Navarro
Well-known member
Aaand fixed.
-
The Sietch will be brought offline for HPG systems maintenance tomorrow (Thursday, 2 May 2024). Please remain calm and do not start any interstellar wars while ComStar is busy. May the Peace of Blake be with you. Precentor Dune
Fallout Fallout: Autumn Morning [Director's Cut]
- Thread starter Navarro
- Start date
f1onagher
Well-known member
I like watching the formation and maturation of proto-states, be they the NCR, the Lone Star Republic, the Commonwealth, or even states like Caesar's Legion. The evolution of peoples as they rebuild the world and find a new way in it. Fallout adds the great wrinkle of the Old World's shadow. The BoS rejects the old world and seeks something without its flaws. The NCR recreates it wholesale but without any context for what it was. Caesar's Legion tries to go back a few updates to find an idealized point in history to recreate. The Enclave, be it original brand, Autumnite, or otherwise attempts to reassert what it perceives as the right and functional in the world. The Commonwealth is simply an organic growth of farmers and traders trying to make a world safe for themselves to live in. And more fanmade factions expand on this. The Lone Star Republic is the result of the civilized factions of Texas circling the wagons to fend off the barbarians. Ronto (and the Pitt) define themselves as creators in a world of destroyers and scavengers.
And on and on we could go. The people of North America take their distorted view of the destroyed world and attempt to use it as a frame for what they want to build next. Even those who reject the Old World innately accept it as an influence by their mere rejection. It offers a fascinating world to build and explore, even if you just wish to constrain the setting to Americana.
But that's not something a pack of mentally shriveled marketing experts would want to roll the dice on.
Navarro
Well-known member
I pretty much see the NCR as struggling with an identity crisis. Are we the successor to the Old World or something new? Are we a Californian nation-state or a new USA?
And that's why the Commonwealth in this fic, and many other wastelanders, side with the Enclave. They offer stability and security, and appeal both to the memories of pre-War life which naturally have taken on the ideal of a lost golden age and to the idea of a common American identity.
You can also see the difference in mindsets between the Enclave (in this fic) and BOS with the former repairing Rivet City back into a functional aircraft carrier while the latter in canon just treats it as a useful source of scrap, installing its reactor into the Prydwen.
You can see it in the show - all the attempts at building any kind of new civilisation have gone up in flames. The only major factions left standing are the BOS and the Enc- hey, what was the writer's favourite game in the series, by any chance?
Last edited:
JDoe
New member
Is this implying some sort of Corporation or even Zetan sabotage against Pre-War US defense systems? Ekchart was mentioned, so it might well be internal sabotage more than anything.
Crow gotta eat
That peckish, patriotic, Protestant passerine.
The interesting thing about Fallout was seeing the different philosophies/view points of all the people rising out of the nuclear ashes, be they the main antagonists of say the first games, or the alliable factions you can pick in say NV.
They even made the Khans in Vegas have some depth and a viewpoint, and sure they were asshole raiders sometimes, especially to the NCR, and drug dealers to the Fiends and others, but they were also shown to be a generally overall loyal to their cultural group, with maybe albeit some brutal traditions, but traditions that helped solidify them as group and prepare them for the harsh world they lived in. Well, that is until their hate for the NCR could possibly screw them over by siding with the Legion and basically commit cultural suicide by being forcibly absorbed, but you get my point.
And you could also easily see the POV of one of them who sided with the NCR and said they "got what was coming to them" with the Bitter Springs Massacre, with how they were still overall a net negative to both for the NCR and arguably the New Vegas region as a whole with their dealings with the Fiends and unreasonable hatred for everything NCR even before the Massacre.
f1onagher
Well-known member
I generally have limited sympathy for the Khans. Oh, the raider gang ran out of helpless victims and got ganked? What a pity that the whirlwind caught up to them. That being said, I do enjoy how many of the raider gangs can and do evolve into tribals or other people groups around shared cultures and I generally consider them escaping to Montana or Wyoming a happy ending.
Stuff like this is just kind of cool.
Crow gotta eat
That peckish, patriotic, Protestant passerine.
Oh certainly agreed. In terms of having "civilized" people come back into force across the Wasteland, the NCR putting a stop to them, albeit more brutally than maybe intended and morally needed, was better overall for Mojave. At the same time, sometimes it is raider/more miltaristic peoples that form societies, or rather larger more organized societies, as although Caesar's Legion was a more unstable version, it does show what a society willing to use force to eliminate threats and/or unify a region can do.
In real life, it was generally more militaristic peoples that either subjugate people into their own empire, or otherwise expand the reach of their own people, that generally pushed societies, technology and philosophies forward. As usually expansion required the use of new ideas, technology, general human greed or fear, pride, desperation, etc. that gives the shove to make it possible in the first place. Though degrees how how militaristic they were and how they expressed said militarism of course varied.
Heck, even "peaceful" take overs of other peoples usually involved saying "We got a lot of good weapons and men who can use them available, if you give us the appropriate tribute, we'll protect you from people who will take more from you by force."
Or you know, threatening them into compliance as well.
JDoe
New member
This quote seems relevant "You can't truly call yourself peaceful unless you're capable of great violence. If you're not capable of violence, you're not peaceful, you're harmless." Unfortunately for tribes like the Khans, Nations like the NCR and the Enclave believe that their presence prevents peace unless they are altered or assimilated, which is a perfectly valid viewpoint in the Wasteland.
Navarro
Well-known member
New chapter still being written:
==*==
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?"
The singer's voice rang out over the crowded hall in the main building of the air base as Nate took a moment to relax, sitting at a table as he nursed his whiskey. Heidi Jackson, he had to admit, was a real beauty – chestnut brown hair ran down in elegantly curled waves down her head, framing a heart-shaped face accentuated with rouge and cherry-red lipstick – her fiancé must really be someone that he can get them for her, Nate thought. Had it not been for the silver ring on her gloved finger, he'd have really been interested, but as it was ...
The hall was packed not only with officers of medium to high rank and some wealthy civilians but a good deal of enlisted and NCOs; the Army had changed since Nate's time, a lesson learned from fighting power-armoured rebels who called themselves the Brotherhood of Steel. The US had almost lost DC to them, when they'd tried to destroy a water purification facility US scientists were working on, and Autumn had taken in some of their practices, that had given their fighting men such a solid bond and willingness to press on even against an enemy with air support, with better armour and weapons, fortified behind forcefields and pillbox walls. They'd come so close to dealing the USA another crippling blow – not even half a century after a nuclear terrorist attack that took out the government, just like the Palestinians had tried in Tel Aviv – not that people remembered the latter incident much in this new era, after infinitely worse had happened and so many bloody years had passed.
These days, officers and their enlisted ate and drank together like in the Brotherhood; the idea was that everybody would fight that much harder, be more eager to follow orders, when it was from people they knew and trusted, and that officers would be more willing to push their men when they trusted them to be able to get the objective, finish the mission, win the fight. Cohesion was the name of the game these days – everybody in a battalion or company had stuck together since boot camp, or been put into the battalion from a training unit directly tied to it. There was no drifting between units or drifting apart after boot nowadays. You went into boot camp, you knew the people who'd be your firmest friends through the rest of your tour. He had to admit, he liked the idea. After what had happened just months (no, 200 years!, he mentally corrected), he felt he would appreciate some solidity.
==*==
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?"
The singer's voice rang out over the crowded hall in the main building of the air base as Nate took a moment to relax, sitting at a table as he nursed his whiskey. Heidi Jackson, he had to admit, was a real beauty – chestnut brown hair ran down in elegantly curled waves down her head, framing a heart-shaped face accentuated with rouge and cherry-red lipstick – her fiancé must really be someone that he can get them for her, Nate thought. Had it not been for the silver ring on her gloved finger, he'd have really been interested, but as it was ...
The hall was packed not only with officers of medium to high rank and some wealthy civilians but a good deal of enlisted and NCOs; the Army had changed since Nate's time, a lesson learned from fighting power-armoured rebels who called themselves the Brotherhood of Steel. The US had almost lost DC to them, when they'd tried to destroy a water purification facility US scientists were working on, and Autumn had taken in some of their practices, that had given their fighting men such a solid bond and willingness to press on even against an enemy with air support, with better armour and weapons, fortified behind forcefields and pillbox walls. They'd come so close to dealing the USA another crippling blow – not even half a century after a nuclear terrorist attack that took out the government, just like the Palestinians had tried in Tel Aviv – not that people remembered the latter incident much in this new era, after infinitely worse had happened and so many bloody years had passed.
