If the fact that I haven't posted anything new on it in a month didn't tip you guys off, let me just come right out and say that I've placed "Among the Ashes" on the back burner for awhile. I've got a lot planned for it, and I have to make sure that my ambition and my execution are on the same level. I'm not giving up on it; as a matter of fact, chapter two is in the works right now. It's just that I've got a lot of projects poking me in the gray matter, and AtA is not my #1 priority right now.
For the past five or so days, this has been my #1 priority. Dyar asked me for some history on the Brotherhood of Steel, and man, did I deliver! (the things I do for you people...
) Seeing as how you guys are all venerable, level headed (albeit a little touched in the head) writers, I'd be much obliged if you'd read this here piece of eye gunk and critique it for me. Be warned, it's my longest FO history yet...
Now, without further ado, I submit for your derision my third Fallout historical essay.
*****
The Brotherhood of Steel
(Note: This is by no means intended to be a definitive history of the Brotherhood of Steel. The information contained herein is assembled from various historical sources, however, the reader should be aware that much of the old accounts have been lost, and that, with much of the true story existing only in Brotherhood lore some distortion of the original events is bound to occur. Please take note that where avaliable facts pointed in one general direction, patent inferences were made.)
The Brotherhood of Steel, a paramilitary organization and a major technological research and development house based in what used to be known as California, can be traced backed almost 18 decades to its inception. Founded at the Lost Hill govenment bunker by a group of United States military personnel and their families, the Brotherhood was originally nothing more than a weary band seeking refuge from the environmental, and human, ravages of the nuclear aftermath of World War III. As time wore on, the men and their families came to consider the bunker that had protected them from the ouside world as their home and their salvation, and the descendents of the battered band that had made the original exodus to the bunker developed over the course of two generations into an isolationist technological organization. Their sociological progression, however, carried them farther and farther from their roots. The Brotherhood of Steel, placing it's technological development as it's core priority, allowed it's history to retreat into mist-shrouded ancient lore. Although the Brotherhood accounts do largely correlate with the events as they occured in the annals of history, their versions often tend to be severely wanting in respect to the specification of locations and dates. Also, Brotherhood archivists tend towards an almost religious aggrandizement of key events and figures. Perhaps one of the most notable instances of this "narrative divergence" in historical accounts is illustrated in some of the most ancient records concerning a man named Roger Maxson- one of the pillar figures of Brotherhood history- and in the lore of the very origin of the organization.
Roger Maxson, Captain United States army, serial number 072389, carved his niche in history as leader of the exodus to the Lost Hills bunker and founder of the Brotherhood of Steel. Of course, Brotherhood writ speaks of the man with an almost messianic zeal, even referring to him at times as "the great deliverer."
To the Brotherhood of Steel, Captain Maxson represents the zenith of human excellence, a bastion of virtue and their champion. History, however, speaks differently of Maxson. History shows us an ordinary man plunged headlong into the most extraordinary of circumstances. While the Brotherhood texts portray Maxson invariably as a natural leader and a master of any situation, there is no way that he could have had any indication of the emminent events looming ominously over the October of 2077.
***
As tensions between China and the United States mounted on into the third quarter of 2077, the United States maintained a number of research facilities working towards significant developments in various combat related fields. One such breakthrough was the FEV virus. A product of the Livermore/Broansoun laboratories, the FEV virus was initially known as the panimmunity virion project, commisioned prior to 2075 as a countermeasure to grant U.S. soldiers impunity from any biological weapons employed against them by China. When the substance the project created proved to possess the capability to induce extreme genetic mutation in a subject, the government showed a marked rise in interest. In-depth FEV research was undergone at such prestigious and secretive laboratories as the West Tek research facility, and on January 7, 2077, the order was issued to transfer all FEV research to the as-yet unfinished FEV production control facility at Mariposa Military Base. Although not slated for completion until 2078, the facility as it stood was adequate for the prescribed purpose, and The FEV project continued as planned. It was at the Mariposa production control facility that the first human FEV testing took place on enlisted "volunteers." The base's civilian technicians, while only following the orders handed down to them, knew full well the kind of dissent that would ensue should the military security team stationed at the base catch wind of the implications of their work, and the technicians' efforts towards ensuring that the project took place behind closed doors were successful for nearly 8 months.
