Pylon V-13

Pylon V-13 is a location in the Cranberry Bog region of Appalachia in Fallout 76. It is an abandoned monorail tower at the far end of the region, overlooking the historical border of West Virginia.

Background[]

This structure is built on one of the Appalachian monorail pylons, the 13th from RobCo Research Center. This section was going to be used by Professor Greebly, a somewhat reputable scientist, as part of an experiment attempting to conduct time travel by moving through dimensions at a high speed.^{[1][Non-game 1]}

He published a press release, declaring his intent to use this monorail as a chariot to go "skipping across timelines."^[1] It is unclear if he recorded this press release before or after the War (possibly for the press of the Charleston Emergency Government).

Several scientists and/or engineers lived here for some time after the War, and modified the structure. Their relationship to Professor Greebly is unclear. They lived here long enough to have a mailbox and workshop. Some or all of them eventually died here, and their clothed skeletons litter the location. One is under a bed, and another can be found on the ground directly beneath the rear window of the tram. There are six beds and five human bodies here.

When the Dwellers of Vault 76 discovered Pylon V-13 in 2102, it was highly radioactive and sparking. By the end of the year, the radiation dissipated. For the next few years, the modified ring continued to discharge four arcs of electricity several times per minute. The combustion generator sticking out of the door of the front tram has remained running.

By 2105, the electrical activity has grown more frequent and erratic. It now discharges roughly every eight seconds, and produces three to eight arcs.

Layout[]

Exterior[]

The ground-level location consists of a dilapidated wooden structure, which houses a weapons workbench and leatherworking bench. Another room contains the remains of an inner tube and inflatable raft. There are many gas tanks, air tanks, and buckets throughout the location. A mailbox marks the entrance to a flight of stairs leading up the pylon to the middle entrance of a three-car monorail, pointed south.

Interior[]

Upon entering, the player may hear a radio to the left which plays static, immediately opposite an elevated sleeping bag. Continuing in this direction, the player will enter the domicile portion of the train. Above the open door of the rear train, they have affixed a satellite dish. A functional TV is installed nearby. Heading to the front of the monorail, there is a dining table to the right, lined up on one side of the front car. Past this is a medium generator sticking out of an open door. At the end of this room, Professor Greebley's press release sits next to a microscope, on a shelf just above another which bears the periodic table.

Modified pylon[]

The north end of the train is supported by the pylon that Greebly intended to use to travel through time. One can step out of a broken window onto another wooden platform that leads to the pylon. The circle has about fifty boards attached to it, and a permanently active tesla coil at the top, which damages the player. In the conductor's chamber is a button that activates additional tesla coils when pressed, which loudly spark until they individually break.

Bodies[]

There are two skeletons dressed as scientists in the rear car. Another lies on the ground by the rear pylon near the treasure mound for Cranberry Bog treasure map #4, and a fourth in the front car by the generator. At the front of the train, there is a skeleton dressed as a mechanic, piled near the walkway extending from the conductor's chamber to the crackling ring.

Enemies[]

Area spawns[]

• An identical pair of randomized large creatures is always encountered immediately behind the stair pylon, such as anglers, mirelurk hunters, gulpers, or snallygasters.
  • They spawn as a powerful variant such as glowing or scorched. Some large creatures have other powerful variants which can appear here.
  • This pair of creatures occasionally spawn within the train cars, and are unable to move in the cramped space. Normally, there are no creatures within the tram.
• A behemoth supported by super mutants roams the field between the sparking pylon and Abandoned Bog Town, who must be defeated to claim the workshop there.
• On the opposite side of the monorail, a trio of floaters nest by the water of the Old Mold Quarry.

• Scorchbeasts fly by this area frequently, usually towards or away from the End Zone due south. They tend to travel parallel to the track and pass very close to the train itself. They may also linger here to attack creatures or workshop objects present in the yard between the ruins and the pylon.
• Occasionally, a hermit crab can be spotted roaming the field past the fourteenth pylon.