These days, officers and their enlisted ate and drank together like in the Brotherhood; the idea was that everybody would fight that much harder, be more eager to follow orders, when it was from people they knew and trusted, and that officers would be more willing to push their men when they trusted them to be able to get the objective, finish the mission, win the fight. Cohesion was the name of the game these days – everybody in a battalion or company had stuck together since boot camp, or been put into the battalion from a training unit directly tied to it. There was no drifting between units or drifting apart after boot nowadays. You went into boot camp, you knew the people who'd be your firmest friends through the rest of your tour. He had to admit, he liked the idea. After what had happened just months (no, 200 years!, he mentally corrected), he felt he would appreciate some solidity.
Navarro
Well-known member
Blah blah blah the new chapter's going along quite well:
==*==
The development of the United American Church had been small at first – arguably it had started with one woman. Caroline Helena Autumn had been one of the very few practicing Christians within the Enclave, but from those mustardseed-like beginnings she had forged together the remnants of Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian and other denominations into the UAC, working with chaplains, bishops and pastors to come together in support of America. The new President's conversion – some would say to appease his new bride, others that it was brought on by his three-day brush with eternity after the assassination attempt at Project Purity – had inspired a flurry of similar conversions among Enclave bureaucrats and officers, percolating down into the ranks – many of the soldiers, after all, had much they felt the need to atone for.
As such, it was no surprise that the first building made of stone to be built in the Capital Wasteland wasn't some government office or military HQ, but a church – St. Constantine's, named after the first Christian Emperor. That the ancient king had also won a battle on a bridge, and shared a name with the great general who'd reclaimed Anchorage was surely no coincidence. Caroline's victory hymn, composed by her on hearing the news of the battle of Jefferson Memorial, was still heard in churches on the anniversary. Truth be told, the UAC was only part of the First Lady's agenda – a dozen or more cultural organisations, from sports leagues to textbook printers and radio stations, bore her imprint in some way or another. But it was one of the biggest parts.
Jim Reeds, a pastor from down south in Pennsylvania, knew little of this and cared even less about it as he prepared to give one of his Advent sermons to his flock in Lexington's new St. Michael's Church.
==*==
The development of the United American Church had been small at first – arguably it had started with one woman. Caroline Helena Autumn had been one of the very few practicing Christians within the Enclave, but from those mustardseed-like beginnings she had forged together the remnants of Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian and other denominations into the UAC, working with chaplains, bishops and pastors to come together in support of America. The new President's conversion – some would say to appease his new bride, others that it was brought on by his three-day brush with eternity after the assassination attempt at Project Purity – had inspired a flurry of similar conversions among Enclave bureaucrats and officers, percolating down into the ranks – many of the soldiers, after all, had much they felt the need to atone for.
As such, it was no surprise that the first building made of stone to be built in the Capital Wasteland wasn't some government office or military HQ, but a church – St. Constantine's, named after the first Christian Emperor. That the ancient king had also won a battle on a bridge, and shared a name with the great general who'd reclaimed Anchorage was surely no coincidence. Caroline's victory hymn, composed by her on hearing the news of the battle of Jefferson Memorial, was still heard in churches on the anniversary. Truth be told, the UAC was only part of the First Lady's agenda – a dozen or more cultural organisations, from sports leagues to textbook printers and radio stations, bore her imprint in some way or another. But it was one of the biggest parts.
Jim Reeds, a pastor from down south in Pennsylvania, knew little of this and cared even less about it as he prepared to give one of his Advent sermons to his flock in Lexington's new St. Michael's Church.
Navarro
Well-known member
That'll be dealt with largely in EATB, but it's also to try and make sense of what the "pre-War Enclave" was. Tl;dr; it was simply the American "E"stablishment. There were people in the government who had nothing to do with "the Enclave", resolutely hated it even, and on the other hand there were people who had no official government jobs who were very much part of it. Clearly though it had all the levers of power under its control in a way that's really unlikely for a dedicated conspiracy to do so while keeping it secret. The truth about why America was authoritarian just before the bombs is worse.
No secret conspiracy was needed to bring about rising authoritarianism in pre-War America - it started with simple economic contraction, the greatest hyperinflation event in world history, a booming American economy sent into freefall overnight, brought about by Israel nuking the Middle East's oil reserves as it destroyed the UAR in retaliation for the nuclear attack on Tel Aviv. NCR textbooks proclaiming that all oil ran dry oversimplify, just as they say the Great Winter "covered the world" when it actually just affected California.
Then, after a decade of a nation struggling through a second Great Depression BUT WORSE with seemingly no relief, the Great War happens - it's a mix of WW2, Korea, Vietnam all on steroids between two superpowers with hundreds of millions to billions of people, plus their allies; island hopping in the Pacific, Communists actually landing on and capturing American soil, Hawaii is threatened several times, an invasion scare overwhelms the West Coast for several years; Chinese internment starts early, later on the 22nd Amendment is replaced with the 29th near-unanimously, President Jones needs to stay on to see this war through don'tchaknow.
Then during the mid-to-late War, the Blue Flu, an (American) bioweapon causing mass death and sterility, breaks containment. Millions die. People unironically nickname it "the New Plague". You saw what happened during COVID; this is that on steroids, compounding with the previous two disasters. People don't just accept an ever-more authoritarian government after all these catastrophes; they welcome it. Still though, there's an idea in many people's minds that this is all just temporary, once the war is over we can work on rebuilding and maybe we can reconsider-
Then the nukes fly.
Last edited:
Crow gotta eat
That peckish, patriotic, Protestant passerine.
Religion, more usually a unified religion, does make a good stabilizer in the right circumstances. I would definitely say that it would be a morale booster now for the Enclave to believe in something, especially if they can associate restoring America as a holy mission or dare I even say a Crusade. Not to mention how many weird (or outright just arguably evil) religions appeared to have popped in the Wasteland and finding something to replace those with as an unofficial policy would be a good thing to get rid of destabilizing religions/philosophies and just replacing those ideas with something more "positive" to say the least.
Just look at the Vipers and tell me if you would tolerate ANY of their beliefs. Probably not the only ones out there like that.
And people wonder why Pre-War USA would show an on the spot execution of a Canadian Freedom Fighter of some kind and it be a Pro-USA thing in context. World was going to hell in a handbasket and anything that was deemed "in the way of recovering/stabilization/our way of life" was not really cared for. Fallout 3 and 4 that the protests were less about the whole war crimes and authoritarianism going on and more the whole situation of seemingly increasing unpayable costs for food and other necessities due to the growing scarcity of resources.
Last edited:
Navarro
Well-known member
You can use military might to conquer and subdue people, but to truly establish your rule for good you have to gain legitimacy. Which is why this fic's Enclave is so scary, is so much of a powerhouse already after just ten years. It's not got only military power, but economic and even cultural power - it makes people on the East Coast want to join them.
If they only had high tech and military might, they'd be in a far weaker position. Here, they have more than that. That's why their only real match, their ultimate nemesis, just had to be the NCR thematically - it's the only wasteland power that even approaches that level, the BOS doesn't compare (well, the Legion was a potential alternative, but that would have been a rather uninteresting story of Good Guy* Americans vs Slaving Roman LARPers).
*for a certain value of good
Last edited:
Navarro
Well-known member
Not scarcity of resources as such, but unrestrained hyperinflation mixed with the demands of a total war economy and the economic cost of a pandemic worse than the Spanish Flu. Shit was fucked in three totally different ways all at once. More integration of fusion power in power plants and microfusion would have helped a lot, but the nukes happened first.
And no, the devices Big MT provided Sinclair were glorified vending machines which took up the better part of a municipal grid to make even the small amount he had in the Sierra Madre work and required exorbitant amounts of raw feedstock. More an expression of decadence than anything else - that's the sort of contextualisation those things need to not break the setting.
And I'd say it's the way people view the lore as a series of isolated factoids that make them think that. I mean, they look at "nuclear attack in Israel early 2050s", followed immediately after by global wars fought over oil, and don't make what should be a blindingly obvious connection. So instead of thinking of historically-appropriate reasons why pre-War America would have become authoritarian, comparable to ways countries have become authoritarian in IRL history, they just wave their hands and go "McCarthyism!" or "le Enclave conspiracy!". As a history major I can't abide that sort of thinking.
Last edited:
Navarro
Well-known member
Personally I view Avellone's Fallout timeline as the NCR POV, fitting with the NCR-centric focus of FO1 and FO2. It's sparse and disconnected when it comes to pre-War events, and when it comes to post-War events it's completely preoccupied on what went down in California.
Kind of the thing a post-apocalyptic society piecing together scraps of history centuries after a nuclear war, that has only a vague impression of events beyond its borders and is so self-centered "Core Region" is a CANON term it uses to refer to its territory, would make.
