loot and piled-up furniture. The corridor in the back leads between two derelict conference rooms down below. At the bottom of the staircase, through low-level robots, lies the security checkpoint and more offices to the side. The offices contain traces of habitation and wrecked office equipment, as well as an intelligence dispenser (used in the quest One of Us). The checkpoint contains hallways covered by a pair of ceiling-mounted turrets. They can be disabled from the booth in the landing area.
Through the checkpoint is the heart of the facility, with broken DEFCON indicators welcoming newcomers to the black site. To the right is a hallway leading up to the Sugar Grove director's office, with a terminal and loot. To the left is a hallway that leads to the aforementioned Advanced Research Projects laboratory, filled with rogue robots courtesy of Lockhart's fabricator and the ARP terminal. Down the center lies the SigInt hall.
The SigInt hall contains signals intelligence analysts' terminals (where the player character has to upload MODUS' holotape during One of Us), various holotapes about cryptid sightings, a conference room to the left and the archives chamber - mostly spotless, save for radroaches - to the right. The archives chamber contains a safe at the far end. In the far left corner, on top of the computer and near the safe, is a wooden crate. The opening faces the wall, but it contains the blacksite guard key needed to access the Somnus division.
Somnus Division
Accessed from the rear of the facility, the facility requires the Blacksite guard key, located in the Archives wing of the SigInt facility (see above). Once inside, down the flight of stairs lies the Somnus facility, where the Navy processed abducted citizens into sleeper agents. It is shaped like a circle, with the infirmary and processing chamber in the northern half and the cells in the southern. The control center and break room for the staff is to the west.
The cells are locked. Three of the necessary keys are located on the trolley in the break room, while another is on the shelves in the processing room control chamber.
Notable loot
Main building
- Blank holotapes - Coming down from the stairs from the facility's entrance into the lower part of the facility, go straight through the first door and make a left. Go up the stairs into the room on the right. The blank holotapes are scattered around a desk in the back of that room.
- I'm watching you - Note, on a desk in the same room as the blank holotapes.
- Cryptid sighting: Grafton monster 9/27 - Holotape, found on a desk in the main room with the large screens near one of the terminals in the second row.
- Cryptid sighting: Snallygaster 10/4 - Holotape, found on the same desk.
- Cryptid sighting: Wendigo 10/25 - Holotape, found on the same desk.
- Charleston Herald Exclusive: The Motherlode - Holotape, found in the same room, near one of the terminals in the front row.
- Project Siphon holotape - Holotape, from the analyst's terminal which is found in one of the small offices in the lower part of the main facility.
- Automated call recording
- C.H. Monthly, October - Note, under a counter at the front reception desk area on the left side.
- Blacksite guard key - In the far back left of the server room inside Sugar Grove, contained within a small overturned box on top of the servers, not to be confused with the toolbox right by the entrance. Opens the blacksite which can be entered by going through the back door at the outside part of the facility.
- Around 40 clipboards can be found within Sugar Grove, a good source for springs. A particularly large quantity is found on a shelf in the main room with the large screens.
- Many pencils among the desks, including ten lined up on a metal shelf in the defcon room of the facility.
- Two random plans:
- On a cabinet behind the armor workbench.
- On the roof, on the staircase to the landing pad, on the second step to the left.
- Six potential Vault-Tec bobbleheads:
- In the green wall cabinet, in the northwest corner of the Advanced Research Laboratory, opposite the collection of blank holotapes, in the upper floor with the window.
- Behind the upturned orange cylindrical cabinet on the desk, inside the small storage room; the last room on the right if heading north at the bottom of the stairs on the lower level.
- On the far metal desk, in the curved corner of the narrow reception and security room, locked with a door (1) and terminal, off the lower lobby, en route to the mission control room.
- On or at the foot of the mainframe computer, in the northeast corner of The Archives.
- On the wooden table, in the green wallpapered cognitive programming room (with the three televisions), in the Secret Facility basement.
- On the wooden crates by the wall, near the two blue barrels, in the southwest corner of the Secret Facility, close to a security door and metal shelving.
- Six potential magazines:
- On the half-buried curio cabinet, left of the Project Director's Terminal, in the upper office with a window overlooking the mission control room, with the Archive Dispenser Vending Machine in the southwest corner.
- On the yellow machinery, inside the security mesh walled area of the Advanced Research Laboratory, near the collection of blank holotapes, in the upper floor with the window.
- On the small round table with the Lunch Pail on it, near the Nuka-Cola machine, on the north stepped side of the Mission Control room.
- Vertical, jammed between two cardboard boxes, in the center of the shelves of boxes at the foot of the huge map screen, in the Mission Control room.
- Below the red wrist rest shelf, at the central mainframe computer in the middle of The Archives.
- Poking out of the small side table shelf, in the green wallpapered cognitive programming room (with the three televisions), in the Secret Facility basement.
Blacksite
- Cell key A6-KH, 89-AX, B2-RS and V5-XF - These keys open various cell doors located within the Blacksite - Enter the door into the Blacksite from the rear of the exterior part of the facility and go downstairs to the room with TVs. B2-RS will be on a metal bookshelf just on the other side of a hole in the wall. Continue through the hole to the next room and the remaining keys will be on a metal table to your left. There is another key, W9-FZ, in Huntersville.
- Random magazine - At the second interrogation chair room, underneath a small table.
Appearances
Sugar Grove appears only in Fallout 76.
Behind the scenes
Sugar Grove is based on Sugar Grove Station, a National Security Agency communications site outside the community of Sugar Grove, West Virginia.
Gallery
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "6-16-77: Mining Chatter"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "8-9-77: Mama Dolce's"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "9-20-77: Grafton Communists"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "10-13-77: Free States"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "9-10-77: Intel Preservation Directive"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "10-18-77: Unauthorized Communication Policy"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "ARCHIVES: Index"
- ↑ See Somnus Initiative for references.
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "BR-04 "LOCUST" - Vertibot Bugging Network"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "RD-68 BARRIER - Radiation Suppression Field"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "KM-41 SPOTLIGHT - Neutrino Pulse Emitter"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "CX-15 SIPHON - Data Exfiltration Program"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "9-22-77: SIPHON Holotapes"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "EX-72 PULSAR - EMP Weapons Development"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "Research Log: 10/4/77"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "Research Log: 10/7/77"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "10-9-77: Power Use"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "10-11-77: Mainframe Storage"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "10-11-77: RE: Power Use - URGENT"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "10-13-77: Disk Write Errors"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "10-18-77: Project PULSAR"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "10-21-77: RE: SIPHON Holotape"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "Research Log: 10/18/77"
- ↑ Sugar Grove terminal entries: "Research Log: 10/21/77"
- ↑ One of Us