CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Even then, the majority of the people they assimilated by the looks of it aren't descended from guys who were attacked by the original Enclave
Fallout The Eagle And The Bear [Fallout AU]
- Thread starter Navarro
- Start date
Even then, the majority of the people they assimilated by the looks of it aren't descended from guys who were attacked by the original Enclave
Navarro
Well-known member
None of them are.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
So all territory that was once attacked by the Enclave many decades ago is in the NCR?
Navarro
Well-known member
Yeah, duh.
Argent
Well-known member
I mean the Enclave in Fallout 2 nearly makes it Vault 13 which is right next to Shady Sands. They had one base but very little presence on the mainland. Also while they had a super evil plot they did little more then abduct a few small tribal villages and empty a couple of Vaults before the Chosen One blew up the Rig.
In Fallout 3 they had even a smaller presence. They had a few kill teams but did not really leave Raven's Rock till the end game. About the only people really effected by them was the Brotherhood. Yes, they worked though proxies but those same groups would still kill and rape their way across the Wasteland anyways.
ForeverShogo
Well-known member
A little more than a few kill teams. After they seize Project Purity they set up a number of outposts and checkpoints throughout the Capital Wasteland and actively engage in combat against not just the Super Mutants but even Raiders and the mercenaries of Talon Company.
Some of the outposts do research on mutated wildlife. Others subject Wastelanders to genetic screening tests to make sure that people aren't too mutated, and those who fail these tests are killed and their bodies burned.
Even as Autumn planned to integrate Wastelanders, an Autumnist Enclave would still follow a policy of "Suffer not the mutant to live."
Though I do wonder what his Humanity threshold was.
It's why I was quick to argue back on Spacebattles that Ghouls and Super Mutants would still be exterminated. They'd just have to do it the good old fashioned way instead of resorting to indiscriminate biological warfare as Richardson or Eden wanted to. (Even if they might make exceptions for specific Ghouls or Super Mutants, as they did for at least Fawkes.)
Some of the outposts do research on mutated wildlife. Others subject Wastelanders to genetic screening tests to make sure that people aren't too mutated, and those who fail these tests are killed and their bodies burned.
Even as Autumn planned to integrate Wastelanders, an Autumnist Enclave would still follow a policy of "Suffer not the mutant to live."
Though I do wonder what his Humanity threshold was.
It's why I was quick to argue back on Spacebattles that Ghouls and Super Mutants would still be exterminated. They'd just have to do it the good old fashioned way instead of resorting to indiscriminate biological warfare as Richardson or Eden wanted to. (Even if they might make exceptions for specific Ghouls or Super Mutants, as they did for at least Fawkes.)
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
I think while they definitely exterminated the majority of supermutants
They more-or-less ghettoized the Ghouls
An Enclave member was telling a wasteland recruit NOT to go off and murder Hancock in the first series, I recall
They more-or-less ghettoized the Ghouls
An Enclave member was telling a wasteland recruit NOT to go off and murder Hancock in the first series, I recall
Kioras
Active member
Well if Super Muties are sterile, there was no reason to eliminate them.
Keep the civilized ones and make sure that their is not an ability to produce more loose.
The biggest issue is that the vast majority of them are raiders/bandits so you have to eliminate most of them.
Keep the civilized ones and make sure that their is not an ability to produce more loose.
The biggest issue is that the vast majority of them are raiders/bandits so you have to eliminate most of them.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
I think that’s why Fawkes is a Special Agent
Though, maybe Virgil had finished making a cure for various strains of FEV by now
ForeverShogo
Well-known member
If I recall, they actually can reverse the Super Mutant mutation thanks to Virgil's research. With him doing a lot of work to create what you might call Stabilized FEV. At least in the sense that you end up with Super Humans instead of Super Mutants.
Last time it was ever brought up it was mentioned that they were still having problems solving the sterility issue, which is the only reason the United States hasn't turned all of its citizens into Captain America levels of Super Human. (Though it has been mentioned that people are getting some minor enhancements, cybernetic and genetic.)
Curing Super Mutants in American controlled territory is basically a non-starter because, except for the ludicrously rare exceptions like Fawkes, they're all violent berserkers who need to be put down like rabid animals. It's only really when you start getting into NCR controlled territory that you can expect to find sane, non-violent Super Mutants in enough numbers to make an outreach program worth the effort.
Last time it was ever brought up it was mentioned that they were still having problems solving the sterility issue, which is the only reason the United States hasn't turned all of its citizens into Captain America levels of Super Human. (Though it has been mentioned that people are getting some minor enhancements, cybernetic and genetic.)
Curing Super Mutants in American controlled territory is basically a non-starter because, except for the ludicrously rare exceptions like Fawkes, they're all violent berserkers who need to be put down like rabid animals. It's only really when you start getting into NCR controlled territory that you can expect to find sane, non-violent Super Mutants in enough numbers to make an outreach program worth the effort.
IIRC, Autumn in the first series was pro 'human purity' in a pragmatic sense as opposed to an ideological sense in that if you recognized the authority of the Enclave / E-USA, you were either welcomed or at least tolerated (in the case of non feral ghouls / super mutants) while OTOH, fighting against the Enclave / E-USA got you put on the quite equal opportunity 'To be killed' list.
And while I don't recall Navarro mentioning the outposts in the flashbacks of the first series, I'd chalk the 'genetic screening kill test' sites up to President Skynet since we do see the nascent E-USA putting considerable resources into medical tech and infrastructure for the wastelander communities by the time they reach Boston.
Chapter Nineteen
Navarro
Well-known member
CST 10:00, December 23 2331
NCR HQ, Operation Kodiak Eyrie
Lance Robertson looked over the reports faxed to him an hour ago. Friedman said the Brotherhood were making the final preparations to assault the Enclave airbase east of St. Louis and the combined forces would carry out a full-on assault on the city and the surrounds tomorrow. He worried though, about the Enclave reinforcements he knew were coming from the south and east. Ortez for his part had smashed the Enclave armies north-west of Indianopolis on two separate engagements and was occupying the city, but seemed to have suffered a nervous breakdown shortly after entering, though he now claimed (dubiously, Lance thought) to be at full capacity.
For his part, the commander of the NCR’s midwestern forces had made almost all his preparations for what everyone knew was the most critical part of Operation Kodiak.