Chapter Thirteen
New
Navarro
Well-known member
A special treat - a completely new chapter! All theology contained in this is not endorsed by me specifically. Also, Heaven save me, I've never tried to write a decent romance scene before.
==*==
Chapter Thirteen
"This generation must fight to the utmost so that the next need fight no more."
-Donald W. Richardson, Secretary for Public Information, Speech at Iwo Jima Memorial July 4 2286
Fort Independence, South Boston
The mood was jubilant at the Castle when Nate arrived on his motorbike leading his force of Minutemen. Fall however, was certainly long gone, as December had now arrived in full force with snowfall and bitter winds from the north. It was light and crisp for now, nothing like the bitter snows of Anchorage that had fallen on the bloodied corpses of American and Chinese soldiers alike for ten long years.
Nate turned his gaze uneasily to the city centre – it was still a hornet's nest that even the power-armoured American forces were having trouble establishing a foothold in. US outposts clung uneasily to the tops of skyscrapers and high-rise apartments like mountaintop eyries, supplied by vertibird and launching sweeps by air into the tangled streets, aiming simply to rack up a body count before heading back. It was little use, and it was clear that the US simply couldn't take the city proper right now. The bandit gangs farmed in wartime allotments, ruined parks, or the husks of bombed-out buildings, supplemented by thefts and tolls from food caravans and tribute from settlements under their 'protection', while the mutants … Nate had seen where they got their food personally, and it only made him hate them all the more.
He went into the Castle and was waved through the gateway. A shipment of uniforms from down south had come through just before the battle – more than enough to clothe all the castle's garrison. They were dark blue, like US Army garrison clothes, with the Minutemen insignia on the right shoulder board and the rank on left. Preston looked particularly good in them, but some of the Minutemen weren't wearing them – sticking to their butternut and grey farmer's clothes.
This was calculated defiance.
"Colonel Davis," Nate said, looking at what seemed to be the most prominent of that group, staring him straight in the eye. "You're to wear your uniform and that's a direct order, much as some among the Minutemen may have forgotten about that concept while Radio Freedom was down. As your General I'm in command of the Minutemen and what I say goes. The rest of you, the same."
Davis shuffled off to his quarters to change, while Nate headed to the infirmary. His friend Elliott was still in good spirits despite having lost an eye, and the medics had stabilised him – they'd send him to Hanscom soon to get a cybernetic.
Meanwhile, just after having changed to his new blues, Davis spoke to Colonel Hebert from Brockton, a neighbouring town to Davis' own. That southern region was the most dangerous part of the 'wealth, right east of the Glowing Sea. You had to be tough to survive there.
"I don't trust the new General," he spoke in hushed tones. "He must be an agent of those people that say they're the government. Says he comes from Vault 111 way up north – but everybody knows no one has ever gone in or out. They've had people here before they arrived in force – I'd say he's one of them. Sent specially to take over the Minutemen."
"Why?"
"Because they want a friendly face while they take over the Commonwealth. We've done well on our own and now these people are saying they own the place."
"I wouldn't say we've done well, Benny. With the bad crops this year, University Point a few years back, and Quincy, and the super mutants, and- they say they're gonna end all that. I'm willing to take a chance."
"The thing with promises with that," Davis finished, a hard look on his face. "It's never free. There's always a price tag attached. I don't think I'd like the one on something so big."
Gunners Plaza, Southern Commonwealth
The three vertibirds landed a decent distance from the former GNR Plaza, their engines melting the winter snow as they set down.
James H. Davison, State Department intern, struggled to keep himself warm. He was supposed to play a junior role in negotiations – which meant, essentially, that his role was to watch while Beauregard did the real work. There were Gunners entrenched behind sandbags in front of the building, in perfect cover positions behind columns, on the roof, lurking behind loopholes cut through the concrete. He could only imagine there were even more inside, hundreds at the least. They had a motley mix of weapons – R91 rifles, AER9s and Novasurge plasma guns, anti-materiel rifles, missile launchers, gauss rifles, even a Fat Man. Several dozen that he could see were in power armour, a mix of T-45s and T-51s.
Davison was suddenly reminded of when he'd been sent to the Atom Cats some days ago, expecting the worst but finding just a bunch of bored teens and young adults who posed no threat to US operations. They'd ruled him "square but kinda okay", and in return the government had written them off as harmless. They'd grow out of it someday.
"So," Captain Wes, said, standing in front of his men, speaking in an accent that Davison took a moment to realise was most similar to pre-War Canadian. "You yankee boys think you can take us on?"
His bravado wasn't merely empty. It would be a real fight to take it by storm, especially as the Gunners were a cut above normal raiders. Those men had real discipline and fighting spirit. And to besiege it would tie up to many men, especially in such a dangerous environment as the south.
"We don't need to," Beauregard replied. "Haven't you had a look round Quincy lately?"
That put fear into Wes' eyes. It was a bluff, James knew – the government wouldn't blow up Gunners Plaza from the air, they wanted it intact. It was a potential outpost, a comms station – and, eventually, when it was no longer needed as a military asset – something to auction off to a civilian radio company for a handsome price.
"But we can avoid all that," he said, gesturing to what was being brought out of the vertibirds. It was several crates filled to the brim with nuka-cola bottlecaps. "Look what we have to pay you with."
James could see greed overtake fear in Wes' eyes.
"For how long?" he asked. "And how many?"
"All your people for a five-year contract. That there is a bargain even for that."
Wes seemed to think it over a moment and replied.
"Yes."
That was it. James knew what would happen next – it'd happened before. The Gunners would spend their pay on women, gear, booze, food. They'd find it somehow it was worth less and less the more they paid it with, until they turned to American green. They'd get training from US officers, get issued US equipment, eventually take citizenship oaths just to avoid the hassle, take on recruits offered to them by Uncle Sam trained by American instructors to replace losses, finally sign-up full time. That would be the point of no return. Eventually what had been a mercenary outfit would, if it lasted long enough, become a regular US Army unit - one usually deployed for situations where collateral damage wasn't taken into account. That way any roughness could be blamed on their mercenary origins.
And, to avoid delicate situations arising with the 5,000-strong militia going through a similar process of incorporation, what was left of the Gunners would soon find themselves deployed to another theatre entirely.
==*==
Hanscom AFB, Lexington
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind,
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?"
The singer's voice rang out from the stage over the crowded hall in the main building of the air base as Nate took a moment to relax, sitting at a table as he nursed his whiskey, running a finger down his formal tan suit. Around him, some drunken soldiers were wolf-whistling and hollering at the starlet on stage. Heidi Jackson, he had to admit, was a real beauty – chestnut brown hair ran down in elegantly curled waves down her head, framing a heart-shaped face accentuated with rouge and cherry-red lipstick – her fiancé must really be someone that he can get them for her, Nate thought. Had it not been for the silver ring on her gloved finger, he'd have really been interested, but as it was ...
The last time Nate had been at a party like this had been almost a year – no, 200 or so – after the Reds had been driven from Anchorage, the hammering of the first nail into Red China's coffins. That brutal three-day mission had been the toughest of his life – he'd led a handpicked strike team personally, operating just below General Chase himself, and knocked out the two barriers to the main assault, the Chinese heavy field guns guarding the surrounding cliffs and the pulse field blocking the main power-armoured forces. The 108th had formed the vanguard of the assault after that, powered companies working as speartips to punch through the Chinese trench lines while non-powered American troops and Soviet elements moved in through the breaches – he'd never fully trusted the Russians, but they were more stubborn in a fight than the most hardened American troops, and he could respect that. Crazy too, to willingly wear those hump-backed Tesla suits, the dirty fission they ran on certain to give their operators cancer after a few years of service.
It had been a gruelling journey back to base, to learn when he arrived that the ChiComs were in full flight and Jingwei had shot himself. After that, he'd gotten an honorary rank of Colonel and a transfer to the Army Reserve, then gone home to Nora as she went through the last months of her pregnancy. Then Shaun had been born – I can't imagine what they're doing to him, that bastard Kellogg must have been lying just to fuck with me – and with nonstop news of US victories in Asia, he'd imagined that soon he'd be able to live a peaceful life. But instead the bombs happened, and I woke up to a country at war again. Ten bloody years had not been enough, it seemed. But it was his duty, and he had to do it. If not him ... just as it had been way back then in 2068, his eighteenth birthday, the day he'd signed up for service ... who would?