As the old axiom goes, all good things must come to an end. On October 10, 2077 (the day that saw the beginning of World War 3), or a date directly preceeding it, the military personnel stationed at the Mariposa Military Base somehow became aware of the true nature of the research being conducted in their midst. It was chaos. With the facts exposed about the scientists' human experimentation, all semblance of orthodox procedure fell away. Colonel Robert Spindel, the base commander and probably the only military man in the installation apprised by the higher-ups of the location's function, locked himself in his office, cutting off all contact with his men. The troops, resentful at being denied crucial knowledge concerning the facility's purpose and horrified at the thorough and depraved inhumanity of the experiments being conducted under their guard, were incited to a blind frenzy. Aside from screaming for blood none of the men had any idea what would come next. Desperate for vindiction, they looked to the base's second in command for a course of action. That man was Captain Roger Maxson.
The signs of dissent were everywhere around Maxson. The men were growing increasingly riled in respect to the scientists, nurturing a deep and fervent bloodlust. Though just as lost as the rest of the men, Maxson recognized that someone would have to do something to avert chaos. As Colonel Spindel was locked in his office having a breakdown at the time, the responsibility of restoring the men to order, Maxson knew, fell squarely on him. The task ahead of him was a daunting and arduous one. The situation was largely volatile, and even should his attempts to diffuse it succeed, they would likely still face disciplinary action for "indiscretions" that had already been commited. Morale, and reason, were dwindling with each war report they were sent. Things were looking grim, on the front and for the men at the base-- on October 12, only two days after the discovery of the scientist's abhorrent deeds, Captain Maxson had to stop one of the men from the unsanctioned execution of a base scientist. Subsequently, Maxson commanded the scientists be interrogated to discern their orders. This order, for all intents and purposes, seemed a good one-- it would allow the men some time to cool off, in turn allowing the scientists to live, and if they could piece together the events that had transpired there was a good chance that Maxson could utilize the knowledge to help him get a handle on the situation. Unfortunately for him, this strategy was to entail unforseen consequences, and his luck was about to take another ghastly turn for the worse.
The interrogations began the next day. One of the first on the proverbial chopping block was Robert Anderson, a chief scientist at the Mariposa production control facility and holder of a level blue (maximum priority) clearance. The man showed surprisingly little resistance. With little prompting at all, the scientist revealed to Maxson and all those present the ungodly details of the testing that had been taking place. When Maxson refused to believe that the research personnel had been recieving their orders from the government, Anderson (who was fully aware what could come of lying to an armed garrison that had a basal animosity and a loaded weaponed leveled at you) grew frenzied. He started screaming about how he was following orders, and how he was just a military man. At this point, something snapped in Maxson. The gravity of the situation, the stress of leading what now amounted to a lynch mob with a command structure, the consistently disturbing accounts of the war, had all been simmering within him, and Anderson had caused them all to boil over. A single bullet, fired from Maxson's gun, ended Robert Anderson's pitiable tirade. After the fact, Captain Maxson tried to rationalize it to himself as a necessary measure to prevent Anderson from inciting full-out mutiny, but somehow he wasn't so sure.
Two days later, on October 15, Maxson made his last attempt to initiate contact with the now-incoherent Colonel Spindel. When the colonel still refused to talk, Captain Maxson and a few others broke down his door. For all their efforts, the result they were presented with was disturbing: the colonel, a wearied husk of a man, apologized to them for his as-yet unknown part in the events transpiring and took his own life. With the colonel dead there was now a definite potential for the degeneration of the men into anarchy. Maxson had, however, averted that crisis when he had murdered Anderson. In a time of such utter unsurity, such a definitive action had been well-recieved among the men, to put it mildly, and had established an unwavering following of Maxson's command. He had, however, also set a macabre and unstated precedent, and from then on the interrogations invariably ended as executions. The account of one scientist, Erin Shellman (another a high-level researcher holding a blue level clearance) correlated with Robert Anderson's testimony almost precisely, and was disconcertingly specific-- too much so, Maxson was gradually realizing, to be made up. Captain Maxson, with his impeccable intuition, began to have terrible misgivings about any possible outcome of their situation.
By October 20 the men had long since ceased responding to radio transmissions sent by the higher-ups. Captain Maxson, confounded at why no one had been sent to determine what had casued the halt in communications, decided to take drastic steps toward making sure that someone was paying attention. Whether because of the government's central role in the depraved FEV experimentation, to secure the answers and relief the men so desperately needed, or simply because the man was starting to bend under the pressure is not known, but on that day, October 20, 2077, Roger Maxson declared himself and his men to be officially secceeded from the union.