For the past few days he’d been probing for weaknesses in O’Hare’s defences - reducing the outlying mine-fields and pulse generators, and even using direct-fire artillery to take out the bunkers and pillboxes of the strongpoints themselves. A risky tactic, but when he could get it done it was effective. But still, Shady Sands wasn’t built in a day. The men from Davenport would arrive on the 27th – he was planning a general attack against the northern strongpoints for the 25th. Indeed, O’Hare and Chicago with it would be fine Christmas gifts for President Kimball – if he was able to give them.
==*==
EST 13:00, December 23 2331
Washington DC, Columbia Commonwealth, USA
Nathan ‘Nate’ Washington took a deep breath as he once more entered the Oval Office and sat at the Resolute Desk. The illness that had felled him for a while had been a seasonal mutation of blue flu which he had been particularly vulnerable to on account of age and some quirks of his own cellular physiology – even so, it had never been at risk of killing him. Still, it had impeded him enough that for about two weeks he had been unable to function at the high level required for leading the United States in such a critical situation, and he had chosen not to take back command until he was sure he was able to function at full capacity.
VP Leopold Richardson followed close behind him, having been called in to explain certain actions he had taken as Acting President and concealed from the President.
“I can assure you, Mr. President,” he began. “That the orders in question, while perhaps not completely efficient from a tactical and operational standpoint, are completely valid from a wider strategic point of view. The decisions to enact them were undertaken in consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Intelligence Chiefs.”
“How?!” the President’s voice thundered as he rose from his desk. “You deliberately ordered the NCR forces to be allowed to escape?!”
Even as he spoke in anger Nate’s voice was confused. Why indeed?, he thought. There seems no logical sense – Leo’ll be tried as a war criminal on account of his ancestry alone if the rebels win, and he’s been utterly loyal otherwise.
“I did it,” Leopold Richardson said from his desk. “To weaken them.”
“How?!”
“You know about Operation Pied Piper, I take it?”
“Of course I do! The FBI has turned almost every spy NCR intelligence has sent in over the decades.”
“Our disinformation wasn’t restricted to military matters. We made our double agents confirm their beliefs about our society and government being oppressive and tyrannical – hilariously-rigged elections, a caste system, over-the-top-executions, secret police, the works. It was all too easy given their beliefs about us, and about our forebears on the Control Station. Now – if our forces are able to prevent them from establishing supply lines via O’Hare and St. Louis – hundreds of thousands of Californians will be forced to retreat to the NCR with first-hand experience that it was all a lie. That’ll be a greater coup than any number of prisoners.”
“My God ...”
“If this works out, I’ll have introduced a slow-acting poison into the veins of the NCR – especially if their government reacts as I think they will. People talk, stories spread. Now the common man trusts his government less, trusts us a bit more. A young man dodges the draft. A factory worker calls in his shift early. A soldier deserts. Add up enough of that and … a war is lost.”
“You think they’ll just roll over after this?”
“No. But they’ll fight a bit less hard, put in a bit less effort. They’ll be weakened on the most fundamental level – the moral one. And it’ll start to open up a crack in them – between those who believe and disbelieve. A crack that could potentially be wedged wider.”
“That’s … I’m sure glad you’re on our side, Leo.”
“I only hope it works.”
“And as to the Pied Piper operatives? The NCR will cut them loose after this and our deception at Houston, if they’ve any sense.”
“I don’t see any reason to do anything but pressure them to keep their involvement in this secret. The ringleaders of the spy rings we’ve fully subverted – the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic – for sure know that their survival depends on our victory. With the sheer level to which we’ve made them betray the NCR, betray their fellow agents ...”
==*==
CST 16:00, December 23 2331
St. Louis Airport, Terminal Building
The first thing Thomas Maher heard was artillery fire, as per many of the long days since the great siege of St. Louis began. His sleep had often been disrupted by the sound of shells firing in the night, and the runways of the airport were nothing but a mass of craters. He was still technically a civilian – but if he made it of this, he would certainly join the Army.
As it was, this wasn’t like the typical attacks. For one, the bombardment didn’t stop for forty-five minutes, and was followed by alarm sirens blaring as they hadn’t since the attack began initially, mixed with the whir of vertibird engines. The intent of this wasn’t to put pressure on the defenders – it was to overwhelm them.
“Full-on push, armoured and unarmoured troops,” one of the power-armoured soldiers explained in a rapid-fire tone. “This is it. Command’s ordered us to fall back. Get going!”
Maher got on the back of a logistics truck along with some other civilian volunteers, and looked upwards as they fled the airport north onto I-55. As the vehicle careened desperately at the highway junction, shot at from all directions, he heard great roaring, moaning sounds mixed with splashes, as if some great giant buried beneath the river was rising from its slumber. He hazarded a look and saw the true source – girders twisting and concrete blocks falling into the swift waters of the Mississippi, as the bridges rebuilt since the War were demolished yet again by demo charges planted in them over the past weeks of siege. He saw Aurora fighters swooping on attack against the Brotherhood vertibirds – they were mercilessly effective, the gunship-transports not equipped to deal with enemy aircraft.
From a distance, the metal figures falling from the doomed craft looked like a child’s toys flung about – then he realised they were enemy soldiers careening to their doom as their transports crashed to the ground. But the fighters themselves went down easily to ground fire from the Brotherhood men – and as they moved onto the long, wide bridge that connected the airport to the heart of the city the American troops were mercilessly exposed.
Laser and missile fire hit the retreating column more than once but in their turn the enemy planes – be they vertibirds or enemy dedicated CAS craft – faced ground fire from US Navy gunboats anchored in the river. A mix of missiles and lasers drove them off – rather than face the risk of heavier casualties, they turned back.
They stopped a thousand feet from the western side of the river, soldiers from the city hastily moving to set up barricades and force-screens. Behind him lay the heart of the city – in front the shore now held by the enemy. Already their infantry and mechanised forces were moving to try and push the American troops aside, he knew. He was no soldier, but he’d be damned if he let them do it without a fight.
--*--
"General Blackwell," Mayor Joseph Tregrene of St. Louis said lowly, looking darkly at the eastern shore from the window of his office, and the blasted-out ruins. "You are sure your men can't blow the Poplar St. Bridge?"
"The demo charges we had on hand - micro-nuclear and plasma - have been deployed already against the other bridges of the city. It was either blow that bridge and leave the others active, or blow the others and leave it open," Blackwell said, barely able to stand, heavy bags under his eyes.
"We can't hold it. Not with the rest of the city to secure, against such a strong attack from power-armoured troops."
"What are our options then?"