The hall was packed not only with officers of medium to high rank and some wealthy civilians but a good deal of enlisted and NCOs; the Army had changed since Nate's time, a lesson learned from fighting power-armoured rebels who called themselves the Brotherhood of Steel. The US had almost lost DC to them, when they'd tried to destroy a water purification facility US scientists were working on, and Autumn had taken in some of their practices, that had given their fighting men such a solid bond and willingness to press on even against an enemy with air support, with better armour and weapons, fortified behind forcefields and pillbox walls. They'd come so close to dealing the USA another crippling blow – not even half a century after a nuclear terrorist attack that took out the government, just like the Palestinians had tried in Tel Aviv – not that people remembered the latter incident much in this new era, after infinitely worse had happened and so many bloody years had passed.
These days, officers and their enlisted ate and drank together like in the Brotherhood; the idea was that everybody would fight that much harder, be more eager to follow orders, when it was from people they knew and trusted, and that officers would be more willing to push their men when they trusted them to be able to get the objective, finish the mission, win the fight. Cohesion was the name of the game these days – everybody in a battalion or company had stuck together since boot camp, or been put into the battalion from a training unit directly tied to it. There was no drifting between units or drifting apart after boot nowadays. You went into boot camp, you knew the people who'd be your firmest friends through the rest of your tour. He had to admit, he liked the idea. After what had happened just months (no, 200 years!, he mentally corrected), he felt he would appreciate some solidity.
Piper was going round, trying to get interviews from some of the higher-ranking men and officials present. He himself couldn't- Should I? I know she likes me too, but …
He walked over to put his empty bottle in the trash when he bumped into a civilian, dressed in a fancy black suit.
"Your name?" the man asked semi-casually.
"Nathan Washington," he replied. "I lead the biggest US-allied force in this region. And yours?"
"You don't look wastelander," the man said. "Vault? If you joined the real Army, you'd be running a company – even a battalion – in months. Name's Joseph Bradberton by the way, I own the Nuka-Cola Corporation. Family business, I'm rebuilding it from the ground up, we're cranking out those nuka bottles away down south and looking to increase production."
"Impressive," Nate noted. Bradberton hadn't given him time to correct him, and the conversation had moved on so fast.
"I'm surprised you didn't bring a date yourself. Half the people who join the Armed Forces are doing it to look for a war bride … that's how I met my Sierra. Real firecracker, but she can get hyper even on the meds she's on these days. Fell in love with me the moment she heard my last name, can you believe that?"
He smiled wistfully, lost a moment in romantic memories.
"I'm … I'm a widower," Nate admitted, feeling weak (why couldn't I protect her? I should have- should have-), for a moment seeing glimpses again of a bald mercenary pulling Nora's baby off her, shooting her multiple times with a .44 pistol, as he watched helplessly, banging his fists on the glass, hoping against hope it would break, wishing he was in his armour like on the front. "My wife was murdered not long ago."
"I can see why you wouldn't be looking right now. Sorry for mentioning that to you."
"It's okay."
That was somehow all he could say.
Nate went over to see Autumn, but the President was busy talking to a group of officers, draining the last of a silver cup and smelling of bourbon. Two stony-faced soldiers in gold-trimmed black dress uniforms stood over him, eyes constantly scanning the crowded room. They were probably the only sober people in the whole room.
"Now, my wife, I only put her over my knee when she's really asking for it," he said, chuckling, and everybody around him broke out in laughter, before he seemed distracted and asked for another mint julep.
He saw a glimpse of Piper again, and went over to her. She immediately smiled and looked at him, a hopeful expression on her face. Is this the right moment?, he thought, before deciding to just move on her anyway. He just needed to tell her how he felt for her right now, at this perfect time …
Heidi was singing something slow and sad, and though it seemed inappropriate it helped him slow down, not rush, not make a fool of himself. This was scarier than crawling atop the narrow cliffs of Anchorage to take out the ChiCom guns or creeping through the base under cover of night to take out the pulse field generator right after. But then, it'd been like that with Nora too, hadn't it?
"Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know …"
He looked her in the eyes, smoothing her hair, a slight smile on her face, waiting for the words he should be saying, the words both of them wanted to hear, the words he … the words he found out just then he couldn't say.
"Piper, I, … I, I … can't be with you."
She looked shattered, confused, broken up all in one moment.
"What do you mean, Blue? You can't really …"
"Piper," he said, fighting to speak without choking up, trying to organise the thoughts rushing like river rapids through his mind, so fast he barely noticed them. "I … I took a shine to you from the moment we met, because you're like Nora, you're a real spitfire like she was. But that's why … you're too much like her. I like you because you're like her, but that's … that's why I can't love you."
"I understand," she said, putting on a brave face as she turned away. "But I'll always be your friend."
"Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know …"
It took him time to come back together, like he'd been hit by a shell and needed to pull every part of himself, every last cell, back together like some comic-book superhero. He ordered some wine at the bar and went to a table, had finished it half-way down when somebody came looking to his table – another lady – no, it was that secretary he'd seen earlier, wearing a woman's dress uniform – blue with silver brocade and buttons. In the half-light of the dance hall she looked even prettier, the reflecting light making her hair look like spun gold, catching her eyes like the sun on a summer's day off green grass. A small cross choker was on her neck.
She looked a mix of sheepish and concerned, and Nate realised she must be worried about him.
"What's gotten into you? You weren't like this heading out to the battle."
"I think names first would be polite – I never did get to catch yours," he said, not sure what he should be feeling right now. It sure was nice that she'd gone out of her way to reach out, he couldn't help but appreciate that.
"I'm … I'm Rhonda Richardson," she said, smiling. Nate couldn't help but smile back. This lady was infectious.
"After the ship?" he joked.
"Well, the ship is named after my great-grandfather. He was the President back when we first started rebuilding America."
Her pride was obvious.
"I'm Nathan Washington," Nate replied. "No relation."
She chuckled at the joke, and Nate was feeling smooth right now.
"Shall I have this dance?"
Heidi was singing another song now, a fast-paced jazzy number, and from the corner of his eye Nate glimpsed that she was having a lot of fun doing it.
"In your chain of friendship let me be a link!
Soon we will be sweethearts, sooner than you think!
In the meantime, in your chain of friendship let me be a liiink!"
Nate was no stranger to dancing; this woman was clumsy, like she had little experience. She recognised that and let him take the lead, beaming like the sun as he twirled her round.
"So, what's your position?" she asked off-handedly.
"General of the Minutemen," he replied. "Uncle Sam's firmest allied force in Boston."
"My father wouldn't like me getting mixed up with a 'wasteland savage'," she replied, her mood seeming to darken. "And he's not a man either of us would like to anger."
"Who is he?" Nate asked.
"Donald W. Richardson," she said coolly. "Secretary of Public Information, which means he's only one of the most important men in the country."
"-And for the moment, all I ask of you,
Is, in your book of memories, let me be a page!"
"You sound like you don't like him."
"He's the reason I'm in the Army. Both my brothers have congenital illnesses, they don't meet Army standards. So he pushed me into volunteering, said I had to make the family proud. He was so disappointed when I didn't get into a combat arm."
"What would you like to do?"
"Almost nobody's asked me that," she said with an expression of pleasant surprise. "I'd love to play piano, or sing – something artistic. But the war's always demanding so much."
"America needs artists as much as it needs soldiers, I'd say," Nate replied. "What I'd give to live in a world where the states were united again. We'd be through with the war at last."
"That's not-" Rhonda started to say, then stopped abruptly. "Are you a …"
She shook her head and stopped her train of thought abruptly.
"What I meant to say is, you're a pretty smooth talker."
The party was now winding down – it was sometime after midnight, and people were starting to leave. Heidi Jackson was still doing the last lines of her song.
"Right now we can't do the things we wanna do,
And for the moment, all I ask of you,
Is, in your door to dreamland, let me be the key!"
"Good night, Rhonda," he said, still smiling from that magic moment they'd had together. "See you soon."
"Good night, Nathan!" she said, beaming as she made her way to the exit. "See you around!"
Nate couldn't help but smile yet again. Maybe … just maybe … there was a chance again.
==*==
POSTMORTEM ON PRE-WAR CONTINUITY OF GOVERNMENT PLAN "ENCLAVE"
CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET
PRESIDENTIAL ACCESS ONLY
DATE: 08-15-2287
Continuity of Government Plan ENCLAVE was created in 2045 as a revision of previous continuity of government plans and updated sequentially in response to a series of incidents over the mid-21st century, including the Palestinian terrorist attack on Tel Aviv and resulting Israeli enactment of Operation Samson on the United Arab Republic, and the beginning of the Sino-American War.