Chance-based encounters[]

• Insult Bot can also spawn inside of the train car area, and will be unable to navigate the stairs back down to the ground. It can be pushed out of a door, which will probably result in its destruction by fall damage.
• When their event is active, mole miner treasure hunters may be found here, looting the train.
• Raider thieves never spawn here, but may spawn at either of the quarries nearby. Former raiders never spawn here.

Notable loot[]

• Professor Greebley's press release - Holotape, on a table on the southern end of the train, next to a microscope.
• Rich Taylor's testament - Note, found on a rock next to the below-mentioned duffle bag.
• Toolbox key - To the northwest of the pylon, in a duffle bag on a wooden stump with the aforementioned note on it. Opens toolbox east of Watoga with key to Clara's box in it.
• Potential Vault-Tec bobblehead - In the southern end of the monorail suspended from the rails, on a barrel.
• Two potential magazines:
  • In the connecting part of the suspended monorail carriage, half a carriage north of the top of the exterior pylon steps, on the left side (heading north), on top of the mattress.
  • In the northern car of the suspended monorail carriage, near the TV and small satellite dish, on the plank with the sleeping bag across from the skeleton draped on the seat.
• Three potential plans:
  • Next to the weapons workbench on the ground, on a metal table. (Weapon/weapon mod plan)
  • In the train car with a working radio, in front of the radio box. (Workshop plan)
  • In the train car with a satellite dish, on the shelf with torque pieces. (Workshop plan)
• Potential weapon mod - Next to the weapons workbench on the ground, on a metal table.
• Potential recipe - In the train car with dining utensils and drinking glasses on a shelf, on the opposite shelf.
• Stealth Boy - In the train car with a satellite dish, behind the shelf with torque pieces.
• Three Mr. Handy fuel tanks, several batteries, and a microscope.

Notes[]

Environmental[]

• At the ground level, a single scorched has petrified near the doorway to the workshop.
• The flag on the mailbox is half-raised. Like most mailboxes in the game, the mailbox can be looted for random junk.
• Cranberry Bog treasure map #4 was drawn from inside the rear car. The car does not appear to be damaged in this depiction.
• One of the bodies has been shoved under a bed.

Electrical[]

• The radio near the entrance plays only static, and can be turned off. In the residential portion of the train, a functional television is affixed to the seating, and a satellite dish has been installed above the nearby open door.
• The presence of an active medium generator in the front car suggests someone is regularly filling it with fuel. This entire location is littered with buckets and gas tanks. There is also a Stealth Boy in the rear car.
• Standing within the modified pylon once caused the player to take acute radiation damage. As of the first content update, Wild Appalachia, the radiation was no longer present. Standing in the ring still causes the player to take damage from the arcing electricity.
• Some of the world objects here appear to be standard workshop power objects. As of the Fallout Worlds update, Fallout 1st players can build a CAMP here on a custom private world. Attempts to interface with the circuitry at this location have been unsuccessful.
  • The generator can be highlighted and selected, but cannot be moved or deleted, and cannot have wires successfully attached to it. The same is true of the Tesla arc traps.
    • There is a red button in the front car, which activates every Tesla arc trap simultaneously. Their connectors are visibly not attached to wires.
  • 
    Several power connectors form a line between the generator and the ring, and there are several more around the ring itself. Despite having the appearance of normal workshop power nodes, all are non-functional world geometry.
  • The always-active node at the top of the ring is not a generic power connector and cannot be interacted with.
• The Tesla traps can be damaged by players.

Occultic[]

• In south-eastern Ash Heap, the thirteenth pylon from the other end of the track has been converted into a Towering Might totem by the Cult of the Mothman. As of the cultists' return to the state, three of them can typically be found communing here.
  • Nearby, the eighth pylon bears an abandoned altar featuring the text "NOTHING IS real". The same text is found at an abandoned altar in Allegheny Asylum. This graffiti was also seen at sites desecrated by Sister Gwyneth in Far Harbor.