"I'll launch a sustained demolitions operation from one-hundred hours of the 24th till eight-hundred hours. The bridge will be chipped away at by shellfire to weaken it until with our remaining demolitions charges, we can knock out the easternmost piers and bring the whole structure down. "
"With our men on it."
"They accepted the possibility of death when they took the oath of service. The commanders present on the field are aware "
"The civilian militia, though -"
"I asked their leaders too. They refused to abandon the defence."
"But surely-"
"There are airborne forces preparing to strike at Memphis. But if they fail to achieve success in their operations - I'll do what I must. The enemy won't get a path into the heart of this city while I'm in charge of its defence."
--*--
“The Brotherhood think they’re tough, that they have a right to control the use of technology, that it all deep down belongs to them,” Capt. Lionel Barrett said to his company. “Just like the ‘New California Republic’ think the United States government wants to wipe out humanity.”
He continued on, looking around the crude airfield built outside the town of Memphis, TN – he could even see the roof of the place’s Elvis museum. A mix of Army and USMC vertibirds – he’d heard a new model was coming in for the Corps in the middle of next year, and shortly after for the Army - filled the grassy field. Ground crews frantically ran pre-flight checks as the planes prepared to take off. The situation in St. Louis had gotten close to total collapse. The airborne forces – some 12,000 men in total – were to engage the enemy two days ahead of schedule.
“We’re gonna prove the bastards wrong. Remember, before the founders of the Brotherhood betrayed their country, they were Army. We beat the Army last year in the football game – don’t tell me we can’t whip the descendants of Army mutineers and deserters black and blue!”
“Oo-rah!” came the cries from the assembled Marines in front of him, who quickly went to their vehicles. Barrett checked the timestamp on his armour’s HUD. 19:45 – fifteen minutes to go time. He went into the ‘bird designated to carry his command squad along with the others and listened to the US Government station:
“Tramp, tramp, tramp!
The boys are marching;
Cheer, brave soldiers, they will come!
Every heart is in the fight,
For the cause of truth and right,
And the freedom of our own beloved land!”
He wondered what Blackwell and his men in St. Louis must be thinking of it. Certainly the General was hoping for such an arrival – it was his only reprieve from otherwise certain death, whether from a laser beam or the noose.
At twenty-hundred hours, the time to commence the operation began. The vertibirds powered up and rose into the air; great metal eagles carrying in their bellies broods of power-armoured soldiers, their high-explosive talons and rapid-fire-laser beaks eager to tear apart America’s enemies. They blotted out the moon, casting many pale shadows on the ground, and then were gone.
--*--
Thomas Maher was half-asleep when the whir of vertibird engines was heard to the southeast, at ten-thirty PM. The Army soldiers had been pushed back inch by inch and foot by foot across the great span crossing the waters of the Mississippi, until they were barely over the water’s edge. Some of the gunboats had gotten too close to the enemy shore or had stayed too still, and been taken out of action from ground fire. While they were exposed on the bridge, the Brotherhood men even so had pushed on , driven by their warrior creed to acts of bravado that the US armed forces quaked at.
"C'mon!" one of the Army sergeants bellowed. "This is just like at Jefferson! We beat 'em there, and we'll beat 'em here!"
Though the bridge was long, it was narrow - 120 feet or so. That limited the Brotherhood troops' freedom of movement - they were forced to herd together, which made it easier to hold them back than in the open field.
He gritted his teeth. More enemy reinforcements? His heart sank. But no – they were firing on the Brotherhood soldiers on the bridge – and their external speakers were playing a song Maher had sung every day in high school, had stood up to every time he had gone to a movie theatre.
“Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What we so proudly hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming ...”
But the enemy were still coming. They shattered the force-screen with a multitude of missile and grenade shots. Blue-tinted laser beams met green and orange enemy ones in a frenetic light-show, but still the enemy came.
Maher fired a couple of shots with his plasma rifle, damaging an enemy's armour, and looked around him for more fusion cells. There were none, and the enemy were getting closer to the barricade he was crouching behind.
Some more of the power-armoured soldiers opened fire, but it wouldn't be enough to hold back the enemy charge-
An Army vertibird saw what was happening and flew like lightning scant feet above the tarmac, scattering the first ranks of the Brotherhood charge like nothing so much as an oversized bowling ball, then swerved round and lasered the enemy from the other side.
Power-armoured soldiers rapidly disembarked from the vehicle, as more lit up enemy APCs and tanks.
In just a few minutes Maher saw what he thought no US military soldier would ever see before - Brotherhood of Steel troops surrendering and going out of armour.
--*--
Capt. Lionel Barrett jumped out of the vertibird, running almost as soon as he hit the shattered tarmac of a ruined airport. The field was dark, little more than the silhouettes of ruined buildings to be seen. He turned on thermal mode and linked up with the others over radio. HUD showed a Brotherhood man approaching with a gatling laser - he gave two short three-round bursts and the enemy went down.
One of his heavy weapons men opened up on an enemy AA laser emplacement, to a nod from Barrett. The brilliant explosion as it went up lit up the night, showing the enemy in clear terms the forces they were facing. Some Californian combat engineers and Brotherhood militiamen threw their hands up outright as the speed and power of the attack hit home.
The assault had been excellently planned. Flying at tree-top height, the airborne task force had been nigh-invisible to radar. The Air Force pilots from Berry Field had taken on the unenviable task of suppressing the enemy's air defence - which they'd done, though with high casualties. And now the two most critical locations of the battlespace - the airport and the bridge - were rapidly being secured.
As a mix of plasma and laser fire rang out across the cratered swath of tarmac, Barrett thought about the wider situation. They had three days of ammo and other supplies - the main force was to hit on the 28th, in four. The remaining Brotherhood men were already digging in hard to the north of the bridge, following the curve of the interstate - the airborne troops did not have the heavy equipment to dislodge them.
Which meant, if the worst came to the worst, they themselves may just be as trapped as the men they had come to relieve ...
--*--
General Friedman swore at the top of his voice when he heard the report on the situation in the east at eleven-hundred hours. The Brotherhood had overextended – gone beyond what he had asked them to do. Taking the airport and the approach to the main bridge was more than enough. Chasing the fleeing Enclave soldiers onto it had overextended their troops – that was, their quality ones. They were now enveloped on the bridge and facing total destruction by an assault from both sides of the river. A day and he would have been ready to launch his large-scale assault. Two and he would have taken Saint Louis already.