The plan involved retention of vital members of the US government and US military assets, along with leaders in scientific and business fields, in fortified bunkers, prepared for this purpose under the highest possible security using the most well-vetted personnel available, for approx. 30-40 years. After this period was completed, an AI installed at NORAD would be activated from the main base, Control Station ENCLAVE, and use a robotic army to restore order across the US, after which the government would return to the mainland. Each facility also housed a ZAX AI of its own. During the period ENCLAVE was in effect, the POTUS would have total power, unbounded by the US Constitution, to do whatever was necessary to maintain and restore the Federal government's authority. Assets to be used in ENCLAVE were marked out with a unique logo – an E with three middle bars representing the branches of FEDGOV, surrounded by the Commonwealth stars.
The main ENCLAVE bases are listed alphabetically below:
EAGLE –MacArthur AFB, MT, weapons armories and aircraft hangars, stripped clean, abandoned and demolished during reconvening of US forces at Chicago.
EARLY – Iron Mountain, UT. Armories and research labs, stripped clean, abandoned and demolished during reconvening of US forces at Chicago.
EDEN – Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Preservation of all American essential food crops and vital food web species in genetic databank form, cloning facilities for such. Destroyed completely in Sino-American nuclear exchange.
ELECT – Fort Carl Bell, Mare Tranquilitatis, Luna. Ultimate fallback position, weapons and equipment storage, spacecraft hangar. All contact lost after meteor damage to its radio relays shortly after atomic war – unknown if any still live there.
ELITE – Greenbrier Resort, fell victim to coup of SECAG Thomas Eckhart, who murdered Congress members evacuated there and declared himself POTUS. Following internal conflict led to deaths of majority of personnel assigned there followed by the abandonment of base. Currently used as Congressional apartments and meeting areas.
EMPIRE – Site R at Raven Rock, PA, backup Pentagon and transcontinental comms centre. Still in use as US Army and government base of operations, current seat of POTUS.
ENCLAVE – Main US Government Continuity of Government operations base, located in offshore Pacific oil rig. Destroyed by NCR terrorist attack sabotaging its nuclear reactor 11-05-2242, minimal personnel evacuation, loss of President Richard 'Dick' Richardson and entire Cabinet along with majority of Congress.
ENCLAVE was in effect 23-10-2077 to 3-09-2283 (the President and other essential personnel being pre-evacuated to Control Station ENCLAVE 14-01-2077), much longer than previously anticipated, beginning with President Alfred F. Jones and ending with President Augustus Autumn. The USA however remains under regular state of emergency conditions, beginning 10-24-2077 and renewed annually.
We believe the partial failure of ENCLAVE to have been the result of sabotage. Communications with NORAD were deliberately cut on the mainland, and damage caused by the atomic war was much higher than anticipated. Approx. 50% the US population was expected to die under average conditions, 75% at maximum - instead, we estimate over 90% casualties with much greater damage to infrastructure and presence of radioactive fallout than anticipated. The Pacific Fleet failed to convene on Control Station ENCLAVE as had been given in classified standing orders. Recon teams have established that many pre-War ABM and air defence systems failed to activate when faced with the Chinese first strike, from Excalibur x-ray laser missiles to early warning radars. The Chinese "stealth fleet" launched a devastating initial first strike but couldn't have done so much damage on its own.
Most worryingly, analysts have indicated that there are no clear-cut signs of Red Chinese or broader communist activity in this campaign of sabotage against the US military and government. That we don't know who it was only raises further worries, even after two hundred years.
==*==
Lexington
The development of the United American Church had been small at first – arguably it had started with one woman. Caroline Helena Autumn had been one of the very few practicing Christians within the Enclave, but from those mustardseed-like beginnings she had forged together the remnants of Lutheran, Evangelical, Episcopal, Presbyterian and other congregations into the UAC, working with chaplains, bishops and pastors to come together in support of America. She was, as she always had been, a sincere believer. But only a fool would deny she had reasons beyond personal piety. Augustus Autumn saw the reclamation of America in terms of military forces deployed to ever more distant corners of the wasteland, factories built or rebuilt, cities captured by war or joined to the government peacefully, governors set up over reclaimed territories (until they could be elected), highways and rail lines built. His wife saw it in terms of sports leagues recreated, churches built, schoolhouses established, Old Glory raised up and Independence Day celebrated in more and more places.
The new President's conversion – some would say to appease his new bride, others that it was brought on by his three-day brush with eternity after the assassination attempt at Project Purity – had inspired a flurry of similar conversions among Enclave bureaucrats and officers, percolating down into the ranks – many of the soldiers, after all, had much they felt the need to atone for. Muscular, vigorous faith had grown in the harsh soil of the wasteland, its seeds sown by Army chaplains and civilian missionaries, watered by the generous private donations of government officials and businessmen. Perhaps no other faith could.
As such, it was no surprise that the first building made of stone to be built in the Capital Wasteland wasn't some government office or military HQ, but a church – St. Constantine's, named after the first Christian Emperor. That the ancient king had also won a battle on a bridge, and shared a name with the great general who'd reclaimed Anchorage, was surely no coincidence. Caroline's victory hymn, composed by her on hearing the news of the battle of Jefferson Memorial, was still heard in churches on the anniversary. Truth be told, the UAC was only part of the First Lady's agenda – a dozen or more cultural organisations, from sports leagues to textbook printers and radio stations, bore her imprint in some way or another. But it was one of the biggest parts.
Jim Reeds, a pastor from down south in Pennsylvania, knew little of this and cared even less about it as he prepared to give one of his Advent sermons to his flock in Lexington's new St. Michael's Church. They were all in front of him, young and old, men and women, none of them government people but all gathered to honour God. They'd already gone through the opening hymn – "Brethren We Have Met To Worship" – and the opening carol, "Once In Royal David's City", so now it was time to get to the sermon.
"Do any of you know," he said. "Why Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world?"
It was a dramatic note on which to start, something he'd always had a talent for.
"It was to destroy the works of the Devil, 1 John 3:8. Now what are they? Christ told us so himself, John 10:10. Satan came, in the Garden of Eden, throughout all human history, to steal, kill and destroy. He's no different, really, than the raiders we see all around us. Satan was the first raider, the first rebel. Christ came to defeat the raider, to bind the strong man so he could no longer go about like a roaring lion, seeking men to devour."
"That's why the prophets long awaited his appearing for many centuries. Isaiah wrote, 'the voice of one crying in the wasteland, prepare you a way for the Lord'. Christ ending the rebellion does not mean that He came to destroy all the rebels, even though mankind also rebelled against God's way, back in the Garden. On the contrary, He came to save mankind, not to destroy it. He came offering the mercy of the cross, the forgiveness of sins, the fulfilment of the hopes of those eagerly awaiting Him, those who never thought they'd see Him in their lifetimes. But for those who reject mercy, who spit on the offered hand flung out to save, who want to keep on rebelling and raiding, He has only condemnation."
"This Christmas, I want you to remember that. When he came into the world, it was to bring about peace by ending the conflict between men and God, the rebellion against God's will that man had chosen. He came to those who didn't know such a hope existed, who'd never imagined it in their wildest dreams, and to those eagerly awaiting his coming. It's a lot like what's happening right here right now, but spiritual, cosmic, for all mankind. The President is no god, he's a sinner like all of us, but he's a Godly man God has raised up to fulfil his purposes, like He raised up Washington, raised up old Abe Lincoln, raised up Alfred Jones to fight the heathen communists. He's raised up Autumn to rebuild America, to usher in a new jubilee time like what was before the atomic war. Autumn's made war against America's enemies, he's freed slaves, he's brought order and peace where was only brutality and hatred before. The good times coming now were long, long on the way, but now they're round the corner!"
"We celebrate Christmas round this time of year 'cause that's when the darkness of the long winter is passing away because the world is tilting more towards the sun. The darkness of the wasteland is passing away too as the lawful government of this country is coming back, and so is the darkness of all the evil in this world passing away because of Christ, because of His birth and because of His victory over the devil. Everything - nature, what's going on these days, the coming of Christ - reflects on everything else.
"The government's power too, that's' a reflection of God's power. Paul tells us governments are God's viceroys on Earth, they don't bear the sword in vain, they have the right and duty to punish evildoers like the raiders and the Institute, and that's what they're doing right now. The law, the United States Constitution and the Constitutions of New England and Massachusetts, they all tell us the United States government has sovereignty over this land. That was true even when they weren't here yet, it can never not be true unless the government were completely destroyed. Peter tells us to honour the Emperor, who was like the President of Rome back then, even though he was at that time a pagan. And Autumn, as I've said, is a Godly man, a man raised up by God to save us from the horrors of the wasteland, just like Christ came into the world to save us from the horrors of our own wickedness."
"So this Christmas, I want you to remember why Jesus came – to reconcile mankind to God, and to end the rebellion that man was raising against God. Amen."
