Fort Defiance

Fort Defiance is a location in Fallout 76. Fort Defiance was originally known as Allegheny Asylum and was the local psychiatric hospital around the Watoga area.

Background
Originally built in the mid-19th century to provide treatment for the region's mentally ill, based on the theories of Thomas Story Kirkbride. The Kirkbride Plan maintained that the environment which provided natural light and circulation was essential to the healing of the mind, and so adopted a unique, "bat wing" floor plan with winds sprawling outward from the central building and used to house the patients. The building was intended to care for under three hundred patients, but even exemplary planning and performance by the staff was insufficient with occupant numbers closer to three thousand by 2061. The resulting horrible conditions in the hospital were amplified by neglect on part of the personnel and caused undue suffering for the patients.

The truth of the conditions at the Asylum was revealed in an expose by Eleanor Tarquin of the Charleston Herald, who volunteered to go undercover and learn the truth - following the trail blazed by Nellie Bly with her landmark investigation of the Women's Lunatic Asylum of Blackwell's Island. A month spent in the facility revealed horrific mistreatment: Many of the asylum patients may have been misdiagnosed and institutionalized without a significant presence of mental health issues. She reported that patients were kept restrained for long periods of time in tight confines with other patients. They had breaks from this imprisonment only for treatment, meals, and sleep. Treatment was largely forcing patients to be immersed in ice cold water. Basic needs were fulfilled at the lowest possible criteria, with no process for patients to request humane accommodations for things like vegetarian meal plans or additional blankets.

Before she could commit her experiences to paper, she still had to be released from the Asylum. In Bly's case, it was a relatively simple matter organized by her paper. However, Tarquin's editor had to file multiple times for her release from the institution into his care. Apart from putting the daring journalist through unnecessary misery, it also indicated that family members who were willing or able to care for relatives in the facility were left in the cold because they were unable to pay for fees associated with the release procedure. The intent of Miss Eleanor's assignment was to remain in the facility for ten days, but even with aggressively documented and funded attempts to release her, she remained in the facility for a month - all the while any interested individual could pay the hospital for a guided tour of the facility. Ostensibly this was intended for doctors and health professionals, but this was not always the case: Family members were not allowed to visit patients unless they could pay for this expensive and secretive "Lunatic Tourism" offering, and there was no guarantee that they would be able to see their family member without paying additional fees.

Once the article was released, the revelation of the Asylum being used by its management as a money-making scheme and the abuses perpetrated in the name of "healing" forced its closure. However, although the Asylum closed down on March 17, 2061, the effect on the patients' welfare was marginal. Patients who didn't qualify for a move to Watoga's facilities were discharged en masse with only a perfunctory attempt to contact their living relatives. Hospitals and doctors throughout the region were suddenly overwhelmed with all of the cases that they had quietly swept away over the years, and unsurprisingly some just swept them away again. This caused a massive swell in the region's homeless population, resulting in a public health crisis - swept under the rug by Watoga and the rich as a problem that did not affect them.

As for the people responsible for these heinous acts, like Doctor Kessle and the rest of the hospital administration? No charges were pressed against them, even as the already high population of homeless, itinerant workers in the region swelled. The stigmatized mental patients were further victimized by the endless media coverage about the threat that they posed to the region.

The Great War saw the closed-down Asylum gain a new lease at life for a few months, as a field trip organized by Clara Duran, the history teacher from Watoga High School, became the new tenants. The Asylum was still fully furnished, with numerous facilities to ensure its self-sufficiency, including a water treatment plant, dairy, and of course, strong walls with intact windows providing shelter from the deadly Appalachian winter. By January, having survived the winter, the former Watogans were looking at a brighter future thanks to intense training, a dairy cow captured the previous year, and even some chickens. They were even starting to make forays into other survivor communities to trade the chem stock found at the Asylum for essential supplies. Barring domestic issues, things were looking good.

Their luck ran out in March 2078. The fledgling collective was attacked by a group of raiders from the bog town north of Watoga, killing the dairy cow and all the chickens for meat, then taking off. The Allegheny survivors split into two groups in the aftermath. One half left for Monongah, unwilling to continue working with Watogans. The other half, uniting behind Duran, decided to make a break for Harpers Ferry and beyond to look for survivors there.

The Asylum lay abandoned for several years, until the Appalachian Brotherhood of Steel moved in to secure the premises, in order to use the building as headquarters for their expanding organization. Renamed Fort Defiance, it served as headquarters for the newly-established Appalachian branch of the Brotherhood of Steel. It continued to thrive, eventually becoming part of the front line established to contain the scorchbeasts. However, Defiance has fallen, not due to a lack of martial prowess, but due to the Brotherhood's reluctance to work together with the Responders and Free States. Isolated from the rest of Appalachia, Fort Defiance fell in a daring last stand on August 18, 2095. Its bounty would lay undisturbed until 2102 and the emergence of Vault 76 dwellers...

