Greetings soldier!
At this time, several months into the Bostock Expedition, it's safe to presume that the convoy has reached sites #4, #5 and #6, as indicated in your expedition itinerary. Assuming the expedition is still on schedule, you should all be at a region of wilderness located between the ruins of the pre-Rifts municipalities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. This forlorn section of Dinosaur Swamp may look no different than any other portion, but don't be fooled; the wild austerity of this place belies its potential status as some of the most important salvage sites in the entire expedition.
"Research Triangle" is the pre-Rifts name for a 106 square mile region located in eastern North Carolina. Three major municipalities comprised the vertices of the "Triangle" - the City of Raleigh (the triangle's southeast vertex), the City of Durham (the northeast vertex), and the Town of Chapel Hill (the western vertex). Before the Great Cataclysm, the region was home to numerous high tech companies, science facilities, and academic institutions. For this reason, the area was sometimes known as "Smartsville, USA" by local residents. Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - world-class centers of research and education - were all located inside the Triangle (in addition to a number of other schools). As you can imagine, the Bostock Expedition has high hopes that this area will yield some impressive finds in the form of lost pre-Rifts information, schematics, designs, and perhaps even technology.
At this time, several months into the Bostock Expedition, it's safe to presume that the convoy has reached sites #4, #5 and #6, as indicated in your expedition itinerary. Assuming the expedition is still on schedule, you should all be at a region of wilderness located between the ruins of the pre-Rifts municipalities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. This forlorn section of Dinosaur Swamp may look no different than any other portion, but don't be fooled; the wild austerity of this place belies its potential status as some of the most important salvage sites in the entire expedition.
"Research Triangle" is the pre-Rifts name for a 106 square mile region located in eastern North Carolina. Three major municipalities comprised the vertices of the "Triangle" - the City of Raleigh (the triangle's southeast vertex), the City of Durham (the northeast vertex), and the Town of Chapel Hill (the western vertex). Before the Great Cataclysm, the region was home to numerous high tech companies, science facilities, and academic institutions. For this reason, the area was sometimes known as "Smartsville, USA" by local residents. Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - world-class centers of research and education - were all located inside the Triangle (in addition to a number of other schools). As you can imagine, the Bostock Expedition has high hopes that this area will yield some impressive finds in the form of lost pre-Rifts information, schematics, designs, and perhaps even technology.
During his travels through the swamp, Deearn Neenok visited the remains of the Triangle and wrote the following:
"Having seen the contrasting wealth and squalor of Chi-Town, the magical intensity of Lazlo, and the technological marvels of the New German Republic, I felt as though no cityscape could awe me as they had I found myself corrected when I first set my eyes on the ruins of Duraleigh. Reduced to a salt water marsh, there are very few building ruins left standing, although there are the occasional exceptions. It was not the scant ruined buildings poking from the marsh that amazed me, however, but rather the remnants of a vast highway system that linked the cities of the Triangle together. I had seen ruined stretches of highway buried under the sands and mud of the southwest, and even traveled a highway while visiting the New German Republic, and imagined that the small highway I traveled then was but a shadow of the highways that the Americas used to be interlaced with in the past. The ruins in the Triangle only hint at how right I was.
The support pillars are massive, cylindrical structures that must have held at least three tiers consisting of hundreds of miles of ten-lane elevated highway. Evidence suggests that the network of roads was a series of concentric rings, all components of a larger, unified system, stretching out and around the three primary cities of the Triangle and linked up with other roadways that ran up and down the East Coast. I learned from a local tribe that they call the ruined highway system 'The Beltline,' most likely an archaic name dating to pre-Rifts times. In addition to the automobile bridges and roads, there was apparently an interlinked rail system and pedestrian transit facilities alongside the highway system. Today, it serves as neutral territory for the barbarian tribes that live in the region, and shelter for any number of plants and animals. It has been reduced to just another impressive reminder of how much promise was lost after the Great Cataclysm tore down human civilization."
---Deearn Neenok, The Dinosaurian Swamp: Notes from the Field
Aside from the various schools and universities, the most prominent part of the Triangle is a place called the "Research Triangle Park," or RTP. The RTP is a 7,000 acre development that was established at some point in the late 1950's through the combined efforts of the nearby universities, businesses, state government, and local governments. In its heyday, the RTP was one of the largest research parks in the world, housing more than 200 tech companies, labs and research firms, and employing over 50,000 workers and 10,000 contractors. The park was managed by the Research Park Foundation - a private, non-profit organization.
Most of the information that we have about the Research Triangle is based on surviving pre-Rifts brochures and pamphlets recovered from Char and other nearby locations in North Carolina, as well as references to the RTP found in pre-Rifts books, journals, and related media. From what we've pieced together, the RTP and surrounding universities did a great deal of work and research into the fields of computer technologies, information technologies, medical sciences and pharmaceuticals, imaging technologies, energy storage, and materials science, among many other disciplines. In fact, a number of innovations and inventions - from developments in quantum computing to anti-aging nanite treatments - were created by the scientists and engineers of the RTP. Even early research trials in chemical augmentation (Juicers) are thought to have occurred here.
Thanks to our recovery of a surviving pre-Rifts map, we have an idea of the kinds of companies and facilities once located within the RTP and, by extension, the kinds of salvage we may find. However, the map appears to depict the RTP as it was in the early 21st century; it's 80 years out-of-date. That means many of the businesses or research firms described on the map may or may not have been there by the time of the Great Cataclysm. Consequently, it's still difficult to say what we might find in the ruins of the RTP, but at least we have something to go on.
Salvageable books and other hard copies of research data are the priority, as are computers with potentially recoverable hard drives. Unfortunately, the Research Triangle is located within a particularly swampy portion of North Carolina - an area known as the Eastern Marshes. This portion of Dinosaur Swamp was formed from the merger of several Carolina swamps, such as Great Swamp, Great Dismal Swamp, and Goshen Swamp; each of which decupled in size thanks to the rise in ocean level during the Great Cataclysm. As such, the Research Triangle is a gigantic marsh, and the combination of water and humidity makes finding recoverable salvage a major challenge. Most paper media will have long disintegrated from the water or been eaten up by mold, and most electronics will have fared little better. If any treasures ARE found, they will likely be in an extremely fragile state, so be sure to confer with a member of the Appraisal & Restoration section before handling any such delicate materials.