They waited. For two confined, restless, disquieting days, they waited. Nothing. Now Maxson was sure that something was wrong. This, once again, was an example of Maxson's infallible instinct at work. As per his gut instinct, some of the most pivotal- and fateful- events of the war were that very day playing themselves out on the frontlines. The U.S. armed forces, augmented by the relatively new T51-b model powered infantry armor, had fought the understocked Chinese war machine to a grinding halt and had set it in reverse, driving the Chinese invasion force all the way back to Bejing. The tide of China's hostile ingress had been stemmed. For all intents and purposes, it should have been celebrated throughout history as a second V-day. However, this would have been a far too predictable end to such an intricate and arbitrary fiasco. China had been backed into a corner, and it had literally nothing to lose. The next day, December 22 2077, would herald perhaps the most decisive and ultimately inevitable plot twist of the war-- and the final, all-encompassing climax.
No one knows who fired first. Us, them-- it doesn't matter in the long run, considering that neither "us" nor "them" have existed for over 150 years. The pertinent thing is, salvo after salvo went up all over the world, and after they came down all ailing pretense of human society had been annhialated. The base personnel were attending to the interrogation of Leon VonFelden-- the head FEV researcher and the one man besides the late Colonel Spindel who could best satiate their bloodthirsty crusade for the facts-- when the base completely lost contact. Maxson, positive that the research center had been wiped out and similarly ardent in the belief that China would sooner than later train their sights on the base, issued the following directive the next day:
By my orders, as active commanding officer following the untimely death of Colonel Robert Spindel during this time of crisis, the full base security team has been deployed to the security bunker at Lost Hill.
This directive also includes the families of the officers and enlisted men.
Unless otherwise directed, from a proper representative of the War Department, this order will stand as written.
Operative 1: All military personnel, and their families, are to vacate the base by 0800, 25 Oct 2077. All personnel, travelling under command, will make their way to Lost Hill base. No leave has been granted.
Operative 2: All civilian personnel are directed to remain at base, pending orders from their legal command structure.
Operative 3: Equipment deemed necesary to the survival of base military personnel is to be immediately drawn from stores. Proper authorization will follow, time permitting.
Operative 4: All codes of military justice will be reinforced, on military personnel and civilian personnel in joint military operations.
Operative 5: Until such time as consistant and authorized communication can be established with the War Department, these orders will have precedence over any previously established orders.
Captain Maxson
24 Oct 2077
The days following were accompanied by an intermingled sense of relief and dread. Readings indicated that the radiocative fallout had not yet spread as far as the base, and thus the primary hurdle in the way of evacuation had been cleared. Some vestige of order was restored as the command was passed down, the necessary equipment gathered, the final preparations seen to. The day before the exodus was to take place, Captain Maxson made this strikingly evocative entry into his personal log:
* Oct. 26 2077
I convinced the men that we should bury the scientists. I don't know why... perhaps it was
to ease my concience. I finally started to believe their stories when the last one was dying.
My God, what have I become?
The following day, October 27 2077, the men and their families began the taxing and perilous trek to the Lost Hills bunker.* The ruins of society-- they were not yet desolate or dissociated enough to be known as the wasteland-- lay delicately around them, a disturbing incentive to redouble their endeavor towards refuge. A slightly more pressing concern was the fact that there would be fallout, and the regiment's anti-radiation drugs were in utterly finite supply. Even if this were not already enough, there were the raiders. In any tumultuous situation, there are always those who try to capitalize, and even so shortly after the bomb dropped there were those who had decided that the best philosophy in the wastes was the way of the gun. Of course, a Power Armored brigade would normally have been able to dispatch such ruffians without a second thought-- this was a lesson soon learned by the vile dregs that dogged the exodus. The problem lay with men's families. The troops were only human, and not able to maintain an omniscient vigil over the civilians in tow. As such, many of the men lost family to the wretched human flotsam that stalked the wastes. Brotherhood histories show that anyone taking the life of an exodus member was eliminated with extreme prejudice.
After many trying days, and many funerals, the exodus reached the end of their journey: the Lost Hill military bunker. The men's hellish emigration was at it's close. Their odyssey, however, was just beginning. These lost souls, these men and women and children who had been used to the pre-war way of life, with their chintz and their microwave ovens and their service bots and holotapes and all of the trappings of a civilization that existed no more save for in fine drifts of dust, must now come to terms with the fact that these cold steel walls would be their world. Over time, they adjusted, as is the great human constant. Maxson, who had played such a pivotal role in their quest for a haven, was acknowledged almost unanimously as their leader. Over the course of time, the Brotherhood evolved. Confined to their bunker with nothing but the provisions they had brought with them, they developed a symbiotic trade relationship with some of the earlier caravan routes, survivors of the blast trying to eke out a way of life and a meager spark of civilization from the wasteland. Trading their advanced technology for food and other goods, the Brotherhood was even then helping to re-establish order on the wastes, albeit inadvertantly.