==*==
Chapter Thirteen
"This generation must fight to the utmost so that the next need fight no more."
-Donald W. Richardson, Secretary for Public Information, Speech at Iwo Jima Memorial July 4 2286
Fort Independence, South Boston
The mood was jubilant at the Castle when Nate arrived on his motorbike leading his force of Minutemen. Fall however, was certainly long gone, as December had now arrived in full force with snowfall and bitter winds from the north. It was light and crisp for now, nothing like the bitter snows of Anchorage that had fallen on the bloodied corpses of American and Chinese soldiers alike for ten long years.
Nate turned his gaze uneasily to the city centre – it was still a hornet's nest that even the power-armoured American forces were having trouble establishing a foothold in. US outposts clung uneasily to the tops of skyscrapers and high-rise apartments like mountaintop eyries, supplied by vertibird and launching sweeps by air into the tangled streets, aiming simply to rack up a body count before heading back. It was little use, and it was clear that the US simply couldn't take the city proper right now. The bandit gangs farmed in wartime allotments, ruined parks, or the husks of bombed-out buildings, supplemented by thefts and tolls from food caravans and tribute from settlements under their 'protection', while the mutants … Nate had seen where they got their food personally, and it only made him hate them all the more.
He went into the Castle and was waved through the gateway. A shipment of uniforms from down south had come through just before the battle – more than enough to clothe all the castle's garrison. They were dark blue, like US Army garrison clothes, with the Minutemen insignia on the right shoulder board and the rank on left. Preston looked particularly good in them, but some of the Minutemen weren't wearing them – sticking to their butternut and grey farmer's clothes.
This was calculated defiance.
"Colonel Davis," Nate said, looking at what seemed to be the most prominent of that group, staring him straight in the eye. "You're to wear your uniform and that's a direct order, much as some among the Minutemen may have forgotten about that concept while Radio Freedom was down. As your General I'm in command of the Minutemen and what I say goes. The rest of you, the same."
Davis shuffled off to his quarters to change, while Nate headed to the infirmary. His friend Elliott was still in good spirits despite having lost an eye, and the medics had stabilised him – they'd send him to Hanscom soon to get a cybernetic.
Meanwhile, just after having changed to his new blues, Davis spoke to Colonel Hebert from Brockton, a neighbouring town to Davis' own. That southern region was the most dangerous part of the 'wealth, right east of the Glowing Sea. You had to be tough to survive there.
"I don't trust the new General," he spoke in hushed tones. "He must be an agent of those people that say they're the government. Says he comes from Vault 111 way up north – but everybody knows no one has ever gone in or out. They've had people here before they arrived in force – I'd say he's one of them. Sent specially to take over the Minutemen."
"Why?"
"Because they want a friendly face while they take over the Commonwealth. We've done well on our own and now these people are saying they own the place."
"I wouldn't say we've done well, Benny. With the bad crops this year, University Point a few years back, and Quincy, and the super mutants, and- they say they're gonna end all that. I'm willing to take a chance."
"The thing with promises with that," Davis finished, a hard look on his face. "It's never free. There's always a price tag attached. I don't think I'd like the one on something so big."
Gunners Plaza, Southern Commonwealth
The three vertibirds landed a decent distance from the former GNR Plaza, their engines melting the winter snow as they set down.
James H. Davison, State Department intern, struggled to keep himself warm. He was supposed to play a junior role in negotiations – which meant, essentially, that his role was to watch while Beauregard did the real work. There were Gunners entrenched behind sandbags in front of the building, in perfect cover positions behind columns, on the roof, lurking behind loopholes cut through the concrete. He could only imagine there were even more inside, hundreds at the least. They had a motley mix of weapons – R91 rifles, AER9s and Novasurge plasma guns, anti-materiel rifles, missile launchers, gauss rifles, even a Fat Man. Several dozen that he could see were in power armour, a mix of T-45s and T-51s.
Davison was suddenly reminded of when he'd been sent to the Atom Cats some days ago, expecting the worst but finding just a bunch of bored teens and young adults who posed no threat to US operations. They'd ruled him "square but kinda okay", and in return the government had written them off as harmless. They'd grow out of it someday.
"So," Captain Wes, said, standing in front of his men, speaking in an accent that Davison took a moment to realise was most similar to pre-War Canadian. "You yankee boys think you can take us on?"
His bravado wasn't merely empty. It would be a real fight to take it by storm, especially as the Gunners were a cut above normal raiders. Those men had real discipline and fighting spirit. And to besiege it would tie up to many men, especially in such a dangerous environment as the south.
"We don't need to," Beauregard replied. "Haven't you had a look round Quincy lately?"
That put fear into Wes' eyes. It was a bluff, James knew – the government wouldn't blow up Gunners Plaza from the air, they wanted it intact. It was a potential outpost, a comms station – and, eventually, when it was no longer needed as a military asset – something to auction off to a civilian radio company for a handsome price.
"But we can avoid all that," he said, gesturing to what was being brought out of the vertibirds. It was several crates filled to the brim with nuka-cola bottlecaps. "Look what we have to pay you with."
James could see greed overtake fear in Wes' eyes.
"For how long?" he asked. "And how many?"
"All your people for a five-year contract. That there is a bargain even for that."
Wes seemed to think it over a moment and replied.
"Yes."
That was it. James knew what would happen next – it'd happened before. The Gunners would spend their pay on women, gear, booze, food. They'd find it somehow it was worth less and less the more they paid it with, until they turned to American green. They'd get training from US officers, get issued US equipment, eventually take citizenship oaths just to avoid the hassle, take on recruits offered to them by Uncle Sam trained by American instructors to replace losses, finally sign-up full time. That would be the point of no return. Eventually what had been a mercenary outfit would, if it lasted long enough, become a regular US Army unit - one usually deployed for situations where collateral damage wasn't taken into account. That way any roughness could be blamed on their mercenary origins.
And, to avoid delicate situations arising with the 5,000-strong militia going through a similar process of incorporation, what was left of the Gunners would soon find themselves deployed to another theatre entirely.
==*==
Hanscom AFB, Lexington
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind,
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?"
The singer's voice rang out from the stage over the crowded hall in the main building of the air base as Nate took a moment to relax, sitting at a table as he nursed his whiskey, running a finger down his formal tan suit. Around him, some drunken soldiers were wolf-whistling and hollering at the starlet on stage. Heidi Jackson, he had to admit, was a real beauty – chestnut brown hair ran down in elegantly curled waves down her head, framing a heart-shaped face accentuated with rouge and cherry-red lipstick – her fiancé must really be someone that he can get them for her, Nate thought. Had it not been for the silver ring on her gloved finger, he'd have really been interested, but as it was ...
The last time Nate had been at a party like this had been almost a year – no, 200 or so – after the Reds had been driven from Anchorage, the hammering of the first nail into Red China's coffins. That brutal three-day mission had been the toughest of his life – he'd led a handpicked strike team personally, operating just below General Chase himself, and knocked out the two barriers to the main assault, the Chinese heavy field guns guarding the surrounding cliffs and the pulse field blocking the main power-armoured forces. The 108th had formed the vanguard of the assault after that, powered companies working as speartips to punch through the Chinese trench lines while non-powered American troops and Soviet elements moved in through the breaches – he'd never fully trusted the Russians, but they were more stubborn in a fight than the most hardened American troops, and he could respect that. Crazy too, to willingly wear those hump-backed Tesla suits, the dirty fission they ran on certain to give their operators cancer after a few years of service.
It had been a gruelling journey back to base, to learn when he arrived that the ChiComs were in full flight and Jingwei had shot himself. After that, he'd gotten an honorary rank of Colonel and a transfer to the Army Reserve, then gone home to Nora as she went through the last months of her pregnancy. Then Shaun had been born – I can't imagine what they're doing to him, that bastard Kellogg must have been lying just to fuck with me – and with nonstop news of US victories in Asia, he'd imagined that soon he'd be able to live a peaceful life. But instead the bombs happened, and I woke up to a country at war again. Ten bloody years had not been enough, it seemed. But it was his duty, and he had to do it. If not him ... just as it had been way back then in 2068, his eighteenth birthday, the day he'd signed up for service ... who would?
The hall was packed not only with officers of medium to high rank and some wealthy civilians but a good deal of enlisted and NCOs; the Army had changed since Nate's time, a lesson learned from fighting power-armoured rebels who called themselves the Brotherhood of Steel. The US had almost lost DC to them, when they'd tried to destroy a water purification facility US scientists were working on, and Autumn had taken in some of their practices, that had given their fighting men such a solid bond and willingness to press on even against an enemy with air support, with better armour and weapons, fortified behind forcefields and pillbox walls. They'd come so close to dealing the USA another crippling blow – not even half a century after a nuclear terrorist attack that took out the government, just like the Palestinians had tried in Tel Aviv – not that people remembered the latter incident much in this new era, after infinitely worse had happened and so many bloody years had passed.
