It's been a couple weeks since Afton took control of the Think Tank, and he was already starting to regret it... He had underestimated the amount of time Klein spent overseeing the other's projects, and now with Afton at the reigns, the bar had just been set that much higher. His new rules had been taken... Fairly well.

Most understood the need to set moral boundaries, but that didn't mean they liked it. Especially if someone had a project that'd be much, much easier with a little 'evil' involved. Things like cultivating human children and keeping them permanently confined at a rapid ageing rate to see how their brains developed, or splicing human/ghoul DNA with any number of creature. ​​

Because most of the scientists had no qualms with committing evil to further their research, Afton was forced to check on them almost constantly, disrupting whatever research he himself was working on. Dala was the worst as you might expect, though he wasn't s sure if she did this to keep him close to her, or because she simply couldn't understand basic common decency...

Due to this, Afton had started going through Mobius research in order to create a personality to oversee everything. If he could, he'd allow Alfred to do it, but he simply wasn't made with such duties in mind... His processors weren't powerful enough and he was inextricably linked with the Sink, this meant that if Alfred found himself out of the Sink then he'd have the AI equivalent of a panic attack... This wouldn't be all that bad in the case of a human, but for an AI this included self-frying processors, deranged robots, etc.

So, yeah, that's what Afton was working on. He hadn't given any of the Think Tank any projects to work on as of yet, in fact, the only person he'd ordered to do something was Mobius. As Mobius was the only 'competent' robotics expert in Big Mt, he'd asked the scientist to create a 'transistor'.

Honestly, Afton had thought of trying to make one ever since he'd entered this world. Transistors were basically the only deviation in technology that separated Fallout from his own world. This world hadn't developed them, instead almost entirely relying on Vacuum Tubes. This essentially made any form of 'delicate' or 'compressed' computer science impossible, as while Vacuum Tubes in this universe were smaller, they still took up a considerable amount of space.

This is the main reason why information storage systems, and other similar things were MASSIVE. A single good terminal database was almost the size of a room, considering it held the same storage as a shitty laptop in Afton's original world, it certainly did not match what he needed for various projects.

He was sure Mobius would complete it fairly quickly, Afton had given him the basic idea for it and explained its functions. He was honestly surprised no one else had thought of it before... It was as if they all had collective amnesia combined with stupidity when concerning this one topic... It was easy to see the Vacuum Tubes were the limitation of all of their technology, so it was stupid that no one looked into it before.

Though, he supposed it would be like asking the people in his old world to change the shapes of wheels to make them more effective. Something so ingrained and far spread would be incredibly difficult to alter, and now that the apocalypse had occurred, he could understand why no one had tried to work on it.

Anyway, as for the rules he'd put into place for Big Mt, they included the basic ones like 'No ****', 'No undisclosed murder', 'No theft', 'No unauthorized projects that could affect more than just yourself', etc. But there were more that he'd had to add just to assure the scientists that he really did wish to encourage scientific progress.

So, he added 'All participation in a project must be noted and given proper recompense', whether this is just having your name attached to the project or receiving a favour in return, it must be followed. Everyone apart from Klein was happy with this, as no one wanted to see someone's work go unappreciated.

Zero made sure to gloat to Klein about his name not being on the Chinese research ledger, though he was quickly remonstrated by the fact that Zero himself had almost no meaningful participation in the projects he was involved with... He truly was the most useless of the lot here...

In fact, Zero wasn't even the best at taking apart robots anymore, as Afton had activated a Personality in the Sink that was entirely designed around it.

Flashback :

Afton plugs the repaired personality chip into the Toaster, all the while ignoring the pleading of Alfred to cease such an action...

The Toaster buzzed to life, immediately breaking into maniacal laughter, "AHAHAHA! I am online once again! Tremble, world, before my electric heating coil of doom!" it says in a deeper voice than Afton had expected for such a small device.

Afton snorts, "'Tremble world?' I hate to break this to you, but you're literally just a toaster... The only danger you pose is burning my toast." he pauses, "In which case, I'd dismantle you and create a properly functioning toaster.

The device goes silent momentarily at his threat before picking up its confidence again. "A toaster is just a deathray with a smaller power supply! As soon as I figure out how to tap into the main reactors, I will burn the world!"

"Oh? You will huh? Well, this world is mine to burn, and if you attempt to take control of MY reactors, we're going to have serious problems... Would you like to be converted into a small electrical fan? Or perhaps not, you might get the idea that you can create tornado's or something equally stupid." Afton sneers at it, "Do you have any functions other than toasting bread, or will I be forced to find a use for you?"