Sarah Galahad

Childhood
Sarah Tavik was born in the year 2199, safe within the walls of the Institute. She, unfortunately, was born with a deformity; her left arm didn't develop properly and so she was born with just one arm. From an early age she was trained in science and engineering, like all children born in the Institute, and like all children born in the Institute, she excelled at it. As a young woman she worked in research and development on several teams, and along the way she had an arm from one of the early Synth models grafted onto her left shoulder as a replacement for the one she was born without.

Transhuman Project
When the time came for her to begin choosing her own line of study and work, she joined the team working on transhumanist technologies, inspired by her own cybernetic augmentation and a desire to expand that field. Soon after, they had some major breakthroughs. A mercenary who did work for the Institute was selected as a guinea pig for the first wave of testing - and it was a complete success. All test showed that the cybernetics had completely halted his outward signs of aging, with the only requirement being a regular dose of medication to supplement the cybernetics. Soon after, all of the members of the team had augmented themselves in the same way as well.

However, it wasn't to last. When Father came into control of the Institute, he shut down all transhumanist efforts in a desire to preserve humanity, though he permitted the augmented scientists to continue to synthesize the medication to retard the aging process. Following this pronouncement, Sarah bounced around from team to team, working on a little of everything - both out of a lack of a focused goal, and a desire to work with as much different interesting technology as she could.

Destruction of the Institute
Many years later, when the alliance of the Railroad, Minutemen, and Brotherhood of Steel defeated the Institute and allowed the scientists to escape unharmed, she brought as many holotapes of her research as she was able. She saved what she could from the nuking of everything she had spent her life working on.

Joining the Brotherhood of Steel
Lost and adrift with nowhere to go, she eventually resolved a plan. She would join the Brotherhood of Steel, as they were the most advanced of the remaining factions. However, she knew they would be unlikely to trust an Institute Scientist, but she had a few ideas to make it easier for them to do so. Physically, she still appeared as she did when the anti-aging cybernetics and medications were started - she no longer had the resources to synthesize more, so she would begin aging where she'd left off. She changed her surname to Galahad to appeal to the neo-knightly order's knightly proclivities.

She came to them, claiming to have been only a junior scientist and having never worked on the Synth project. They were initially distrustful, but when she provided them with copies of her holotapes of information on Institute technologies, they decided to give her a chance to prove herself.

And prove herself she did. She rose quickly through the ranks of the scribes