These days, officers and their enlisted ate and drank together like in the Brotherhood; the idea was that everybody would fight that much harder, be more eager to follow orders, when it was from people they knew and trusted, and that officers would be more willing to push their men when they trusted them to be able to get the objective, finish the mission, win the fight. Cohesion was the name of the game these days – everybody in a battalion or company had stuck together since boot camp, or been put into the battalion from a training unit directly tied to it. There was no drifting between units or drifting apart after boot nowadays. You went into boot camp, you knew the people who'd be your firmest friends through the rest of your tour. He had to admit, he liked the idea. After what had happened just months (no, 200 years!, he mentally corrected), he felt he would appreciate some solidity.
Piper was going round, trying to get interviews from some of the higher-ranking men and officials present. He himself couldn't- Should I? I know she likes me too, but …
He walked over to put his empty bottle in the trash when he bumped into a civilian, dressed in a fancy black suit.
"Your name?" the man asked semi-casually.
"Nathan Washington," he replied. "I lead the biggest US-allied force in this region. And yours?"
"You don't look wastelander," the man said. "Vault? If you joined the real Army, you'd be running a company – even a battalion – in months. Name's Joseph Bradberton by the way, I own the Nuka-Cola Corporation. Family business, I'm rebuilding it from the ground up, we're cranking out those nuka bottles away down south and looking to increase production."
"Impressive," Nate noted. Bradberton hadn't given him time to correct him, and the conversation had moved on so fast.
"I'm surprised you didn't bring a date yourself. Half the people who join the Armed Forces are doing it to look for a war bride … that's how I met my Sierra. Real firecracker, but she can get hyper even on the meds she's on these days. Fell in love with me the moment she heard my last name, can you believe that?"
He smiled wistfully, lost a moment in romantic memories.
"I'm … I'm a widower," Nate admitted, feeling weak (why couldn't I protect her? I should have- should have-), for a moment seeing glimpses again of a bald mercenary pulling Nora's baby off her, shooting her multiple times with a .44 pistol, as he watched helplessly, banging his fists on the glass, hoping against hope it would break, wishing he was in his armour like on the front. "My wife was murdered not long ago."
"I can see why you wouldn't be looking right now. Sorry for mentioning that to you."
"It's okay."
That was somehow all he could say.
Nate went over to see Autumn, but the President was busy talking to a group of officers, draining the last of a silver cup and smelling of bourbon. Two stony-faced soldiers in gold-trimmed black dress uniforms stood over him, eyes constantly scanning the crowded room. They were probably the only sober people in the whole room.
"Now, my wife, I only put her over my knee when she's really asking for it," he said, chuckling, and everybody around him broke out in laughter, before he seemed distracted and asked for another mint julep.
He saw a glimpse of Piper again, and went over to her. She immediately smiled and looked at him, a hopeful expression on her face. Is this the right moment?, he thought, before deciding to just move on her anyway. He just needed to tell her how he felt for her right now, at this perfect time …
Heidi was singing something slow and sad, and though it seemed inappropriate it helped him slow down, not rush, not make a fool of himself. This was scarier than crawling atop the narrow cliffs of Anchorage to take out the ChiCom guns or creeping through the base under cover of night to take out the pulse field generator right after. But then, it'd been like that with Nora too, hadn't it?
"Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know …"
He looked her in the eyes, smoothing her hair, a slight smile on her face, waiting for the words he should be saying, the words both of them wanted to hear, the words he … the words he found out just then he couldn't say.
"Piper, I, … I, I … can't be with you."
She looked shattered, confused, broken up all in one moment.
"What do you mean, Blue? You can't really …"
"Piper," he said, fighting to speak without choking up, trying to organise the thoughts rushing like river rapids through his mind, so fast he barely noticed them. "I … I took a shine to you from the moment we met, because you're like Nora, you're a real spitfire like she was. But that's why … you're too much like her. I like you because you're like her, but that's … that's why I can't love you."
"I understand," she said, putting on a brave face as she turned away. "But I'll always be your friend."
"Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know …"
It took him time to come back together, like he'd been hit by a shell and needed to pull every part of himself, every last cell, back together like some comic-book superhero. He ordered some wine at the bar and went to a table, had finished it half-way down when somebody came looking to his table – another lady – no, it was that secretary he'd seen earlier, wearing a woman's dress uniform – blue with silver brocade and buttons. In the half-light of the dance hall she looked even prettier, the reflecting light making her hair look like spun gold, catching her eyes like the sun on a summer's day off green grass. A small cross choker was on her neck.
She looked a mix of sheepish and concerned, and Nate realised she must be worried about him.
"What's gotten into you? You weren't like this heading out to the battle."
"I think names first would be polite – I never did get to catch yours," he said, not sure what he should be feeling right now. It sure was nice that she'd gone out of her way to reach out, he couldn't help but appreciate that.
"I'm … I'm Rhonda Richardson," she said, smiling. Nate couldn't help but smile back. This lady was infectious.
"After the ship?" he joked.
"Well, the ship is named after my great-grandfather. He was the President back when we first started rebuilding America."
Her pride was obvious.
"I'm Nathan Washington," Nate replied. "No relation."
She chuckled at the joke, and Nate was feeling smooth right now.
"Shall I have this dance?"
Heidi was singing another song now, a fast-paced jazzy number, and from the corner of his eye Nate glimpsed that she was having a lot of fun doing it.
"In your chain of friendship let me be a link!
Soon we will be sweethearts, sooner than you think!
In the meantime, in your chain of friendship let me be a liiink!"
Nate was no stranger to dancing; this woman was clumsy, like she had little experience. She recognised that and let him take the lead, beaming like the sun as he twirled her round.
"So, what's your position?" she asked off-handedly.
"General of the Minutemen," he replied. "Uncle Sam's firmest allied force in Boston."
"My father wouldn't like me getting mixed up with a 'wasteland savage'," she replied, her mood seeming to darken. "And he's not a man either of us would like to anger."
"Who is he?" Nate asked.
"Donald W. Richardson," she said coolly. "Secretary of Public Information, which means he's only one of the most important men in the country."
"-And for the moment, all I ask of you,
Is, in your book of memories, let me be a page!"
"You sound like you don't like him."
"He's the reason I'm in the Army. Both my brothers have congenital illnesses, they don't meet Army standards. So he pushed me into volunteering, said I had to make the family proud. He was so disappointed when I didn't get into a combat arm."
"What would you like to do?"
"Almost nobody's asked me that," she said with an expression of pleasant surprise. "I'd love to play piano, or sing – something artistic. But the war's always demanding so much."
"America needs artists as much as it needs soldiers, I'd say," Nate replied. "What I'd give to live in a world where the states were united again. We'd be through with the war at last."
"That's not-" Rhonda started to say, then stopped abruptly. "Are you a …"
She shook her head and stopped her train of thought abruptly.
"What I meant to say is, you're a pretty smooth talker."
The party was now winding down – it was sometime after midnight, and people were starting to leave. Heidi Jackson was still doing the last lines of her song.
"Right now we can't do the things we wanna do,
And for the moment, all I ask of you,
Is, in your door to dreamland, let me be the key!"
"Good night, Rhonda," he said, still smiling from that magic moment they'd had together. "See you soon."
"Good night, Nathan!" she said, beaming as she made her way to the exit. "See you around!"
Nate couldn't help but smile yet again. Maybe … just maybe … there was a chance again.
==*==
POSTMORTEM ON PRE-WAR CONTINUITY OF GOVERNMENT PLAN "ENCLAVE"
CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET
PRESIDENTIAL ACCESS ONLY
DATE: 08-15-2287
Continuity of Government Plan ENCLAVE was created in 2045 as a revision of previous continuity of government plans and updated sequentially in response to a series of incidents over the mid-21st century, including the Palestinian terrorist attack on Tel Aviv and resulting Israeli enactment of Operation Samson on the United Arab Republic, and the beginning of the Sino-American War.
The plan involved retention of vital members of the US government and US military assets, along with leaders in scientific and business fields, in fortified bunkers, prepared for this purpose under the highest possible security using the most well-vetted personnel available, for approx. 30-40 years. After this period was completed, an AI installed at NORAD would be activated from the main base, Control Station ENCLAVE, and use a robotic army to restore order across the US, after which the government would return to the mainland. Each facility also housed a ZAX AI of its own. During the period ENCLAVE was in effect, the POTUS would have total power, unbounded by the US Constitution, to do whatever was necessary to maintain and restore the Federal government's authority. Assets to be used in ENCLAVE were marked out with a unique logo – an E with three middle bars representing the branches of FEDGOV, surrounded by the Commonwealth stars.
