Fallout The Eagle And The Bear [Fallout AU]

[Navarro]

Given that a guy in T-51B or T-45D PA can go all 'chad in a warzone' and come out with nary a scratch on them because you'll need heavy laser, anti-material caliber, gauss, anti-tank, or (later) plasma weapons to even have a hope to harm the PA...

... you get power issues.

Lyons' expedition also faced (and in this universe, lost to) the DC Enclave, but they're a minority.

Then there is the fact that a T-60 series PA managed to be in the fucking plasma exhaust of a plasma rocket for almost a minute straight... and the T-60 is implied to be simply a T-45 series but better in the same way that the X-0X/APA series of PA is the T-51 series but better.

I don't think the Arcjet rocket was meant to be a plasma or nuclear rocket, but using conventional rocket fuel.

Problem is, in this case, that most of civilization is still not that technologically capable yet. To give a GURPS analogy, the vast majority of the "outside world's" tech base is several tech levels lower than what is required to mass-produce the good stuff, leaving only salvage and stupidly expensive slow-production of somewhat wide quality of the good stuff. It also doesn't help that these civilizations tended to also damage technology in their scrummaging of the ruins of the old world. This isn't Battletech or Warhammer 40k where archeo-tech is a reality, this is within a period of two centuries and change by FO4.

Yep. As you can see in NV the NCR produces combat armour suits by hand. Their current status in this fic as a near peer to E-US is the result of the capture of a motherlode of tech blueprints and decades of desperate crash-industrialisation programs.

The majority of post-war civilizations are getting there, but for all their bumbling about it'll take a better part of a century to do so even during New Vegas.

Which is why an Enclave that abandons its "must genocide all wastelanders" thing is so scary ... it has literally all publically available pre-War patents and scientific research, PLUS stuff from black-budget pre-War projects and post-War advancements. I had to give the NCR a MAJOR lucky break for them to be even competitive.

Kill enough Neo-enclave officials,including president,widraw - and they would fight each other over who rigtfully president is.

Er, no? Even when Richardson and literally the entire Enclave government of FO2 died on the oil rig, control was rather smoothly transferred to JHE over in Raven Rock. Plus there are the logistical issues of getting a strike force to literally the most secure place in the country. And the likelihood that such a move would cause E-US to take the gloves off.

EDIT: I mean, even in FNV killing Caesar didn't cause the Legion to fall into warlordism immediately.

Also, such a move would probably end with your transports getting shot down after entering DC airspace, or barely managing to land in front of the WH before being mobbed by a mixture of the US Secret Service, DCPD tactical teams, DPI eyebots suddenly getting put into "combat mode", Adams AFB security, and outraged citizens.

EDIT 2:

Let's go over this in detail. Presuming your transports aren't shot down by a fighter squadron stationed at Adams or the laser/SAM ground-based air defenses, let's say you manage to land your strike team say, right next to the Washington Monument and head for the WH. At which point the US Secret Service immediately activate the laser fence and the force-screen field fortifications concealed in the lawn, DCPD tactical teams (who actually use old suits of T-45 captured from the BoS way back in the day and deploy via surplus vertibird) move in, and at the least Battalion-strength formations of Virginia and Maryland National Guard units swing into high alert, as well as the USAF security of Adams AFB, who also wear PA (T-51) and the security at the Pentagon (T-90). Plus the Mr. Gutsies, Assaultrons and Sentry Bots which are also part of Adams AFB and Pentagon security are gunning for you.

Oh, and the President immediately moved from the White House into the bunker underneath as soon as your transport was spotted on radar, and can travel to either the Pentagon, the Capitol building, his fortified private villa to the south, or Adams AFB (from which he could fly all the way to Germany if he felt like it) within at the most 30 minutes via the Presidential metro.

Meanwhile pissed-off local citizens (who're packing and have at least a basic level of marksmanship and gun safety training from high school) are also converging on your position and shooting at you, and the DPI just set all their eyebots (which are militarised, unlike privately-owned ones) in the city to combat mode.

And "killing enough officials" - the Cabinet-level muck-a-mucks and grand poobahs aren't all in one building like at the oil rig, they're in their own offices which went into lockdown the moment enemy soldiers touched down in the city. So the strike team has to travel all across the city while constantly being shot at, repeatedly storming lightly-fortified buildings (bar one, which is heavily fortified) while under attack from behind, in the hope of killing enough enemy officials the national government spontaneously collapses. And one of the buildings they have to storm is the literal Pentagon.