And now everything was in jeopardy. If the enemy could take and hold the highway intersection to the east of the city – where I-55, I-64 and I-70 connected – St. Louis could recieve fresh supplies. The city would no longer be under siege.
He mused over the bitter situation. Why would the Enclave not give up? Their tactical situation – in spite of the recent attack – was hopeless. Their empire of tyranny would start falling apart at its seams any day now. To the north, Lance Robertson waited to give the killing blow to their main air base in this region. They must be mad, he mused, or knowledgeable of how dire their crimes are and the penalty they deserve, to be this stubborn.
He received news in the early morning, when dawn had not yet broke, that both the forces taken to secure and repair the airbase and those on the bridge had been either killed or captured. 10,000 out of 25,000 power-armoured soldiers – losses for the Brotherhood, but not crippling right now. The Enclave airborne force was still outnumbered. There was still a chance to salvage the situation.
And yet - General Mendoza, from Gran Colombia, had informed him that they had a much larger force moving in overland. That really put him in a quandary. He was faced with three options - carry on an all-out assault now, hoping he won, and weaken his forces against the relief force; stay put, and risk being hit from both sides; or abandon the siege for the moment, attack the Enclave relief force and hope he could beat them on open ground. Splitting his forces was a mistake he could not afford.
The reserve armies under Ortez were supposed to guard against such a situation, but Lance had deployed them to take Indianopolis and move further eastward.
He decided. It was better to take on one enemy at a time than two; and the Enclave force here was weaker than the one there. The latter represented a more pressing threat - when O'Hare fell, he would get all the reinforcements he would ever need.
He got out his pip-boy and sent a request to the Brotherhood's leaders in Oklahoma for aid, warning that their own forces were also on the line. An hour later, he recieved his reply. 50,000 Brotherhood infantry in power armour and 20,000 men in APCs and tanks, along with another 75,000 of their militia - for all the value the latter added - were already moving to intercept the Enclave force advancing through Missouri.
He shuddered - that represented the entirety of their force in Oklahoma. Those garrisons had to be abandoned - and with them gone, even the NCR's hold in Texas grew more tenuous. But if that Enclave army could be smashed - it was worth it.
==*===
7:30 CST, December 25 2331
Defences of AFB O'Hare
Across the divided cities of the American continent, a great feast was being celebrated. Wide-eyed children rushed downstairs to open up brightly-wrapped parcels of presents, and sober husbands and goodwives made ready to take their families to the Church services that would follow soon after proclaiming the birth of Christ.
Sergeant James Fields was not appreciative of this, though he had enjoyed many Christmases as a boy. Advancing through the mists before AFB O'Hare's outer defense works, he was aware of an unnatural chill in the air.
Suddenly, the mists stopped - 300 feet from the Enclave defence works - and they opened fire. APCs and combat trucks rapidly turned to give the leg infantry cover as cyan-blue laser beams and plasma bolts struck out from the Enclave positions.
Sand-bags and barricades were hastily erected by combat engineers as the attack continued on. Gatling lasers rang out across the snowy field, mixed with small arms and P-94s. Again the Enclave artillery thundered - it was so rapid-firing that the NCR troopers now had a nickname for it, "automatic artillery". But the NCR troops had their own old-world fury on call.
From behind the front line, mortars kept up a relentless pressure on the Enclave trenches, keeping the soldiers tight up in their dug-outs and bunkers. Snow flashed to steam as shells hit here and there, and then the field artillery finished its deployment.
Shells whizzed over Sergeant Fields' head as the NCR guns fired - if not at direct-fire - at shallow angles, aiming to avoid the laser defences that made indirect fire so burdensome. Fields saw one take out a pillbox using as it's gun an Enclave MBT turret, allowing a tank platoon to safely approach an area devoid of anti-tank mines.
But the risk to those brave gunners was real - more than one piece was taken out by heavy weapons fire from the Enclave defences.
And then-
The first Fields knew of it was roaring noises from behind, the sound of twisting metal, of fire. Receiving permission, he sent his squad (along with others) behind to investigate as soon as he did.
What he saw was nightmarish. Men lay dead with vicious whip-like wounds, some with bodies half-eaten, around them. Nightmare creatures capered over the bodies, tentacles lashing the air, digging into the ground and vanishing beneath the surface before he could draw a bead on them. And he could see something else. It was hard for the eye to follow it due to the way its colouration blended in with the surroundings, but judging by the silhouette-
Deathclaw. And not there accidentally for certain.
Half the men seemed to freeze in primal terror, until it grabbed Private McInnes and bit him straight in half. Then, as it roared its primal victory, vicious flames came out of its mouth in a long stream of destruction. It loped towards the rest, and Fields spoke up.
"Take out that thing, damn you!"
Laser fire hit its scales, but didn't do much. Fields ran through his head of facts he'd learned in high-school Biology - only class he'd done well in - the key to taking out a Deathclaw was to spread out and hit it from all sides, it wouldn't know who to take out first-
"Squad, disperse! Fire on it from all directions!"
The thing roared under the assault, but reacted quicker than it should and took out Kendall, who uttered a high-pitched scream as it tore him to shreds. Then it moved on O'Brien, who it set on fire and tore in half with its claws.
There were pock-marks in its scales, but even the SAW man's laser RCW wasn't doing much.
Then an explosive gauss rifle round - from an NCR Ranger in the ruins - hit it straight in the head. Half of it was reduced to a vicious ruin - grey matter and pieces of circuitry came flying out, and it seemed to respond sluggishly, more in line with what usually happened with deathclaws. What followed wasn't a combat but a putting-down.
Eventually laser fire to the belly took the beast out - but even as it died, its blood burst into flame and set it alight from within.
Fields took a deep sigh. This combat was sure tough, but it wasn't even the real fight - that was to the northeast, not at the trench-line between Elk Grove and Wood Dale.
--*--
General Julius Chase listened to the centuries-old song in his above-ground office, as reports hit him minute-by-minute of how the battle was going:
"O Land of Columbia, how glorious the sight,
When millions of freemen rise in their might,
To battle for Union and Liberty's cause,
And aid in defending our time-honored laws."
The situation was dire. The north-eastern defence lines were hard-pressed, and even if he held today the enemy had won at Davenport, and the troops from there would almost certainly arrive soon. Perhaps within a day - perhaps two. It was for such dire moments that the President had given him command of the Chemical Corps' assets.
