Hey guys, I had this cool idea in my head, having watched SOMA gameplay AND been into Fallout 4 a lot. I wrote down my idea and I want to share it! You'll have to excuse any improper grammar, it's late and I tried my best to proofread. I'll put a TL;DR at the end.

ARI Facility 01

An entrance to an underground facility sits on the edge of the ocean in Boston, abandoned. A nice blue brick pathway leads up to it, with ruined statues of different aquatic life laying rusted and dented along the path. For a research facility, the entrance seems more like the entrance to an aquarium than anything official.

Going inside reveals a ruined, however once nice, wooden interior. Blue carpets, wooden walls, framed pictures of the ocean and different kinds of sea life on display. There are display cases with information about sea life on them, some old fossils still sitting inside. Some small display tanks that are surprisingly mostly intact are also built into the walls, however whatever was in there before the bombs fell is long dead and rotted away. The whole place has a very tourist attraction feel, there's even a (mostly looted) gift shop. However, going past large metal doors that say, “Employees Only” next to them will lead into the more scientific part of the facility. The doors lead to a stairway that goes down, the walls still mostly clean and untouched from the blast, but decaying in some areas where radiation or water has seeped through.

The first room to come across is a locker room of sorts, overlooking a large facility beneath. A few terminals and TV's are scattered around, as well as coffee makers, a small sink with cabinets, with food still inside. A couple fridges are also present, but there are no cigarette machines to be seen. There are lots of lockers with the personal affects of the staff still inside, mostly everyday clothes. There's also a shower room and a bathroom off to the side. Metal doors with round windows separate the staff room from the actual main facility.

Going down further into the facility, there's a security room that's locked with an advanced terminal, going inside will reveal mostly 10mm pistols, a couple security terminals, stored security tapes that are unreadable now, and some log entries on the general security of the facility. Most of them are uninteresting, except for some vague references to a couple “incidents” that happened further down, as well as a check in list. Further down the list, near the time the bombs fell, are repeated entries about Vault Tec Scientists, indicating whatever was happening in this place, Vault Tec was interested in.

Going further down, a small janitor closet can be found with generic items inside, nothing too interesting. There are lots of walkways looking down into large tubs of stagnant water, the water being mostly murky now. The room smells awful, the scent of rotting fish, the ocean, and rust mostly in the air. Some side doors lead into some science areas, with microscopes, rounded tables and office chairs, and lots of terminals. Reading some things one can find nothing too interesting, just scientific data and read outs on native aquatic life. Going further down however, into another research station, there are more interesting terminals. There are X-Rays on the walls of what look to be mutated fish. Finding a lead scientist terminal that's locked with a novice lock, one can find lots of entries.

The first entry is about how excited the scientist is to be working at such a clean, nice facility, and that he's excited about their work, though he doesn't know exactly what they will be doing. A couple entries down, his tone changes. He seems concerned about certain experiments that left a scientist disfigured, though security assured them everything was fine. He decided not to worry too much about it, since they were working with some dangerous species, though the wounds didn't look normal for the animals there. The next entry notes that he saw large military trucks parked behind the facility, unloading barrels with nuclear warning symbols on them. He worries where those barrels are going. The next entry he seems even more concerned, stating that an alarm went off during that days work hours and everyone had to be evacuated. Scientists in hazmat suits went in and turned the alarm off, saying there wasn't a radiation leak but everything was fine. He was considered transferring somewhere else or quitting all together at this point. The last entry he states that the x-rays he was studying couldn't be normal mutations for fish, the bone structure was too mangled and changed, and some of the DNA they were studying seemed to be completely changed from the base specimens.

Going down further into the facility, one can find a large locked door with an expert terminal next to it Going inside reveals another science room, only this one has more in-depth X-rays, mutated samples, and other odd things. A working terminal from a lead scientist begins to shed some light on things happening at this place. The first entry is about the incident that happened, saying that a scientist was exposed to one of the opened radioactive barrels as the nuclear materiel was being dumped into one of the tanks for an experiment. The second entry he talks about studying the effects of radiation on various forms of sea life, saying he's looking forward to seeing the long term changes in them. The third entry he writes out some data he's gathered, stating that most of the subjects have died and they had to catch new ones or have others shipped in. The fourth entry he begins to sound a little worried, saying that his superiors were demanding that more radiation be applied to the subjects, in such a dangerous amount it risked harming the scientists as well. They weren't supposed to tell the lower level staff they had to wear radiation suits to work now, having to change after entering their lab. The fifth entry he seems exasperated, talking about the alarm going off because some radiation leakage into one of the testing chambers set the whole place on lockdown. The chamber had to be sealed off completely, and whatever subject was in there was destroyed. Near the last entries, he writes how Vault-Tec has been showing up more and more, and demanding they use more and more radiation on the test subjects. He wonders why they're so interested and why so much radiation has to be used, since radiation levels that high could only be achieved by nuclear fallout.

Going deeper down, to the third level, large windows looking into the tanks can be seen. Some of the lower level is flooded, the water stagnant and very dirty looking. It would definitely not be healthy swimming in any of that. In one of the non-flooded areas, in a very nice office, the main facility manager's terminal can be found. His entries state the actual purpose of the facility. They are to experiment on all types of sea life with radiation, to see how it could possibly mutate over time. Level 1 scientists will study the x-rays and some tissue samples that shouldn't arouse too much suspicion, level 2 will research more in-depth projects, level 3 will have full knowledge of what's going on and be the ones administering the radiation and feeding the mutated animals. Vault-Tec began showing up before the bombs fell, seeming very interested in the most irradiated and mutated specimens, and demanding even more exposure. Some of the most dangerous animals, like sharks, killer whales, and jelly fish, were especially interesting to the Vault-Tec scientists. Several of the specimens had to be killed with spear guns after becoming too aggressive to be experimented on any further, their DNA then being anolyzed, the findings being sent off site as well as with Vault-Tec.

The fourth level are the tanks, large dead and rotted aquatic animals in most of them, as well as some living, ghoul ones. The bottom area is the most flooded, some of the tanks broken, with whatever was inside laying dead and dried up outside them.

Vault-Tec obviously was very interested in the effects of radiation on aquatic life, wondering what would happen to them after the bombs fell, though they themselves were not the main ones conducting the tests, meaning they didn't want to waste money finding out what would happen.

So, TL;DR, a large underground facility where scientists experimented on sea life with radiation, and Vault Tec got interested.

I didn't bother thinking about what exactly you could loot from the place, maybe a harpoon gun (since it's in the game), some special uniforms, a hazmat suit or two (diving suit?), maybe a security uniform. I'm sure someone could come up with something way more original than that however. I'd really love to see this idea come to life, it would tie in well if there was an "Underwater DLC" like everyone is suggesting!

What do you guys think? It would be a place more for lore probably, which (oddly enough I hardly ever read) will be a turn off for some people, but if some nice rare loot is in there, and maybe some unique mutated enemies, it could be well worth checking out even for the non-lore reading players.