As the months and years wore on, the Brotherhood came to be in utter thrall of their technology. These people, who had before the war been soldiers and military wives and army brats, knew little of survival on the wasteland. What they did know was their tech. It had been their damnation, it had been their salvation. It was their crutch, their bartering chip, and their only link to the past. With their trade relationships firmly enstated, the Brotherhood felt no reason to devote the necessary time to such "frivolities" as agriculture and general mercantile trade. Their society, as logical progression would dictate, turned to the one thing that they had over the rest of the wastes-- the one thing that would ensure their safety and prosperity, and would put them in touch with the times before the hardship-- their technology.
For two more generations, their lives continued along these lines. A milataristic social structure developed, presided over by a council of four high elders and led by Captain Maxson's grandson, General Maxson, who had been a scout for the Brotherhood in his youth. Having devoted themselves to the furtherance of their technology, and to their military, the Brotherhood had grown into an aloof and isolationist body on the wastes. In fact, aside from initiates and caravaneers, no one was allowed within the bunker. Their way of life continued much unchanged until suddenly, circa 2161, the Brotherhood became aware of a threat that they were inadequate to handle.
To the Northeast, Roger Maxson's gut instinct proved (as the exception to the rule) to have been wrong. The Chinese Government had been unaware of the Mariposa Military Base, and it sat intact. A new and ominous entity had gained control of the base, and was using the FEV contained therein to create an army of human mutants which he planned to use in a fanatical drive to mutate- and therefore unite- the entire peoples of the wasteland. Through the help of a mysterious stranger, the bulk of the threat was dispatched. The base that the Brotherhood had left behind them so many years ago was eliminated, and the abominations therein buried deep under the rubble. The leader of the mutants was destroyed. The mutants themselves though, left without a leader or a cause, were a scourge on the wasteland. Through the intervention of the stranger that had dispatched the mutants, the Brotherhood came to see that outside interaction was necessary to their progression. It was through their collaborative effort that many towns were spared from the mutant's wrath, and that the mutants were chased east beyond the no man's land. For a time, they became a major research and development house and a minor presence on the wasteland. It was also during this time that, tired of the stagnation and constancy of the Brotherhood routine, a splinter faction broke off and pursued the mutants to the east.
Not much is known of the Brotherhood today. As the wasteland around their bunker yielded reluctantly to frontier civilization, they began once again to maintain a low profile. Though still putting advanced technology out onto the wasteland and operating inconspicuous branch offices in key locations, the Brotherhood was operating largely in secret, and no longer offered major intervention one way or the other into wasteland affairs. Under these circumstances they grew complacent, and their militaristic prowess began slowly to recede. 80 years after the dispersal of the mutant threat, the Brotherhood was not the great power it once was. A second threat cropped up, another technological society far surpassing the Brotherhood's power. Again, due to the weakened state of the Brotherhood, it took a mysterious stranger's aid to deal with the threat. Through the stranger's actions, the Brotherhood also gained knowledge that had been coveted and obscured for a hundred years prior: the ability to construct a flying machine. But these things were trivial. The greatest service the situation had rendered the Brotherhood was to open it's eyes. Once again, they would be forced to get out there and work for something- for their own betterment, and for the betterment of the human race.
Though born of the death of a civilization, the Brotherhood has proved itself to be one of the wasteland's greatest hopes for the birth of a new one. Their furtive methods may be questionable, but their motives are sound. A bastion of technology, a gem of hope, a window into a way of life both cutting edge and ancient. Let the chips fall where they may, one thing is sure: the Brotherhood will prevail.
*The historical records concerning periods following this mark in the document are largely ambiguous, and what comes after contains a good deal of speculative logic and material distilled from Brotherhood texts.
*****
*Frantically ducks and weaves as the guys pelt him with fruit*
Oww! Hey, who threw the pineapple!?!?
Yeah, it took me a whole week to write that. I never said I was the most *prolific* writer now, did I? I'm willing to sacrafice quantity for quality.... although, in this case I sacraficed both for some extra time to play the FO:T demo. I ask Fang especially to give me any input, as he is the resident BoS officianado/expert.