"The Union, it must, and shall be preserved,
Was said by a sage who from duty ne'er swerved,
So we say, let traitors proclaim what they will:
The Flag of Columbia still floats o'er us still."
So be it. The enemy would hang him anyway if they captured him - him, and all the men he had sworn oaths to serve. The men under him could expect life in prison at best. He grimaced. He was not glad to give this order - it was dishonorable at the least, but billions of men had died by sword and gun and shell since warfare began. He would be adding a few thousand more by gas - a burden on his conscience, he knew, but his job, at root, was to organise the killing of America's enemies in the most efficient, effective and ethical way possible to ensure the enforcement of the political decisions of the US government. Every soldier had to deal with that reality.
"Our watchword in battle whenever we fight-"
He turned the song off, gave the order to deploy chemical weapons, and made a mental note to pray for forgiveness after the battle was done.
Five minutes later, the shells started falling around the strongpoints at Des Plaines and Park Ridge.
NCR HQ, Operation Kodiak Eyrie
Lance Robertson looked over the reports faxed to him an hour ago. Friedman said the Brotherhood were making the final preparations to assault the Enclave airbase east of St. Louis and the combined forces would carry out a full-on assault on the city and the surrounds tomorrow. He worried though, about the Enclave reinforcements he knew were coming from the south and east. Ortez for his part had smashed the Enclave armies north-west of Indianopolis on two separate engagements and was occupying the city, but seemed to have suffered a nervous breakdown shortly after entering, though he now claimed (dubiously, Lance thought) to be at full capacity.
For his part, the commander of the NCR’s midwestern forces had made almost all his preparations for what everyone knew was the most critical part of Operation Kodiak.
For the past few days he’d been probing for weaknesses in O’Hare’s defences - reducing the outlying mine-fields and pulse generators, and even using direct-fire artillery to take out the bunkers and pillboxes of the strongpoints themselves. A risky tactic, but when he could get it done it was effective. But still, Shady Sands wasn’t built in a day. The men from Davenport would arrive on the 27th – he was planning a general attack against the northern strongpoints for the 25th. Indeed, O’Hare and Chicago with it would be fine Christmas gifts for President Kimball – if he was able to give them.
==*==
EST 13:00, December 23 2331
Washington DC, Columbia Commonwealth, USA
Nathan ‘Nate’ Washington took a deep breath as he once more entered the Oval Office and sat at the Resolute Desk. The illness that had felled him for a while had been a seasonal mutation of blue flu which he had been particularly vulnerable to on account of age and some quirks of his own cellular physiology – even so, it had never been at risk of killing him. Still, it had impeded him enough that for about two weeks he had been unable to function at the high level required for leading the United States in such a critical situation, and he had chosen not to take back command until he was sure he was able to function at full capacity.
VP Leopold Richardson followed close behind him, having been called in to explain certain actions he had taken as Acting President and concealed from the President.
“I can assure you, Mr. President,” he began. “That the orders in question, while perhaps not completely efficient from a tactical and operational standpoint, are completely valid from a wider strategic point of view. The decisions to enact them were undertaken in consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Intelligence Chiefs.”
“How?!” the President’s voice thundered as he rose from his desk. “You deliberately ordered the NCR forces to be allowed to escape?!”
Even as he spoke in anger Nate’s voice was confused. Why indeed?, he thought. There seems no logical sense – Leo’ll be tried as a war criminal on account of his ancestry alone if the rebels win, and he’s been utterly loyal otherwise.
“I did it,” Leopold Richardson said from his desk. “To weaken them.”
“How?!”
“You know about Operation Pied Piper, I take it?”
“Of course I do! The FBI has turned almost every spy NCR intelligence has sent in over the decades.”
“Our disinformation wasn’t restricted to military matters. We made our double agents confirm their beliefs about our society and government being oppressive and tyrannical – hilariously-rigged elections, a caste system, over-the-top-executions, secret police, the works. It was all too easy given their beliefs about us, and about our forebears on the Control Station. Now – if our forces are able to prevent them from establishing supply lines via O’Hare and St. Louis – hundreds of thousands of Californians will be forced to retreat to the NCR with first-hand experience that it was all a lie. That’ll be a greater coup than any number of prisoners.”
“My God ...”
“If this works out, I’ll have introduced a slow-acting poison into the veins of the NCR – especially if their government reacts as I think they will. People talk, stories spread. Now the common man trusts his government less, trusts us a bit more. A young man dodges the draft. A factory worker calls in his shift early. A soldier deserts. Add up enough of that and … a war is lost.”
“You think they’ll just roll over after this?”
“No. But they’ll fight a bit less hard, put in a bit less effort. They’ll be weakened on the most fundamental level – the moral one. And it’ll start to open up a crack in them – between those who believe and disbelieve. A crack that could potentially be wedged wider.”
“That’s … I’m sure glad you’re on our side, Leo.”
“I only hope it works.”
“And as to the Pied Piper operatives? The NCR will cut them loose after this and our deception at Houston, if they’ve any sense.”
“I don’t see any reason to do anything but pressure them to keep their involvement in this secret. The ringleaders of the spy rings we’ve fully subverted – the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic – for sure know that their survival depends on our victory. With the sheer level to which we’ve made them betray the NCR, betray their fellow agents ...”
==*==
CST 16:00, December 23 2331
St. Louis Airport, Terminal Building
The first thing Thomas Maher heard was artillery fire, as per many of the long days since the great siege of St. Louis began. His sleep had often been disrupted by the sound of shells firing in the night, and the runways of the airport were nothing but a mass of craters. He was still technically a civilian – but if he made it of this, he would certainly join the Army.
As it was, this wasn’t like the typical attacks. For one, the bombardment didn’t stop for forty-five minutes, and was followed by alarm sirens blaring as they hadn’t since the attack began initially, mixed with the whir of vertibird engines. The intent of this wasn’t to put pressure on the defenders – it was to overwhelm them.
“Full-on push, armoured and unarmoured troops,” one of the power-armoured soldiers explained in a rapid-fire tone. “This is it. Command’s ordered us to fall back. Get going!”
Maher got on the back of a logistics truck along with some other civilian volunteers, and looked upwards as they fled the airport north onto I-55. As the vehicle careened desperately at the highway junction, shot at from all directions, he heard great roaring, moaning sounds mixed with splashes, as if some great giant buried beneath the river was rising from its slumber. He hazarded a look and saw the true source – girders twisting and concrete blocks falling into the swift waters of the Mississippi, as the bridges rebuilt since the War were demolished yet again by demo charges planted in them over the past weeks of siege. He saw Aurora fighters swooping on attack against the Brotherhood vertibirds – they were mercilessly effective, the gunship-transports not equipped to deal with enemy aircraft.