• When Vault raids were removed from the game in the lead-up to Wastelanders, the Vault 94 terminal entry which once started the mode was altered. It now contains the string of text "...System Error Codes (0-V13) (0x0-0x1f1)".
  • Vault 94 is the birthplace of the strangler vine.
  • Though the coding language is not known, "(0x0-0x1f1)" could reasonably be read as something like "(null-void:true)".
• Pylon V-13 can be seen clearly from the cultist camp founded in 2103 at the nearby flooded Old Mold Quarry, where adherents appear to be committing suicide. The modified ring can also clearly be seen through an opening in the trees when standing at a specific vantage at the Sacramental Glade, built in late 2104.
• Del Lawson, a lite ally introduced in the America's Playground update, mentions the modified pylon near Watoga in a set of lines which otherwise concern various cryptids. He describes it as "some weird science experiment" which "seemed abandoned," and "a big ring" "they'd built," "like for the train to pass through."

• The number 13 is assigned occultic significance at several points in the series.
  • The Children of the Cathedral serve an unseen council of thirteen high priests known as the Order.^[2]
  • The Arroyo tribesmen refer to their point of origin as the Vault of the Holy 13.^[3] The Vault 13 flask is a recurring relic of the Vault Dweller.^[4]
  • In Winter of Atom, the player party may encounter thirteen glowing ones who dance and stomp in a circle until they individually fall asleep.^{[Non-game 2]} They may also be forced to witness a video which cuts between a variety of disturbing footage, including clips of thirteen specific landmarks being obliterated across the world.^{[Non-game 3]}

Appearances[]

Pylon V-13 appears only in Fallout 76.

Behind the scenes[]

• V-13 is one way to shorten Vault 13, the starting point of the original Fallout. The V63 Zweihänder introduced in Skyline Valley codifies this convention for abbreviating the names of Vaults.
  • Pylon V-13 is situated in the farthest corner of the map from Vault 76, and points towards Fissure site Prime. It could be said that the Fallout series is currently bookended by locations called V-13.
  • The working title for Fallout was Vault 13: A GURPS Post-Nuclear Adventure, and the first lore document bears this name.
  • Project V13 was a canceled online Fallout game developed by Interplay Entertainment and Masthead Studios.
    • Greebley says people called him a "foolish old man."^[1] On release, the game would have been called Fallout Online, abbreviated as FOOL.
    • Greeble was a recurring character in The Armageddon Rag, the promotional newsletter for Project V13.
      • Greebley is a homophone of the word "greeble," as the "e" at the end of that word is not silent. The spelling of his name is also inconsistent, as his subtitles read "Professor Greebly." The characters' names may be phonetically identical.
      • Greeble is a term common in science fiction art design. It refers to small, scattered, simple details meant to add texture to the world.
    • Greebley explicitly posits the existence of multiple "timelines" and declares his intent to go "skipping across" them.^[1]
• The premise of an eccentric scientist using a vehicle to time travel by means of speed^[1] parallels that of the Back to the Future film franchise. Greebley speaks in a low, coarse voice with an archetypical "dottering mad scientist" affect, vaguely evoking the corresponding character Doc Brown. The series concerns characters averting death or time paradoxes through careful time travel.
• The periodic table asset found here differs from our world's periodic table, and bears the name "Todd Howard." See the pages for periodic table and the Children of Atom shrine where this asset was first deployed for more information.
  • A graffiti asset from this shrine highlighting one of the changed elements, Molybdenum, also reappears in Fallout 76. It can be seen along a trail north of the converted munitions factory.
• The mention of the pylon in America's Playground was the first textual allusion to Pylon V-13 in over five years, aside from the ostensibly coincidental error code at Vault 94.

Gallery[]

Exterior[]

Arcing electricity

On a rainy day

From afar

Satellite fixture

During a radstorm

Interior[]

Loot[]

Professor Greebley's press release

Cranberry Bog treasure map #4

References[]

Non-game