Well, now that this is finished, I guess there's only one thing for me to do.
*Faints, falls into coma*
http://fallout.gamestats.com/forum/User_files/3a5b0768718cafc4.jpg
For the past five or so days, this has been my #1 priority. Dyar asked me for some history on the Brotherhood of Steel, and man, did I deliver! (the things I do for you people...
) Seeing as how you guys are all venerable, level headed (albeit a little touched in the head) writers, I'd be much obliged if you'd read this here piece of eye gunk and critique it for me. Be warned, it's my longest FO history yet...Now, without further ado, I submit for your derision my third Fallout historical essay.
*****
The Brotherhood of Steel
(Note: This is by no means intended to be a definitive history of the Brotherhood of Steel. The information contained herein is assembled from various historical sources, however, the reader should be aware that much of the old accounts have been lost, and that, with much of the true story existing only in Brotherhood lore some distortion of the original events is bound to occur. Please take note that where avaliable facts pointed in one general direction, patent inferences were made.)
The Brotherhood of Steel, a paramilitary organization and a major technological research and development house based in what used to be known as California, can be traced backed almost 18 decades to its inception. Founded at the Lost Hill govenment bunker by a group of United States military personnel and their families, the Brotherhood was originally nothing more than a weary band seeking refuge from the environmental, and human, ravages of the nuclear aftermath of World War III. As time wore on, the men and their families came to consider the bunker that had protected them from the ouside world as their home and their salvation, and the descendents of the battered band that had made the original exodus to the bunker developed over the course of two generations into an isolationist technological organization. Their sociological progression, however, carried them farther and farther from their roots. The Brotherhood of Steel, placing it's technological development as it's core priority, allowed it's history to retreat into mist-shrouded ancient lore. Although the Brotherhood accounts do largely correlate with the events as they occured in the annals of history, their versions often tend to be severely wanting in respect to the specification of locations and dates. Also, Brotherhood archivists tend towards an almost religious aggrandizement of key events and figures. Perhaps one of the most notable instances of this "narrative divergence" in historical accounts is illustrated in some of the most ancient records concerning a man named Roger Maxson- one of the pillar figures of Brotherhood history- and in the lore of the very origin of the organization.
Roger Maxson, Captain United States army, serial number 072389, carved his niche in history as leader of the exodus to the Lost Hills bunker and founder of the Brotherhood of Steel. Of course, Brotherhood writ speaks of the man with an almost messianic zeal, even referring to him at times as "the great deliverer."
To the Brotherhood of Steel, Captain Maxson represents the zenith of human excellence, a bastion of virtue and their champion. History, however, speaks differently of Maxson. History shows us an ordinary man plunged headlong into the most extraordinary of circumstances. While the Brotherhood texts portray Maxson invariably as a natural leader and a master of any situation, there is no way that he could have had any indication of the emminent events looming ominously over the October of 2077.
***
As tensions between China and the United States mounted on into the third quarter of 2077, the United States maintained a number of research facilities working towards significant developments in various combat related fields. One such breakthrough was the FEV virus. A product of the Livermore/Broansoun laboratories, the FEV virus was initially known as the panimmunity virion project, commisioned prior to 2075 as a countermeasure to grant U.S. soldiers impunity from any biological weapons employed against them by China. When the substance the project created proved to possess the capability to induce extreme genetic mutation in a subject, the government showed a marked rise in interest. In-depth FEV research was undergone at such prestigious and secretive laboratories as the West Tek research facility, and on January 7, 2077, the order was issued to transfer all FEV research to the as-yet unfinished FEV production control facility at Mariposa Military Base. Although not slated for completion until 2078, the facility as it stood was adequate for the prescribed purpose, and The FEV project continued as planned. It was at the Mariposa production control facility that the first human FEV testing took place on enlisted "volunteers." The base's civilian technicians, while only following the orders handed down to them, knew full well the kind of dissent that would ensue should the military security team stationed at the base catch wind of the implications of their work, and the technicians' efforts towards ensuring that the project took place behind closed doors were successful for nearly 8 months.