Alternatively, the E-USA would follow the constitution and allow either Congress to choose, or follow the current line of succession (here's ours today, but not sure if they'd have the same departments)

1	Vice President
2	Speaker of the House of Representatives
3	President pro tempore of the Senate
4	Secretary of State
5	Secretary of the Treasury
6	Secretary of Defense
7	Attorney General
8	Secretary of the Interior
9	Secretary of Agriculture
10	Secretary of Commerce
11	Secretary of Labor
12	Secretary of Health and Human Services
13	Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
14	Secretary of Transportation
15	Secretary of Energy
16	Secretary of Education
17	Secretary of Veterans Affairs
18	Secretary of Homeland Security

At least one person from this list is the "designated survivor" in any case where they'd all be together, and is not in the same place as the others, explicitly to prevent full executive decapitation.

An analogue to "Homeland Security" exists, but might not have the same name - "Secretary of Defense" is now "Secretary of War". And there's a "Secretary of Propaganda Public Information" but he'd be at or near the bottom of the list"

"Neo-enclave" truly sees itself as the pre-war US, just with large portions of it's territories under control of hostile insurrectionists.

Indeed.

Though, I guess that the Brotherhood/NCR could believe that civil war would result from a fully successful decapitation strike.

No. NCR knows it's dealing with a hostile state with sophisticated political and bureaucratic structures. Albeit a state they view as totalitarian, possibly genocidal, and utterly illegitimate, but definitely something longer-lasting than Caesar's tribal confederation. NCR High Command's hope is not that the E-US's armies will collapse into warlordism on killing their President, but that a sufficiently large military victory will cause all the "oppressed second-class slaves" in E-US territory to rise up in their support.

 

[Aaron Fox]

I don't think the Arcjet rocket was meant to be a plasma or nuclear rocket, but using conventional rocket fuel.

Nope, the NBX rocket in Arcjet Systems is an NTR rocket. Outright stated in the lore. Sure it uses hydrogen propellant (probably the absolutely worst propellant you'll be using, you're better off using methane/decane, heavy water, or plain ass water than hydrogen when you're using an NTR/fusion rocket) and there was a suggestion that it could be modified for fusion instead of fission but at the cost of three months and millions of dollars...

... yeah, PA is just crazy. Also, the standard laser rifle isn't enough to breach the T-60 PA, just caused some heating and implied cosmetic damage. The only reason that their PA isn't better than Battletech BA is that they can't 'tank' a 200MJ small laser at least once!

 

[Navarro]

Nope, the NBX rocket in Arcjet Systems is an NTR rocket. Outright stated in the lore. Sure it uses hydrogen propellant (probably the absolutely worst propellant you'll be using, you're better off using methane/decane, heavy water, or plain ass water than hydrogen when you're using an NTR/fusion rocket) and there was a suggestion that it could be modified for fusion instead of fission but at the cost of three months and millions of dollars...

Ah, good to know. I'd take it as an outlier though.

Also, the standard laser rifle isn't enough to breach the T-60 PA, just caused some heating and implied cosmetic damaged.

I'd imagine it's somewhat similar to lasguns and SM armour in 40k. One shot to centre-mass isn't going to do much - but mass fire (especially automatic) will take its toll and if you get lucky and hit a joint or other weak point you can really mess it up.

 

[Navarro]

For quick visual reference, a standard NCR soldier of the year 2331 (w/o pip-boy obviously):

 

[TyrantTriumphant]

For quick visual reference, a standard NCR soldier of the year 2331 (w/o pip-boy obviously):

I notice this uniform doesn't have a gas mask or respirator. Are the soldiers issued one, or are the NCR just not worried about chemical weapons?

 

[SuperHeavy]

Helmet and flash protection, which is a must, and it looks to cover the vital areas and joints the best it can. Sadly unless they can put some plasma and guass rifles in their hands the predominately PA US army will mulch them pound for pound.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

How much of the occupied E-USA's economy and daily affairs, will be interrupted?

Can't watch everything and the farms are getting taken apart for their produce to supply NCR forces

I don't think the NCR and Brotherhood will even BOTHER using their own money after awhile and just take the stuff

 

[Navarro]

So I made some flags.

US Canadian Commonwealth:

US State of Cuba:

May do more later.

