| Baggie High | |
| |
| General Information | |
| Establishment: | 2202 |
| Status: | Burned to the ground |
| Location Information | |
| Location: | Detroit Wasteland |
| Societal Information | |
| Notable Individuals: | *Maurice Spackler
|
| Factions: | Army of Revolution |
| Notable Events: | Founding, Revolutionary War |
Once the largest single source of chems in the Detroit Wasteland, Baggie High was the result of a raider group turning legitimate, flipping their operations into a functional community. Until recently, it was under the control of the Army of Revolution, who repurposed it towards their own needs. Then it caught on fire and burned to the ground.
History
The foundation of Baggie High lies primarily with one opportunistic man. Maurice “Bagface” Baggie was a largely self-taught Ghoul who had become proficient in the cooking of various chems. Realising that his talent could make him rich, Baggie had gone into business for himself as a chem dealer, showing little concern over who he sold to. However, rather then making himself rich, Baggie had instead managed to make himself unwelcome in just about every community in the Detroit Wasteland.
Left homeless, Baggie wandered the wastes looking for a place to set up shop as an independent dealer that would also provide him with a modicum of protection. In mid-2202, this wandering bought him into contact with the Toxic Wastors, a raider group who operated out of a pre-war high school in the north side of the Detroit Wasteland. The Wastors were particularly prone to chem abuse, even by raider standards, which gave Baggie an avenue to forming an alliance with the band. He approached them, offering his services as a chem cooker while also promising them a cut of his income from legitimate sales. Seeing both a source of caps and a way to get high, Gasman (the then leader of the Toxic Wastors) agreed to the deal.
Baggie set up shop in the Wastor’s school headquarters and proved to be true to his word. Within days of his arrival, he was pumping out chems for the raiders, sating their appetites with quality material (Gasman described his Jet as being “Cut with the best brahmin shit I’ve ever tasted”) while removing their need to steal chems from others. Baggie quickly became popular with the gang, held up as being their good luck charm and mascot of sorts. After Gasman died of an accidental overdose in 2205 (the result of trying to combine Psychojet with Bufftats), Baggie was voted new leader of the gang,
Under his control, the Toxic Wastors began to slowly change their focus. The supply of chems was bringing in more and more caps, further reducing their need for raiding. At the same time, the gang was attracting others who were drawn to them not out of the usual raider motivations of violence, greed or desperation, but instead looking for shelter and a steady supply of chems. Baggie began recruiting from these crowds, looking for assistants to help keep up with his growing demands, as well as traders and dealers to provide steady income.
By the time of Baggie’s death in 2241 (Ironically. he was killed in a chemical lab explosion), the former Toxic Wastors had transformed themselves into a legitimate community, albeit one that was focused around a very specific industry. The town’s leadership chose to rename the community to Baggie High, the name being both a reference to the school buildings that were its heart and stoner humour at work. The Toxic Wastors remained, but were now more of a police and security force, protecting the community, maintaining order and ensuring the safety of its chem dealers. Even if Baggie High was not well liked by other communities, it still did ample trade with them, acquiring raw materials for chems and providing ample caps in return.
Baggie High rode the good times for as long as it could, but the come-down was harsh. Due to its position on the north side of the Detroit Wastes, the community was one of the first targeted in the Revolutionary War. Not expecting to ever face a large-scale attack, the Toxic Wastors were quickly overwhelmed, with the community falling in the opening days of the conflict. Due to its position, and the fact that nobody else actually liked them, it remained in the Army of Revolution’s hands after their retreat.
For the last three years it has remained under their control, a situation that is unlikely to change any time soon. Under the army's hand, Baggie High's output has been largely re-purposed towards supplying the army. It produces Stimpacks, Radaway and Rad-X, Med-X and other useful medicines. It also still outputs a fair amount of Chems, however, which are mostly sold on the open market to bring revenue in to the Army.
The Army of Revolution soon found another use for Baggie High, one that would lead to both high times and a harsh crash for the community. After a vital outbreak in the Foundry, the Army negotiated a deal to trade the meds that they needed for more guns. While their terms were supposedly to offset the lost trade form the ongoing strife in Scrap Iron City, the truth was that the Army were basically blackmailing the Foundry.