As the old axiom goes, all good things must come to an end. On October 10, 2077 (the day that saw the beginning of World War 3), or a date directly preceeding it, the military personnel stationed at the Mariposa Military Base somehow became aware of the true nature of the research being conducted in their midst. It was chaos. With the facts exposed about the scientists' human experimentation, all semblance of orthodox procedure fell away. Colonel Robert Spindel, the base commander and probably the only military man in the installation apprised by the higher-ups of the location's function, locked himself in his office, cutting off all contact with his men. The troops, resentful at being denied crucial knowledge concerning the facility's purpose and horrified at the thorough and depraved inhumanity of the experiments being conducted under their guard, were incited to a blind frenzy. Aside from screaming for blood none of the men had any idea what would come next. Desperate for vindiction, they looked to the base's second in command for a course of action. That man was Captain Roger Maxson.
The signs of dissent were everywhere around Maxson. The men were growing increasingly riled in respect to the scientists, nurturing a deep and fervent bloodlust. Though just as lost as the rest of the men, Maxson recognized that someone would have to do something to avert chaos. As Colonel Spindel was locked in his office having a breakdown at the time, the responsibility of restoring the men to order, Maxson knew, fell squarely on him. The task ahead of him was a daunting and arduous one. The situation was largely volatile, and even should his attempts to diffuse it succeed, they would likely still face disciplinary action for "indiscretions" that had already been commited. Morale, and reason, were dwindling with each war report they were sent. Things were looking grim, on the front and for the men at the base-- on October 12, only two days after the discovery of the scientist's abhorrent deeds, Captain Maxson had to stop one of the men from the unsanctioned execution of a base scientist. Subsequently, Maxson commanded the scientists be interrogated to discern their orders. This order, for all intents and purposes, seemed a good one-- it would allow the men some time to cool off, in turn allowing the scientists to live, and if they could piece together the events that had transpired there was a good chance that Maxson could utilize the knowledge to help him get a handle on the situation. Unfortunately for him, this strategy was to entail unforseen consequences, and his luck was about to take another ghastly turn for the worse.
The interrogations began the next day. One of the first on the proverbial chopping block was Robert Anderson, a chief scientist at the Mariposa production control facility and holder of a level blue (maximum priority) clearance. The man showed surprisingly little resistance. With little prompting at all, the scientist revealed to Maxson and all those present the ungodly details of the testing that had been taking place. When Maxson refused to believe that the research personnel had been recieving their orders from the government, Anderson (who was fully aware what could come of lying to an armed garrison that had a basal animosity and a loaded weaponed leveled at you) grew frenzied. He started screaming about how he was following orders, and how he was just a military man. At this point, something snapped in Maxson. The gravity of the situation, the stress of leading what now amounted to a lynch mob with a command structure, the consistently disturbing accounts of the war, had all been simmering within him, and Anderson had caused them all to boil over. A single bullet, fired from Maxson's gun, ended Robert Anderson's pitiable tirade. After the fact, Captain Maxson tried to rationalize it to himself as a necessary measure to prevent Anderson from inciting full-out mutiny, but somehow he wasn't so sure.
Two days later, on October 15, Maxson made his last attempt to initiate contact with the now-incoherent Colonel Spindel. When the colonel still refused to talk, Captain Maxson and a few others broke down his door. For all their efforts, the result they were presented with was disturbing: the colonel, a wearied husk of a man, apologized to them for his as-yet unknown part in the events transpiring and took his own life. With the colonel dead there was now a definite potential for the degeneration of the men into anarchy. Maxson had, however, averted that crisis when he had murdered Anderson. In a time of such utter unsurity, such a definitive action had been well-recieved among the men, to put it mildly, and had established an unwavering following of Maxson's command. He had, however, also set a macabre and unstated precedent, and from then on the interrogations invariably ended as executions. The account of one scientist, Erin Shellman (another a high-level researcher holding a blue level clearance) correlated with Robert Anderson's testimony almost precisely, and was disconcertingly specific-- too much so, Maxson was gradually realizing, to be made up. Captain Maxson, with his impeccable intuition, began to have terrible misgivings about any possible outcome of their situation.
By October 20 the men had long since ceased responding to radio transmissions sent by the higher-ups. Captain Maxson, confounded at why no one had been sent to determine what had casued the halt in communications, decided to take drastic steps toward making sure that someone was paying attention. Whether because of the government's central role in the depraved FEV experimentation, to secure the answers and relief the men so desperately needed, or simply because the man was starting to bend under the pressure is not known, but on that day, October 20, 2077, Roger Maxson declared himself and his men to be officially secceeded from the union.