The main ENCLAVE bases are listed alphabetically below:
EAGLE –MacArthur AFB, MT, weapons armories and aircraft hangars, stripped clean, abandoned and demolished during reconvening of US forces at Chicago.
EARLY – Iron Mountain, UT. Armories and research labs, stripped clean, abandoned and demolished during reconvening of US forces at Chicago.
EDEN – Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Preservation of all American essential food crops and vital food web species in genetic databank form, cloning facilities for such. Destroyed completely in Sino-American nuclear exchange.
ELECT – Fort Carl Bell, Mare Tranquilitatis, Luna. Ultimate fallback position, weapons and equipment storage, spacecraft hangar. All contact lost after meteor damage to its radio relays shortly after atomic war – unknown if any still live there.
ELITE – Greenbrier Resort, fell victim to coup of SECAG Thomas Eckhart, who murdered Congress members evacuated there and declared himself POTUS. Following internal conflict led to deaths of majority of personnel assigned there followed by the abandonment of base. Currently used as Congressional apartments and meeting areas.
EMPIRE – Site R at Raven Rock, PA, backup Pentagon and transcontinental comms centre. Still in use as US Army and government base of operations, current seat of POTUS.
ENCLAVE – Main US Government Continuity of Government operations base, located in offshore Pacific oil rig. Destroyed by NCR terrorist attack sabotaging its nuclear reactor 11-05-2242, minimal personnel evacuation, loss of President Richard 'Dick' Richardson and entire Cabinet along with majority of Congress.
ENCLAVE was in effect 23-10-2077 to 3-09-2283 (the President and other essential personnel being pre-evacuated to Control Station ENCLAVE 14-01-2077), much longer than previously anticipated, beginning with President Alfred F. Jones and ending with President Augustus Autumn. The USA however remains under regular state of emergency conditions, beginning 10-24-2077 and renewed annually.
We believe the partial failure of ENCLAVE to have been the result of sabotage. Communications with NORAD were deliberately cut on the mainland, and damage caused by the atomic war was much higher than anticipated. Approx. 50% the US population was expected to die under average conditions, 75% at maximum - instead, we estimate over 90% casualties with much greater damage to infrastructure and presence of radioactive fallout than anticipated. The Pacific Fleet failed to convene on Control Station ENCLAVE as had been given in classified standing orders. Recon teams have established that many pre-War ABM and air defence systems failed to activate when faced with the Chinese first strike, from Excalibur x-ray laser missiles to early warning radars. The Chinese "stealth fleet" launched a devastating initial first strike but couldn't have done so much damage on its own.
Most worryingly, analysts have indicated that there are no clear-cut signs of Red Chinese or broader communist activity in this campaign of sabotage against the US military and government. That we don't know who it was only raises further worries, even after two hundred years.
==*==
Lexington
The development of the United American Church had been small at first – arguably it had started with one woman. Caroline Helena Autumn had been one of the very few practicing Christians within the Enclave, but from those mustardseed-like beginnings she had forged together the remnants of Lutheran, Evangelical, Episcopal, Presbyterian and other congregations into the UAC, working with chaplains, bishops and pastors to come together in support of America. She was, as she always had been, a sincere believer. But only a fool would deny she had reasons beyond personal piety. Augustus Autumn saw the reclamation of America in terms of military forces deployed to ever more distant corners of the wasteland, factories built or rebuilt, cities captured by war or joined to the government peacefully, governors set up over reclaimed territories (until they could be elected), highways and rail lines built. His wife saw it in terms of sports leagues recreated, churches built, schoolhouses established, Old Glory raised up and Independence Day celebrated in more and more places.
The new President's conversion – some would say to appease his new bride, others that it was brought on by his three-day brush with eternity after the assassination attempt at Project Purity – had inspired a flurry of similar conversions among Enclave bureaucrats and officers, percolating down into the ranks – many of the soldiers, after all, had much they felt the need to atone for. Muscular, vigorous faith had grown in the harsh soil of the wasteland, its seeds sown by Army chaplains and civilian missionaries, watered by the generous private donations of government officials and businessmen. Perhaps no other faith could.
As such, it was no surprise that the first building made of stone to be built in the Capital Wasteland wasn't some government office or military HQ, but a church – St. Constantine's, named after the first Christian Emperor. That the ancient king had also won a battle on a bridge, and shared a name with the great general who'd reclaimed Anchorage, was surely no coincidence. Caroline's victory hymn, composed by her on hearing the news of the battle of Jefferson Memorial, was still heard in churches on the anniversary. Truth be told, the UAC was only part of the First Lady's agenda – a dozen or more cultural organisations, from sports leagues to textbook printers and radio stations, bore her imprint in some way or another. But it was one of the biggest parts.
Jim Reeds, a pastor from down south in Pennsylvania, knew little of this and cared even less about it as he prepared to give one of his Advent sermons to his flock in Lexington's new St. Michael's Church. They were all in front of him, young and old, men and women, none of them government people but all gathered to honour God. They'd already gone through the opening hymn – "Brethren We Have Met To Worship" – and the opening carol, "Once In Royal David's City", so now it was time to get to the sermon.
"Do any of you know," he said. "Why Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world?"
It was a dramatic note on which to start, something he'd always had a talent for.
"It was to destroy the works of the Devil, 1 John 3:8. Now what are they? Christ told us so himself, John 10:10. Satan came, in the Garden of Eden, throughout all human history, to steal, kill and destroy. He's no different, really, than the raiders we see all around us. Satan was the first raider, the first rebel. Christ came to defeat the raider, to bind the strong man so he could no longer go about like a roaring lion, seeking men to devour."
"That's why the prophets long awaited his appearing for many centuries. Isaiah wrote, 'the voice of one crying in the wasteland, prepare you a way for the Lord'. Christ ending the rebellion does not mean that He came to destroy all the rebels, even though mankind also rebelled against God's way, back in the Garden. On the contrary, He came to save mankind, not to destroy it. He came offering the mercy of the cross, the forgiveness of sins, the fulfilment of the hopes of those eagerly awaiting Him, those who never thought they'd see Him in their lifetimes. But for those who reject mercy, who spit on the offered hand flung out to save, who want to keep on rebelling and raiding, He has only condemnation."
"This Christmas, I want you to remember that. When he came into the world, it was to bring about peace by ending the conflict between men and God, the rebellion against God's will that man had chosen. He came to those who didn't know such a hope existed, who'd never imagined it in their wildest dreams, and to those eagerly awaiting his coming. It's a lot like what's happening right here right now, but spiritual, cosmic, for all mankind. The President is no god, he's a sinner like all of us, but he's a Godly man God has raised up to fulfil his purposes, like He raised up Washington, raised up old Abe Lincoln, raised up Alfred Jones to fight the heathen communists. He's raised up Autumn to rebuild America, to usher in a new jubilee time like what was before the atomic war. Autumn's made war against America's enemies, he's freed slaves, he's brought order and peace where was only brutality and hatred before. The good times coming now were long, long on the way, but now they're round the corner!"
"We celebrate Christmas round this time of year 'cause that's when the darkness of the long winter is passing away because the world is tilting more towards the sun. The darkness of the wasteland is passing away too as the lawful government of this country is coming back, and so is the darkness of all the evil in this world passing away because of Christ, because of His birth and because of His victory over the devil. Everything - nature, what's going on these days, the coming of Christ - reflects on everything else.
"The government's power too, that's' a reflection of God's power. Paul tells us governments are God's viceroys on Earth, they don't bear the sword in vain, they have the right and duty to punish evildoers like the raiders and the Institute, and that's what they're doing right now. The law, the United States Constitution and the Constitutions of New England and Massachusetts, they all tell us the United States government has sovereignty over this land. That was true even when they weren't here yet, it can never not be true unless the government were completely destroyed. Peter tells us to honour the Emperor, who was like the President of Rome back then, even though he was at that time a pagan. And Autumn, as I've said, is a Godly man, a man raised up by God to save us from the horrors of the wasteland, just like Christ came into the world to save us from the horrors of our own wickedness."
"So this Christmas, I want you to remember why Jesus came – to reconcile mankind to God, and to end the rebellion that man was raising against God. Amen."
Last edited:
TyrantTriumphant
Well-known member
Is this a Worm reference?
Navarro
Well-known member
Just like it was in the OG version.