This was only made possible in the first place because of the skill and capabilities of Baggie High’s chem labs and their staff of dedicated mixologists. At first, they proved to be up to the Army’s demands, churning out chems all day long. However, the Army’s leadership decided that they were not doing enough (Or, at the very least, that they weren’t getting enough from the Foundry in return for their efforts), and forced their crews to step up production.
Soon Baggie High’s crews were working around the clock to fulfil demands in ever increasingly unsafe conditions. This coincided with an exceptionally cold and harsh February which saw those working inside the chem labs, especially overnight, use whatever means they could just to keep warm as they slaved away. As the Army’s overseers became more and more demanding, Baggie High’s already lax safety standards began to slide.
Given that there was an environment of exhausted, stressed workers slaving over unstable chemicals and sacks of mutant cow dung in poorly ventilated rooms filled with open flames, it was probably inevitable that something would go wrong. And it did. At 2:30 am on a cold February morning, a fire started in one of the labs that quickly spread out of control, fuelled by the overabundance of flammable materials at hand. The lab exploded, and the fire quickly spread across the school building.
This outcome was probably inevitable
Lacking any sort of firefighting equipment, the people of Baggie high were powerless to stop the blaze. Panic set in as residents and workers alike fled not only the building, but the settlement itself. The Army of Revolution garrison tried to contain the fire in the name of salvaging the situation, but quickly found that they too were powerless. Realising that all was lost, (commander) gathered up his remaining men and retreated towards Scrap Iron City.
The fire would continue to burn for some hours before eventually running out of material and being smothered by fresh snowfall. By the time it was done, however, Baggie High was reduced to just a shell. A recon mission from the Army of Revolution confirmed that there was nothing left of any real value to them. Most of the remaining population had fled to Arsetown or were now headed towards Scrap Iron City, serving only to flood the already troubled community.
Worst of all, the Army of Revolution had just lost its only leverage over the Foundry.
Description
Baggie High grew out of the original Toxic Wastor den in a pre-war school. As the community grew, the school buildings were no longer able to contain its population; as such, its grounds became festooned with shanties, lean-tos and tents to house its burgeoning population. Crude walls made from salvaged materials were used to barricade the school grounds off form the outside world, and provide a modicum of defense. These barricades proved to be less then effective against the heavy weapons available to the Army of Revolution and were easily breached. Subsequently, they have been rebuilt in order to cement the Revolutionaries’ control.
Typical safe, clean, sanitary working conditions in Baggie High
Years of neglect have not been kind to the main school buildings. Their structure is less then sound, and functioning under years of makeshift repairs with whatever materials come to hand. Added to this, years of use as a Chem lab has left much of the building saturated with chemicals that haven't been even remotely properly handled or cleaned up. As if this wasn't bad enough, much of the working materials used by the chem crews is haphazardly stored wherever is convenient with no eye to safety. Basically, the whole place is a bomb.
It doesn't help that, under the Army of Revolution, strict production quotas have been placed that keeps the chem crews working around the clock. Accidents are becoming more and more frequent as the workers struggle to make targets and take more and more shortcuts.
Prior to its occupation, Baggie High prided itself on being a den of vice and sleaze. Aside from the roaring chem trade, prostitution and trafficking ran rife, all under the control of the community’s leadership who would gladly support them in exchange for a cut of the takings. Those that refused to deal with the authorities quickly found themselves dead. While slavery was officially banned as a way of legitimizing the community in the eyes of others, the truth was that those who were unable to make payments to their chem dealers would usually find themselves “employed” in order to work off their debts.
Ironically, under the Army of Revolution’s rule, the town has actually been cleaned up to a degree. Now most of the community’s output goes into providing chems to the Army’s soldiers for battlefield use, as well as medical supplies. Much of the rest of the community has been turned over to farming, scavenging or other activities that can support the Army and its aims. The standing guard of Revolutionary soldiers serve as a police force, and have proven to be more reliable and effective then the Toxic Wastors ever were.
