Abigail Markham

"I've been trying to sell Saul on a government run by data and algorithms... where human bias, and all the bullshit nepotism that goes with entrenched elites like the Hundred Families is taken out of the equation. All decisions about policy, resource management, infrastructure, alliances, would be made rationally, by computers."

Abigail Markham is a character in Wasteland 3.

Background
Abigail Markham is the Administrator in charge of the Steeltown Arcology. A bona fide genius, she is currently trying to fix her malfunctioning computation engine, so that she can reorganize the Arcology's great engine of industry and make it work properly again. However, she is beset by rivals and enemies, as the focus on the future has led to a neglect of the present: Scar Collectors abducting refugees, middle managers plotting, and a worker revolution in the making.

Abigail came to Colorado from the Motor City Combine - what folks used to call Detroit, back before it took an atomic ass pounding during the war. Lots of craters and radiation only made an already tough city tougher. It was an industrial city too. They knew how to build, how to smelt, tool, mechanize, mass produce, and started turning scrap into trucks, guns, freezers, furnaces - you name it - and got rich selling it from the lakes to the bayous. Markham started her career as a line worker in a truck plant, working her way up to operations manager through every job in between.

She took a particular liking to automation and analytics, but eventually decided to s tart something of her own. She walked out of the truck plant with her top engineer, Blue, and set up shop in the ruins to scavenge for old computers and robots. After creating Buddy, however, The Buckeye Republic invaded the Combine in a surprise attack using its own weapons. The three packed up into an old truck and left, just as Buckeye forces started rolling up the Detroit River.

They reached Colorado looking for a job. After Markham offered Saul ten trucks every month, rather than one truck every two months, the Patriarch promptly fired the old manager working in Puebla and gave Markham free reign. As long as she kept up on the quota, she could experiment as much as she wanted.

She made a diamond out of Saul's lump of coal, reorganizing the arcology and instituting a strict meritocracy... And more. At that time Colorado was really starting to grow, but Saul's resources were getting stretched thin. He needed more vehicles, heating systems, generators, radios, guns - all the things that make a civilization a civilization, right? So Abigail took the Patriarch's latitude, put out a call to the orbs at the Dunes of Thought, and lured seven synths in with promise of sanctuary.

She gave it to them, in a way: They were connected to the great Computation Engine and enslaved, to organize the work of Steeltown and optimize it in the best possible way. She does not consider them sentient or anything but tools made by man to serve man.

Quests

 * Steeltown: Rangers are asked to find out why deliveries from the Steeltown arcology are erratic.
 * Factory Fracas: Rangers are asked to deal with a rogue security chief (also in the original iteration)


 * Diagnostic Pilgrimage: Abigail asks the Rangers to bring Buddy to the Dunes of Thought to figure out why the computation engine is malfunctioning.
 * Electric Dreams: Markham realizes the Computation Engine is intentionally sabotaging Steeltown operations and asks the Rangers to intervene.