They waited. For two confined, restless, disquieting days, they waited. Nothing. Now Maxson was sure that something was wrong. This, once again, was an example of Maxson's infallible instinct at work. As per his gut instinct, some of the most pivotal- and fateful- events of the war were that very day playing themselves out on the frontlines. The U.S. armed forces, augmented by the relatively new T51-b model powered infantry armor, had fought the understocked Chinese war machine to a grinding halt and had set it in reverse, driving the Chinese invasion force all the way back to Bejing. The tide of China's hostile ingress had been stemmed. For all intents and purposes, it should have been celebrated throughout history as a second V-day. However, this would have been a far too predictable end to such an intricate and arbitrary fiasco. China had been backed into a corner, and it had literally nothing to lose. The next day, December 22 2077, would herald perhaps the most decisive and ultimately inevitable plot twist of the war-- and the final, all-encompassing climax.
No one knows who fired first. Us, them-- it doesn't matter in the long run, considering that neither "us" nor "them" have existed for over 150 years. The pertinent thing is, salvo after salvo went up all over the world, and after they came down all ailing pretense of human society had been annhialated. The base personnel were attending to the interrogation of Leon VonFelden-- the head FEV researcher and the one man besides the late Colonel Spindel who could best satiate their bloodthirsty crusade for the facts-- when the base completely lost contact. Maxson, positive that the research center had been wiped out and similarly ardent in the belief that China would sooner than later train their sights on the base, issued the following directive the next day:
By my orders, as active commanding officer following the untimely death of Colonel Robert Spindel during this time of crisis, the full base security team has been deployed to the security bunker at Lost Hill.
This directive also includes the families of the officers and enlisted men.
Unless otherwise directed, from a proper representative of the War Department, this order will stand as written.
Operative 1: All military personnel, and their families, are to vacate the base by 0800, 25 Oct 2077. All personnel, travelling under command, will make their way to Lost Hill base. No leave has been granted.
Operative 2: All civilian personnel are directed to remain at base, pending orders from their legal command structure.
Operative 3: Equipment deemed necesary to the survival of base military personnel is to be immediately drawn from stores. Proper authorization will follow, time permitting.
Operative 4: All codes of military justice will be reinforced, on military personnel and civilian personnel in joint military operations.
Operative 5: Until such time as consistant and authorized communication can be established with the War Department, these orders will have precedence over any previously established orders.
Captain Maxson
24 Oct 2077
The days following were accompanied by an intermingled sense of relief and dread. Readings indicated that the radiocative fallout had not yet spread as far as the base, and thus the primary hurdle in the way of evacuation had been cleared. Some vestige of order was restored as the command was passed down, the necessary equipment gathered, the final preparations seen to. The day before the exodus was to take place, Captain Maxson made this strikingly evocative entry into his personal log:
* Oct. 26 2077
I convinced the men that we should bury the scientists. I don't know why... perhaps it was
to ease my concience. I finally started to believe their stories when the last one was dying.
My God, what have I become?
The following day, October 27 2077, the men and their families began the taxing and perilous trek to the Lost Hills bunker.* The ruins of society-- they were not yet desolate or dissociated enough to be known as the wasteland-- lay delicately around them, a disturbing incentive to redouble their endeavor towards refuge. A slightly more pressing concern was the fact that there would be fallout, and the regiment's anti-radiation drugs were in utterly finite supply. Even if this were not already enough, there were the raiders. In any tumultuous situation, there are always those who try to capitalize, and even so shortly after the bomb dropped there were those who had decided that the best philosophy in the wastes was the way of the gun. Of course, a Power Armored brigade would normally have been able to dispatch such ruffians without a second thought-- this was a lesson soon learned by the vile dregs that dogged the exodus. The problem lay with men's families. The troops were only human, and not able to maintain an omniscient vigil over the civilians in tow. As such, many of the men lost family to the wretched human flotsam that stalked the wastes. Brotherhood histories show that anyone taking the life of an exodus member was eliminated with extreme prejudice.
After many trying days, and many funerals, the exodus reached the end of their journey: the Lost Hill military bunker. The men's hellish emigration was at it's close. Their odyssey, however, was just beginning. These lost souls, these men and women and children who had been used to the pre-war way of life, with their chintz and their microwave ovens and their service bots and holotapes and all of the trappings of a civilization that existed no more save for in fine drifts of dust, must now come to terms with the fact that these cold steel walls would be their world. Over time, they adjusted, as is the great human constant. Maxson, who had played such a pivotal role in their quest for a haven, was acknowledged almost unanimously as their leader. Over the course of time, the Brotherhood evolved. Confined to their bunker with nothing but the provisions they had brought with them, they developed a symbiotic trade relationship with some of the earlier caravan routes, survivors of the blast trying to eke out a way of life and a meager spark of civilization from the wasteland. Trading their advanced technology for food and other goods, the Brotherhood was even then helping to re-establish order on the wastes, albeit inadvertantly.