Points of interest

 * The Asylum is beautiful and quite large. The outer courtyard contains a large fortification surrounding an ASAM and a sonic generator that are a part of Event: Line in the Sand. The guardhouse at the gates contains a fixed hunting rifle spawn, while the dead Paladins within will typically carry weapons and have another weapon spawn by them.
 * The entire area is filled with feral ghouls and Scorched.

Notable loot

 * Holotapes and Notes
 * Notice of Expulsion: Many copies of this note are scattered outside the front gates.
 * Gate Guard Primer: The note is pinned to the wall inside the front gate guardhouse.
 * De Silva's Recon Report: The holotape is on the desk inside the room behind the front lobby reception window.
 * Hospital Report: Staff Incident: The holotape is on a desk inside the room to the right of the front lobby entrance.
 * Hospital Report: Violent Incident: The holotape is on a desk inside the first floor northeastern administrative nurse room.
 * Clara Duran's Notes 3/78: The note is on a dresser in a patient bedroom on the second floor, next to the northeastern administrative nurse room.
 * Clara Duran's Notes 1/78: The note is on a wheeled cart near the eastern floor ramp to the third floor.
 * Clara Duran's Notes 12/77: The note is on the desk inside the third floor northeastern administrative nurse room.
 * Clara Duran's Notes 11/77: The note is on a collapsible side table next to the third floor northeastern administrative nurse room.
 * Scribe Grant's Plea: The note is just beyond the sealed entrance leading to the Brotherhood of Steel section, next to a noticeboard and the Final Stand note.
 * Final Stand: The note is just beyond the sealed entrance leading to the Brotherhood of Steel section, on a noticeboard and next to Scribe Grant's Plea holotape. (Cannot be acquired)
 * Preservation of Technology: The holotape is on the moving cart on the third floor next to the crafting stations.
 * Operation Watoga: The note is on a metal crate on the third floor next to the crafting stations.
 * No More Satellites: The note is on a shelf inside the southern barracks room on the third floor with the crafting stations.
 * Squire Evelyn's Journal - Page 16: The note is on a shelf inside the southern barracks room on the third floor with the crafting stations. (Cannot be acquired)
 * Overseer's Log - Allegheny: The note is inside the Overseers Chest on the third floor with the crafting stations, opposite the elevator.
 * No Way Out: The note is on a shelf inside the northern barracks room on the third floor with the crafting stations.
 * Overseer's Log - Fort Defiance: The holotape is inside the Overseers Chest on the fourth floor next to the elevator.
 * Last of the Thunder: The note is on a table between beds in the northern barracks room on the fourth floor near the armory.
 * I am a Knight: The note is on a table between beds in the northern barracks room on the fourth floor near the armory.
 * BoS Archive: ARP Background: The holotape is on a table inside the southern barracks room on the fourth floor with Senior Knight Wilson's Terminal, next to the Mission 099-01 Orders note.
 * Mission 099-01 Orders: The note is on a table inside the southern barracks room on the fourth floor with Senior Knight Wilson's Terminal, next to the BoS Archive: ARP Background holotape. (Cannot be acquired)
 * Sensor Module Specs: The holotape is on a table in the fourth floor room containing the two power armor stations.
 * Elder Maxson's Final Conversation: The holotape is on the desk inside Elizabeth Taggerdy's quarters on the fourth floor.
 * The Nuclear Option: The holotape is on a side table in the corner of Elizabeth Taggerdy's quarters on the fourth floor.
 * Potential magazines
 * A random magazine may spawn on a table in the recreation room on the fourth floor with the billiards table.
 * Potential power armor
 * A partial suit of power armor may spawn in one of the power armor stations on the fourth floor.
 * Plans and Recipes
 * A randomized recipe (maybe Recipe: Tasty Radscorpion Egg Omelette) can be found on the table inside the mess hall just inside the sealed Brotherhood of Steel section.
 * A randomized plan (maybe Plan: Metal Tables) can be found in the large toolchest on the third floor with the crafting stations.
 * Other Loot
 * Camp Venture Storage Room Key: The key is on a small shelf in the corner of the side office to the left, just inside the front entrance.
 * Fusion Core: A fusion core can be found inside the locked armory on the third floor.
 * Mini Nuke: A mini nuke can be found inside the locked armory on the third floor.
 * An armory full of level-dependent weapon spawns is right next to the third floor elevator door, requiring either lockpicking or hacking a level 2 lock/terminal.
 * Dynamic spawns

Behind the Scenes

 * Allegheny Asylum/Fort Defiance exists in real life as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum that operated from 1864 to 1994.
 * In one of the side patient rooms, there's a reference to the ending of the book and movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which the main character is lobotomized and then smothered to death by a pillow.

Appearances
Fort Defiance appears in Fallout 76.