@Hardboiled Android Allow me to pitch you a revised elevator pitch version of New Mexico, with Rebirth remaining untouched.
Paladin Brixley is sent east by Lost Hills in 2242 who are very terrified by the Enclave and equally concerned at the growth of the Shi and NCR with the orders "Seek treasures of the Old World. Preserve them. There's war to come" or something equally cryptic. Basically a mission out of insecurity. So out they go and a year later they're in Lone Mesa.
They discover the Watchers, who in this version the satellite never stopped working, and strip out the major technology and leave the satellites dead. The Scribes are basically pouring over centuries worth of junk data from space and defunct orbital crap. The Watchers are left alone otherwise.
Same thing happens at Cheyenne Mountain, they retrieve the DoD holotape and they're fooled by Rebirths disguise.
They retrieve experimental Stealth Boys Mark II from an irrelevant now scavenged psuedo Enclave old world military facility. They test it on their soldiers and they go bonkers. They don't like being seen at all, much like the Nightkin. Brixley confiscated the Stealth Boys and they go crazier. Locking up a whole wing of the bunker and setting off on their own. They paint their armor with dozens upon dozens of eyes and refuse to show their naked skin. They take over Nexus for it's food and water and the tribals cower in the visitor center as the "Unseen Brothers" hide in the satellite buildings, only coming out at night.
In Lone Mesa there's only a handful of armored paladins: a dozen PA suits and the DoD holotape lie sealed behind the locked up bunker, to which the head of the Unseen Brothers holds the keycard. They want to trade the stealth boys for the card - but now the Unseen Brothers are dangerous hands for the technology, and they can't do it.
The players are directed to Lone Mesa by Isaac Gant, a Prisoner 13 working as a nutrient farmer in Boulder Dome who tells them of the DoD holotape. As initiation the Brotherhood will send the Prisoners on a quest deeper into the Cheyenne Mountain bunker to retrieve data from the ruins of the Calculator.
Meanwhile, Underpass was formerly a prospering settlement. A farmers market turned flourishing town as they utilized the local Cain Medical Center and one of the few Wattz commercial energy Weapons gun shops to become a local trading power.
They'd traded very sparsely with the Brotherhood before, who had strong armed them out of energy Weapons in bad trades.
Then comes Ugly John and his platoon of former Unity, bringing technology of their own with them. They take over the town equipped with powerful weapons and armor, and enslave a portion of the population to prospect the ZEUS facility and build the TESLA fence - which not only acts as a human fly zapper but can also zap power armor into temporary shutdown. Not enough to stop it totally but enough to make it tactically disadvantageous. I thought about having Ugly John rename the town to New Mariposa because of his goal of searching for more FEV, but I'm not sure.
After asking the players to go to Cheyenne Mountain and deal with the Unseen Brothers, the BoS will ask the players help in shutting down the fence so they can liberate Underpass. In doing so, they'll kill the super mutants but then peaceibly but forcibly strip the town of technology, including the Cain Medical Center, and simply leave. Players can also help an uprising within Underpass, but eventually they'll try and trade with the Brotherhood and the same will happen.
The Brotherhood are defined by insecurity. Their stealing of technology couched in the strategy and language of the Cold War arms race.
Red Okies get a full settlement. Something suitably Mad Max-y thunderdome esque or Lord Humungus style, because those are always fun and we need more dens of scum and villainy if Phoenix isn't appearing.