From a distance, the metal figures falling from the doomed craft looked like a child’s toys flung about – then he realised they were enemy soldiers careening to their doom as their transports crashed to the ground. But the fighters themselves went down easily to ground fire from the Brotherhood men – and as they moved onto the long, wide bridge that connected the airport to the heart of the city the American troops were mercilessly exposed.
Laser and missile fire hit the retreating column more than once but in their turn the enemy planes – be they vertibirds or enemy dedicated CAS craft – faced ground fire from US Navy gunboats anchored in the river. A mix of missiles and lasers drove them off – rather than face the risk of heavier casualties, they turned back.
They stopped a thousand feet from the western side of the river, soldiers from the city hastily moving to set up barricades and force-screens. Behind him lay the heart of the city – in front the shore now held by the enemy. Already their infantry and mechanised forces were moving to try and push the American troops aside, he knew. He was no soldier, but he’d be damned if he let them do it without a fight.
--*--
"General Blackwell," Mayor Joseph Tregrene of St. Louis said lowly, looking darkly at the eastern shore from the window of his office, and the blasted-out ruins. "You are sure your men can't blow the Poplar St. Bridge?"
"The demo charges we had on hand - micro-nuclear and plasma - have been deployed already against the other bridges of the city. It was either blow that bridge and leave the others active, or blow the others and leave it open," Blackwell said, barely able to stand, heavy bags under his eyes.
"We can't hold it. Not with the rest of the city to secure, against such a strong attack from power-armoured troops."
"What are our options then?"
"I'll launch a sustained demolitions operation from one-hundred hours of the 24th till eight-hundred hours. The bridge will be chipped away at by shellfire to weaken it until with our remaining demolitions charges, we can knock out the easternmost piers and bring the whole structure down. "
"With our men on it."
"They accepted the possibility of death when they took the oath of service. The commanders present on the field are aware "
"The civilian militia, though -"
"I asked their leaders too. They refused to abandon the defence."
"But surely-"
"There are airborne forces preparing to strike at Memphis. But if they fail to achieve success in their operations - I'll do what I must. The enemy won't get a path into the heart of this city while I'm in charge of its defence."
--*--
“The Brotherhood think they’re tough, that they have a right to control the use of technology, that it all deep down belongs to them,” Capt. Lionel Barrett said to his company. “Just like the ‘New California Republic’ think the United States government wants to wipe out humanity.”
He continued on, looking around the crude airfield built outside the town of Memphis, TN – he could even see the roof of the place’s Elvis museum. A mix of Army and USMC vertibirds – he’d heard a new model was coming in for the Corps in the middle of next year, and shortly after for the Army - filled the grassy field. Ground crews frantically ran pre-flight checks as the planes prepared to take off. The situation in St. Louis had gotten close to total collapse. The airborne forces – some 12,000 men in total – were to engage the enemy two days ahead of schedule.
“We’re gonna prove the bastards wrong. Remember, before the founders of the Brotherhood betrayed their country, they were Army. We beat the Army last year in the football game – don’t tell me we can’t whip the descendants of Army mutineers and deserters black and blue!”
“Oo-rah!” came the cries from the assembled Marines in front of him, who quickly went to their vehicles. Barrett checked the timestamp on his armour’s HUD. 19:45 – fifteen minutes to go time. He went into the ‘bird designated to carry his command squad along with the others and listened to the US Government station:
“Tramp, tramp, tramp!
The boys are marching;
Cheer, brave soldiers, they will come!
Every heart is in the fight,
For the cause of truth and right,
And the freedom of our own beloved land!”
He wondered what Blackwell and his men in St. Louis must be thinking of it. Certainly the General was hoping for such an arrival – it was his only reprieve from otherwise certain death, whether from a laser beam or the noose.
At twenty-hundred hours, the time to commence the operation began. The vertibirds powered up and rose into the air; great metal eagles carrying in their bellies broods of power-armoured soldiers, their high-explosive talons and rapid-fire-laser beaks eager to tear apart America’s enemies. They blotted out the moon, casting many pale shadows on the ground, and then were gone.
--*--
Thomas Maher was half-asleep when the whir of vertibird engines was heard to the southeast, at ten-thirty PM. The Army soldiers had been pushed back inch by inch and foot by foot across the great span crossing the waters of the Mississippi, until they were barely over the water’s edge. Some of the gunboats had gotten too close to the enemy shore or had stayed too still, and been taken out of action from ground fire. While they were exposed on the bridge, the Brotherhood men even so had pushed on , driven by their warrior creed to acts of bravado that the US armed forces quaked at.
"C'mon!" one of the Army sergeants bellowed. "This is just like at Jefferson! We beat 'em there, and we'll beat 'em here!"
Though the bridge was long, it was narrow - 120 feet or so. That limited the Brotherhood troops' freedom of movement - they were forced to herd together, which made it easier to hold them back than in the open field.
He gritted his teeth. More enemy reinforcements? His heart sank. But no – they were firing on the Brotherhood soldiers on the bridge – and their external speakers were playing a song Maher had sung every day in high school, had stood up to every time he had gone to a movie theatre.
“Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What we so proudly hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming ...”
But the enemy were still coming. They shattered the force-screen with a multitude of missile and grenade shots. Blue-tinted laser beams met green and orange enemy ones in a frenetic light-show, but still the enemy came.
Maher fired a couple of shots with his plasma rifle, damaging an enemy's armour, and looked around him for more fusion cells. There were none, and the enemy were getting closer to the barricade he was crouching behind.
Some more of the power-armoured soldiers opened fire, but it wouldn't be enough to hold back the enemy charge-
An Army vertibird saw what was happening and flew like lightning scant feet above the tarmac, scattering the first ranks of the Brotherhood charge like nothing so much as an oversized bowling ball, then swerved round and lasered the enemy from the other side.
Power-armoured soldiers rapidly disembarked from the vehicle, as more lit up enemy APCs and tanks.
In just a few minutes Maher saw what he thought no US military soldier would ever see before - Brotherhood of Steel troops surrendering and going out of armour.
