A Fallout 4 player shared a terminal entry from a quest, prompting other players to recall the sorrowful stories scattered throughout the game. Compared to urban ruins and mutated creatures, these brief lines on old computers preserve the memories of people who, two hundred years ago, still hoped the disaster would pass.
This story that sparked discussion comes from a paid content item in Bethesda's Creation Club. The quest begins with a note about family matters in the Boston Bugle building: a power outage trapped a family in the shelter, and players later find the children's graves. Since this content is not part of the base game, some veteran players had not encountered it before.
The comments section then discussed Cambridge Polymer Labs. The researchers trapped underground gradually fell into despair, and Director John's terminal reveals the reason: a colonel informed him in advance that nuclear bombs were imminent, and the military's condition for evacuation was that the lab produce results valuable to the front lines. John thus kept his colleagues, including his wife, in the lab, urging them to complete the piezoelectric coating without telling them the truth.
Some stories require piecing together information from different locations. In the West Everett shelter, a father received an early warning and took his sons inside, but their mother couldn't return from her shift at the hospital. Her holotape recording is located at the distant medical center; the family was later forced to leave the shelter due to raiders.
Other locations mentioned by players include Greater Mass Blood Clinic and the Ranger Cabin. At the former, a mother and child suffocated in the shelter, and the father later buried the child beside his wife; the latter contains the remains of a pregnant woman who was kicked out of her home the day before the war. Companions will also react when arriving at the Ranger Cabin. By following these records, players learn about the individual experiences of various families before the wasteland was formed.