The Cambridge Polymer Labs is a location in Fallout 4 that triggers a quest which involves completing an experiment to acquire a special piece of power armor. While the armor is no doubt useful for surviving in the wasteland, there’s a reason why this project remained unfinished.
Terminal entries and notes within the building reveal the tragic story of the Cambridge Polymer Labs project - as well as the deception that ultimately led to the working scientists’ demise. Taken together, it makes the Cambridge Polymer Labs and its brief quest one of the darkest that players can find in Fallout 4.
The Lab Before the Events of Fallout 4
The Cambridge Polymer Labs was founded in 2074 by three graduate students from the Commonwealth Institute of Technology: Jon Elwood, Ericka Woolum, and Wilfred Bergman. The year prior, they had been researching nucleostrictive and piezoelectric polymers, which got the attention of Colonel George Kemp of the US armed forces. Upon opening the company, the students were given a sizable grant by the Defense Experimental Research Project Initiative.
Jon took the role of Director, focusing on communication and public relations matters with the company’s clients. Meanwhile, Ericka and Wilfred worked as scientists and were more hands-on with contracts. It’s also worth noting that, at some point, Jon and Ericka got married, so Ericka changed her name to Ericka Elwood-Woolum.
From its foundation, the company fostered a strong relationship with the military and took on many of its contracts. One of the most notable projects involved the creation of a number of components that were used to build Liberty Prime. Meanwhile, its most recent contract was ordered by Kemp for the team to manufacture piezonucleic lining to be used in power armor.
The Advent of the Great War
Power armor with piezonucleic lining is meant to harvest radiation and then convert it into usable energy. According to Ericka’s terminal entries, initial testing with a prototype was successful, but it also caused an unwanted chemical reaction wherein the armor material steadily acquired a buildup of thermal waste. This caused the armor to break down after extended use - in this case, a matter of days. The team amended their approach by thinning the armor material to allow for more heat dispersal and this seemed to work, effectively increased the armor’s lifespan from a matter of days to years.
However, Kemp was not pleased with the team’s output. The thinner material made the armor more susceptible to shredding under duress. As such, the weave was unsuitable for power armor, even with its ability to absorb radioactive energy. Following this, the colonel threatened to pull the company’s funding if he didn’t see results, so Ericka and the rest of the team went back to testing.
The Failure of the Nucleostrictive Lining Project
Sometime after, Kemp would contact Jon to ask about the status of the project. In Jon’s terminal entries, he notes that the colonel didn’t seem angry, Kemp simply said that the team needed to continue working on the project and contact him once it was complete. Jon would later realize this was a warning.
At the time, the Commonwealth was hit by a nuclear strike, rendering the outside world unsafe. Jon, wanting to keep his team safe, lied. He announced that everyone was required to undertake mandatory overtime, keeping the entire workforce within the facility. He also lied to cover up the carnage that was going on outside, saying there were military training exercises going on and that the sounds of tanks or gunfire were nothing to be worried about. Finally, in an act of desperation, Jon used his terminal access to lock the scientists - including his wife - within the facility.
Jon still opted to send a message to Ericka, telling her the truth about the situation. In his email to her, he reveals that Kemp has the resources needed to escort the team to safety, but that it won’t happen unless they finish the project. Ericka is distraught by the revelation, but after learning about the circumstances she decides to continue working.
Wilfred, one of the co-founders of the company, disregarded the project altogether and began to plot an escape. He first tried to burrow his way out of the inner facility but couldn’t get past its thick outer wall. Abandoning this, he tried hacking into the system to find a way of overriding Jon’s control. By this time, bombs had compromised the facility’s Isotope Containment chamber where the team kept the radioactive elements of their research, meaning that the entire team was slowly being poisoned. All the while, Jon was going in and out to gather supplies. On one occasion, he caught a stray bullet to the shoulder and later died from sepsis. However, he already had a radio prepared that the team could use to request military extraction.
Meanwhile, Ericka was still hard at work, oblivious to the fact that her husband was dead. In one of her last emails to Jon, she reveals that they’re close to a breakthrough, but that Wilfred has barricaded himself in the lab, keeping the team from the samples that they need to test the prototype. She resorted to opening a crawl space and using it to try and get to Wilfred. Yet Wilfred had gotten hold of the facility’s automated defense systems and intended to trigger a security breach. While this would open all the doors and allow everyone to escape, it would also release a wave of hostile robots that killed all the scientists within the facility.
In Fallout 4, hundreds of years after the scientists’ death, the player can make their way through the derelict and ghoul-infested facility to gather the necessary components that finish what the team started. As it turns out, Ericka’s new method would have yielded a sturdy prototype, putting a bittersweet end to the Cambridge Polymer Labs project.
Fallout 4 is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