--*--
Capt. Lionel Barrett jumped out of the vertibird, running almost as soon as he hit the shattered tarmac of a ruined airport. The field was dark, little more than the silhouettes of ruined buildings to be seen. He turned on thermal mode and linked up with the others over radio. HUD showed a Brotherhood man approaching with a gatling laser - he gave two short three-round bursts and the enemy went down.
One of his heavy weapons men opened up on an enemy AA laser emplacement, to a nod from Barrett. The brilliant explosion as it went up lit up the night, showing the enemy in clear terms the forces they were facing. Some Californian combat engineers and Brotherhood militiamen threw their hands up outright as the speed and power of the attack hit home.
The assault had been excellently planned. Flying at tree-top height, the airborne task force had been nigh-invisible to radar. The Air Force pilots from Berry Field had taken on the unenviable task of suppressing the enemy's air defence - which they'd done, though with high casualties. And now the two most critical locations of the battlespace - the airport and the bridge - were rapidly being secured.
As a mix of plasma and laser fire rang out across the cratered swath of tarmac, Barrett thought about the wider situation. They had three days of ammo and other supplies - the main force was to hit on the 28th, in four. The remaining Brotherhood men were already digging in hard to the north of the bridge, following the curve of the interstate - the airborne troops did not have the heavy equipment to dislodge them.
Which meant, if the worst came to the worst, they themselves may just be as trapped as the men they had come to relieve ...
--*--
General Friedman swore at the top of his voice when he heard the report on the situation in the east at eleven-hundred hours. The Brotherhood had overextended – gone beyond what he had asked them to do. Taking the airport and the approach to the main bridge was more than enough. Chasing the fleeing Enclave soldiers onto it had overextended their troops – that was, their quality ones. They were now enveloped on the bridge and facing total destruction by an assault from both sides of the river. A day and he would have been ready to launch his large-scale assault. Two and he would have taken Saint Louis already.
And now everything was in jeopardy. If the enemy could take and hold the highway intersection to the east of the city – where I-55, I-64 and I-70 connected – St. Louis could recieve fresh supplies. The city would no longer be under siege.
He mused over the bitter situation. Why would the Enclave not give up? Their tactical situation – in spite of the recent attack – was hopeless. Their empire of tyranny would start falling apart at its seams any day now. To the north, Lance Robertson waited to give the killing blow to their main air base in this region. They must be mad, he mused, or knowledgeable of how dire their crimes are and the penalty they deserve, to be this stubborn.
He received news in the early morning, when dawn had not yet broke, that both the forces taken to secure and repair the airbase and those on the bridge had been either killed or captured. 10,000 out of 25,000 power-armoured soldiers – losses for the Brotherhood, but not crippling right now. The Enclave airborne force was still outnumbered. There was still a chance to salvage the situation.
And yet - General Mendoza, from Gran Colombia, had informed him that they had a much larger force moving in overland. That really put him in a quandary. He was faced with three options - carry on an all-out assault now, hoping he won, and weaken his forces against the relief force; stay put, and risk being hit from both sides; or abandon the siege for the moment, attack the Enclave relief force and hope he could beat them on open ground. Splitting his forces was a mistake he could not afford.
The reserve armies under Ortez were supposed to guard against such a situation, but Lance had deployed them to take Indianopolis and move further eastward.
He decided. It was better to take on one enemy at a time than two; and the Enclave force here was weaker than the one there. The latter represented a more pressing threat - when O'Hare fell, he would get all the reinforcements he would ever need.
He got out his pip-boy and sent a request to the Brotherhood's leaders in Oklahoma for aid, warning that their own forces were also on the line. An hour later, he recieved his reply. 50,000 Brotherhood infantry in power armour and 20,000 men in APCs and tanks, along with another 75,000 of their militia - for all the value the latter added - were already moving to intercept the Enclave force advancing through Missouri.
He shuddered - that represented the entirety of their force in Oklahoma. Those garrisons had to be abandoned - and with them gone, even the NCR's hold in Texas grew more tenuous. But if that Enclave army could be smashed - it was worth it.
==*===
7:30 CST, December 25 2331
Defences of AFB O'Hare
Across the divided cities of the American continent, a great feast was being celebrated. Wide-eyed children rushed downstairs to open up brightly-wrapped parcels of presents, and sober husbands and goodwives made ready to take their families to the Church services that would follow soon after proclaiming the birth of Christ.
Sergeant James Fields was not appreciative of this, though he had enjoyed many Christmases as a boy. Advancing through the mists before AFB O'Hare's outer defense works, he was aware of an unnatural chill in the air.
Suddenly, the mists stopped - 300 feet from the Enclave defence works - and they opened fire. APCs and combat trucks rapidly turned to give the leg infantry cover as cyan-blue laser beams and plasma bolts struck out from the Enclave positions.
Sand-bags and barricades were hastily erected by combat engineers as the attack continued on. Gatling lasers rang out across the snowy field, mixed with small arms and P-94s. Again the Enclave artillery thundered - it was so rapid-firing that the NCR troopers now had a nickname for it, "automatic artillery". But the NCR troops had their own old-world fury on call.
From behind the front line, mortars kept up a relentless pressure on the Enclave trenches, keeping the soldiers tight up in their dug-outs and bunkers. Snow flashed to steam as shells hit here and there, and then the field artillery finished its deployment.
Shells whizzed over Sergeant Fields' head as the NCR guns fired - if not at direct-fire - at shallow angles, aiming to avoid the laser defences that made indirect fire so burdensome. Fields saw one take out a pillbox using as it's gun an Enclave MBT turret, allowing a tank platoon to safely approach an area devoid of anti-tank mines.
But the risk to those brave gunners was real - more than one piece was taken out by heavy weapons fire from the Enclave defences.
And then-
The first Fields knew of it was roaring noises from behind, the sound of twisting metal, of fire. Receiving permission, he sent his squad (along with others) behind to investigate as soon as he did.
What he saw was nightmarish. Men lay dead with vicious whip-like wounds, some with bodies half-eaten, around them. Nightmare creatures capered over the bodies, tentacles lashing the air, digging into the ground and vanishing beneath the surface before he could draw a bead on them. And he could see something else. It was hard for the eye to follow it due to the way its colouration blended in with the surroundings, but judging by the silhouette-
Deathclaw. And not there accidentally for certain.
Half the men seemed to freeze in primal terror, until it grabbed Private McInnes and bit him straight in half. Then, as it roared its primal victory, vicious flames came out of its mouth in a long stream of destruction. It loped towards the rest, and Fields spoke up.
"Take out that thing, damn you!"