The one thing the Revolutionaries haven't cleaned up are the community's safety conditions. The Army keeps the labs going as long as they can to keep the production of chems flowing. This is both for their own purposes and for trade, so they can try to offset the millstone that Scrap Iron City has become.
The chemical and brahmin poo fuelled explosion worked well with Baggie High’s poor condition to accelerate the subsequent fire. The result was that Baggie High was reduced to an uninhabitable burned-out shell that then collapsed in upon itself, leaving nothing behind but a pile of rubble. Nothing inside was salvageable, especially not the various equipment used in the chem labs or the massive stockpiles of chems and meds that the Army of Revolution had already built up.
Population
Prior to its occupation, Baggie High had a large Ghoul population. This was the result of its being seen as an ‘anything goes’ community where Ghouls would not face discrimination or persecution, as well as its holding up a Ghoul as a prominent community founder and hero. The rest of the population were human; as accepting as the community was, Super Mutants were seen as nothing more than a threat.
Despite the Army of Revolution’s human supremacist beliefs, the community has maintained much of its former Ghoul population. As long as they are useful to the community and the Army’s goals, the Ghouls are tolerated, even if they are not well liked. A significant portion is made up of the Army of Revolution’s standing garrison, due to the community’s value and its position on the front line of any future conflict.
After the fire, the survivors largely fled to Arsetown or Scrap Iron City, while the Army of Revolution's garrison relocated to the latter. Save for the odd scavenger, the ruins of Baggie High were left depopulated.
Government
Baggie High is under military control, with the Army of Revolution’s garrison commander also serving as the town’s mayor and having full control over its people. For the last two years, the commander of the AoR garrison has been Captain Maurice Spackler, who lead the initial invasion of the community. A harsh, humorless man, Spacker has also proven to be completely incorruptible. All attempts to bribe him, be they with chems, caps, women, men, comic books or whatever else have proven futile, suggesting that he was chosen for this post for good reason.
The most important position in the town after the military commander is the Chemist in Chief, who is in charge of Chem manufacturing. The current holder of the position is “Hat Trick” Lemonade, who ascended to the position after the previous Chemist in Chief was shot for refusing to obey orders. Lemonade has thrown himself into his work, and is constantly looking for ways to improve production and keep the Army off his back.
Notable Inhabitants
Maurice Speckler
The Army of Revolution’s millitary commander in Baggie High, Maurice Speckler has been with the Army all his life. A strict believer in their goals, he makes no effort to hide his disgust at what he calls the ‘human refuse’ that inhabit the settlement. This is especially true of its substantial Ghoul population, whom he only tolerates because they perform essential labour. During the war, Speckler lead the attack on Baggie High that resulted in its capture. As a sign of what was to come, the surviving Toxic Wastors were simply executed to serve as an example.
Not only does he rule the settlement with an iron hand, but he has proven to be utterly incorruptible. Attempts to bribe him have resulted in those involved being publicly hung for their crimes. There have been several efforts by members of the community to eliminate him, but so far, all have instead been discovered before they could act, and the conspirators executed. Attempts thus far to find a weakness that can be exploited have also failed; he simply seems to have no family, friends, external relations or other vices.
Hat Trick Lemonade
Born in Baggie High, Hat Trick Lemonade started out as a courtier and chem runner for the town’s burgeoning trade. Through hard work and effort, he worked his way up through the food chain within the chem industry. His hard work paid off to a degree when the Army of Revolution took over the settlement and executed the leadership and those that refused to work with them, leaving Hat Trick as the highest ranking member of the trade alive.
Quick witted and sly, Hat Trick is only interested in his own survival and comfort. He has no desire to move against Speckler because of the risk it would bring to his own person. Likewise, for the moment, it remains in his best interest to keep the Revolutionaries in power, as they are actively supporting the chem industry and thus lining his pockets. His biggest risk is his skimming off the top of the takings, building a personal emergency reserve for if things should ever turn against him. That worked out well for him when, after Baggie's destruction, he fled to Arsetown and became their top chem dealer.
Quotes
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