As the months and years wore on, the Brotherhood came to be in utter thrall of their technology. These people, who had before the war been soldiers and military wives and army brats, knew little of survival on the wasteland. What they did know was their tech. It had been their damnation, it had been their salvation. It was their crutch, their bartering chip, and their only link to the past. With their trade relationships firmly enstated, the Brotherhood felt no reason to devote the necessary time to such "frivolities" as agriculture and general mercantile trade. Their society, as logical progression would dictate, turned to the one thing that they had over the rest of the wastes-- the one thing that would ensure their safety and prosperity, and would put them in touch with the times before the hardship-- their technology.
For two more generations, their lives continued along these lines. A milataristic social structure developed, presided over by a council of four high elders and led by Captain Maxson's grandson, General Maxson, who had been a scout for the Brotherhood in his youth. Having devoted themselves to the furtherance of their technology, and to their military, the Brotherhood had grown into an aloof and isolationist body on the wastes. In fact, aside from initiates and caravaneers, no one was allowed within the bunker. Their way of life continued much unchanged until suddenly, circa 2161, the Brotherhood became aware of a threat that they were inadequate to handle.
To the Northeast, Roger Maxson's gut instinct proved (as the exception to the rule) to have been wrong. The Chinese Government had been unaware of the Mariposa Military Base, and it sat intact. A new and ominous entity had gained control of the base, and was using the FEV contained therein to create an army of human mutants which he planned to use in a fanatical drive to mutate- and therefore unite- the entire peoples of the wasteland. Through the help of a mysterious stranger, the bulk of the threat was dispatched. The base that the Brotherhood had left behind them so many years ago was eliminated, and the abominations therein buried deep under the rubble. The leader of the mutants was destroyed. The mutants themselves though, left without a leader or a cause, were a scourge on the wasteland. Through the intervention of the stranger that had dispatched the mutants, the Brotherhood came to see that outside interaction was necessary to their progression. It was through their collaborative effort that many towns were spared from the mutant's wrath, and that the mutants were chased east beyond the no man's land. For a time, they became a major research and development house and a minor presence on the wasteland. It was also during this time that, tired of the stagnation and constancy of the Brotherhood routine, a splinter faction broke off and pursued the mutants to the east.
Not much is known of the Brotherhood today. As the wasteland around their bunker yielded reluctantly to frontier civilization, they began once again to maintain a low profile. Though still putting advanced technology out onto the wasteland and operating inconspicuous branch offices in key locations, the Brotherhood was operating largely in secret, and no longer offered major intervention one way or the other into wasteland affairs. Under these circumstances they grew complacent, and their militaristic prowess began slowly to recede. 80 years after the dispersal of the mutant threat, the Brotherhood was not the great power it once was. A second threat cropped up, another technological society far surpassing the Brotherhood's power. Again, due to the weakened state of the Brotherhood, it took a mysterious stranger's aid to deal with the threat. Through the stranger's actions, the Brotherhood also gained knowledge that had been coveted and obscured for a hundred years prior: the ability to construct a flying machine. But these things were trivial. The greatest service the situation had rendered the Brotherhood was to open it's eyes. Once again, they would be forced to get out there and work for something- for their own betterment, and for the betterment of the human race.
Though born of the death of a civilization, the Brotherhood has proved itself to be one of the wasteland's greatest hopes for the birth of a new one. Their furtive methods may be questionable, but their motives are sound. A bastion of technology, a gem of hope, a window into a way of life both cutting edge and ancient. Let the chips fall where they may, one thing is sure: the Brotherhood will prevail.
*The historical records concerning periods following this mark in the document are largely ambiguous, and what comes after contains a good deal of speculative logic and material distilled from Brotherhood texts.
*****
*Frantically ducks and weaves as the guys pelt him with fruit*
Oww! Hey, who threw the pineapple!?!?
Yeah, it took me a whole week to write that. I never said I was the most *prolific* writer now, did I? I'm willing to sacrafice quantity for quality.... although, in this case I sacraficed both for some extra time to play the FO:T demo. I ask Fang especially to give me any input, as he is the resident BoS officianado/expert.
Well, now that this is finished, I guess there's only one thing for me to do.
*Faints, falls into coma*
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