Laser fire hit its scales, but didn't do much. Fields ran through his head of facts he'd learned in high-school Biology - only class he'd done well in - the key to taking out a Deathclaw was to spread out and hit it from all sides, it wouldn't know who to take out first-
"Squad, disperse! Fire on it from all directions!"
The thing roared under the assault, but reacted quicker than it should and took out Kendall, who uttered a high-pitched scream as it tore him to shreds. Then it moved on O'Brien, who it set on fire and tore in half with its claws.
There were pock-marks in its scales, but even the SAW man's laser RCW wasn't doing much.
Then an explosive gauss rifle round - from an NCR Ranger in the ruins - hit it straight in the head. Half of it was reduced to a vicious ruin - grey matter and pieces of circuitry came flying out, and it seemed to respond sluggishly, more in line with what usually happened with deathclaws. What followed wasn't a combat but a putting-down.
Eventually laser fire to the belly took the beast out - but even as it died, its blood burst into flame and set it alight from within.
Fields took a deep sigh. This combat was sure tough, but it wasn't even the real fight - that was to the northeast, not at the trench-line between Elk Grove and Wood Dale.
--*--
General Julius Chase listened to the centuries-old song in his above-ground office, as reports hit him minute-by-minute of how the battle was going:
"O Land of Columbia, how glorious the sight,
When millions of freemen rise in their might,
To battle for Union and Liberty's cause,
And aid in defending our time-honored laws."
The situation was dire. The north-eastern defence lines were hard-pressed, and even if he held today the enemy had won at Davenport, and the troops from there would almost certainly arrive soon. Perhaps within a day - perhaps two. It was for such dire moments that the President had given him command of the Chemical Corps' assets.
"The Union, it must, and shall be preserved,
Was said by a sage who from duty ne'er swerved,
So we say, let traitors proclaim what they will:
The Flag of Columbia still floats o'er us still."
So be it. The enemy would hang him anyway if they captured him - him, and all the men he had sworn oaths to serve. The men under him could expect life in prison at best. He grimaced. He was not glad to give this order - it was dishonorable at the least, but billions of men had died by sword and gun and shell since warfare began. He would be adding a few thousand more by gas - a burden on his conscience, he knew, but his job, at root, was to organise the killing of America's enemies in the most efficient, effective and ethical way possible to ensure the enforcement of the political decisions of the US government. Every soldier had to deal with that reality.
"Our watchword in battle whenever we fight-"
He turned the song off, gave the order to deploy chemical weapons, and made a mental note to pray for forgiveness after the battle was done.
Five minutes later, the shells started falling around the strongpoints at Des Plaines and Park Ridge.
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TyrantTriumphant
Well-known member
I take it General Friedman hasn't gone through any Enclave towns yet. He hasn't grasped that the Enclave has reformed like the rest of the NCR's front line commanders have.
If he takes St. Louis he might figure it out considering the number of civilian militia they're using.
Still, the NCR has already taken some prisoners and you're think that the information from interrogating them would already be causing a stir back in Shady Sands.
If he takes St. Louis he might figure it out considering the number of civilian militia they're using.
Still, the NCR has already taken some prisoners and you're think that the information from interrogating them would already be causing a stir back in Shady Sands.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Prisoners are Post-Apocalypse Nazis or all indoctrinated
So obviously they’re all lying or speaking propaganda and may need to be executed soon or do a repeat of what they did to the original Enclave, them and their descendents all in prison forever
I think they reenstated that law to arrest all the Enclave given there wasn’t much worth from those who were imprisoned
Ihopethisworks
God Bless the Enclave
Welp someone’s going to be publicly court martialed.
SuperHeavy
Well-known member
Yeah the VP still committed treason there should Nate wish to push the issue, especially when he concealed his actions from the President.
The Chemical Corps was attached to his unit with those shells to be used at his discretion, if he is hitting military targets then no one will say anything. Remember that Fallout is a lot looser with what we consider WMDs with a long history of tactical nuclear usage.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Hopefully they actually have the medicine to fix the few survivors around
They also have mininukes
Yes, radaway is a thing, but I can see people becoming Ghouls or getting super cancer in a few minutes
SuperHeavy
Well-known member
Well if it is nerve agent they almost certainly carry a counter agent in case of friendlies getting exposed. Something like chlorine or chloropicrin gas is going to depend on stimpacks being able rapidly regenerate lung and soft tissue.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
@Navarro
Have Stimpaks gone into mass production on both Americas?
Super stimpak (Fallout: New Vegas)
A Super Stimpak is a more advanced version of the regular stimpak found in Fallout: New Vegas. While it heals more severe wounds, it also has unpleasant side effects. The super version comes in a hypodermic needle, but with an additional vial containing more powerful drugs than the basic model...
fallout.fandom.com
Did they manage to make a super super super Stimpak?
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Navarro
Well-known member
That depends on what exactly he did, in:
1. Ordering that enemy forces within the borders not be destroyed outright but driven back out of them, under the logic that damage to national morale amongst the enemy would have a greater strategic effect than the enemy recovering a large number of troops (who will have to be resupplied, redeployed, etc. after retreating) who are witness to evidence that the NCR's stated casus belli is based on a gigantic falsehood.
2. Ordering that the enemy not be engaged within a city that was going to fall anyway, no matter what, under the reasoning that their overextended supply lines could easily be cut (remember, this is Napoleonic warfare with sci-fi level tech, i.e. relatively autonomous armies roaming about seeking each other to do battle on the way to strategic locations, not the Western Front with every square mile studded with troops) by the forces thus preserved by not fighting a drawn-out last stand, forcing them to retreat.
Both are valid, non-treasonous ideas from a military standpoint. Need I also mention the severe political cost of putting the VP on trial for treason on dubious grounds, along with the heads of the military branches and intelligence agencies?
Didn't happen to anybody who used chem weapons in WW1 either (at which point it was already illegal), and they were prepared by the British to be used in WW2 in response to the threat of Sealion and the V2 raids. In Autumn Morning gas was also prepared for fighting the BoS, but never used, so you can't say I'm being inconsistent.
TBF most of those are light or medium artillery level.
RL chemical agents aren't unstoppable superweapons. Now FEV-based agents would be, but:
A. They aren't being used here.
B: Even then they take up to 48 hours to kill according to FO2.
C: There are countermeasures, as demonstrated in FO2.
Yes, of course. Mostly in Vault City for the NCR.
This question doesn't even dignify an answer.
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