 

[Navarro]

First part of Ch. 16:

==*==

MEMO: INFANTRY UPGRADES

FROM: Dr. Carl Weathers, Chief of OSI
TO: President Matthew Kimball


DATE: 12/15/31

Working with key leaders in the private sector, I believe we will be able to complete Moore’s proposed re-equipment and tactical doctrine changes for the Infantry and PA Corps following the debacle that was the Enclave invasion of Texas, summarized below:

- 13-man squad, split into three fireteams of four + 1 sergeant
- Gauss rifleman in each fireteam
- All infantry equipped with Laser RCW Mk 2., upgraded using modifications based on the AER14 prototype found in V. 22 to fire in green wavelength of visible spectrum (+25% estimated damage boost)
- PA Infantry to be equipped with Laser-Assisted Electrical Rifle as standard issue.

By the end of 2332 with a budget of $50bn, by mid-2332 with a budget of $200bn.

Of course, we run the risk of a devaluation of the currency or significant increase in the national debt with the latter option (especially with the new Cougar MBT project also factored in!). But the certainty of victory is definitely well worth the cost.

-*-

FROM: President Matthew Kimball
TO: Dr. Carl Weathers, Chief of OSI

DATE: 12/15/31

Your budgetary request has been noted and approved. Victory – after so long – will be priceless.

 

[SuperHeavy]

Ah the old "we'll pay our debts when we win" strategy. It can work but only if you can win and extract war reparations before your economy implodes.

 

[Crow gotta eat]

Looking at everything with all the talks of occupation, the Brotherhood, no matter whose side wins, is probably going to be the easiest, as they are more like a high-tec tribal confederation/feudalistic-like state that also has a underclass of people not part of any of the "tribes/nobility" who don't exactly have a reason to enforce any status quo since they are already at the bottom of the current class-system ladder.

Literally the E-USA or the NCR (when they plan to finally get around to fighting the BoS) occupying and either absorbing or creating puppet states, will probably actually improve their social mobility ladder more and be a step up from the Brotherhood's regime.

It is mostly just the E-USA and NCR occupying each other "core lands" that will cause the most occupation troubles, with at most maybe their respective frontier holdings having an easier time not buying into their own sides propaganda more. But even that might not be true as with things like E-USA's Caribbean Commonwealth which went from pirate warlords to suddenly their best quality of life under the E-USA might be unusually patriotic. Or if the NCR sent settlers to their frontier from those hurt directly from the old!Enclave's military excursions, slaving operations and genocidal experiments.

*Flags snip*

Cuba's flag looks a lot like Puerto Rico's current one, just a darker coloration. Which I guess makes sense since Cuba's actual real life flag if you switched it's colors to red, white and blue would look like Puerto Rico's one.

 

[Navarro]

Looking at everything with all the talks of occupation, the Brotherhood, no matter whose side wins, is probably going to be the easiest, as they are more like a high-tec tribal confederation/feudalistic-like state that also has a underclass of people not part of any of the "tribes/nobility" who don't exactly have a reason to enforce any status quo since they are already at the bottom of the current class-system ladder.

Certainly.

Literally the E-USA or the NCR (when they plan to finally get around to fighting the BoS) occupying and either absorbing or creating puppet states, will probably actually improve their social mobility ladder more and be a step up from the Brotherhood's regime.

True.

But even that might not be true as with things like E-USA's Caribbean Commonwealth which went from pirate warlords to suddenly their best quality of life under the E-USA might be unusually patriotic.

The Caribbean Commonwealth has some issues, namely worries of losing cultural distinctiveness, but the same would exist under NCR suzerainty and such fears have generally proven false under US rule.

Or if the NCR sent settlers to their frontier from those hurt directly from the old!Enclave's military excursions, slaving operations and genocidal experiments.

That would be a couple of hundred folks, almost all of whom are dead now (apart from the Gen. 2 West Coast super mutants, but they don't remember much of when they were human and aren't that cognizant generally). You have to remember that the FO2 Enclave was acting largely in secret and was more a boogieman in the shadows to most of California. Arroyo, Redding, Arena, Klamath and San Fran are really hardcore anti-Enclave but the settlers in the NCR's "expansion territories" are largely from the urban and overcrowded southern states (Boneyard, Dayglow, Hub, Shady Sands, Mojave) and the blatantly corrupt "fiefdoms" (Sac-City, New Reno).

 

[CarlManvers2019]

How much on average will NCR and Brotherhood Forces be able to keep themselves from doing brutality to occupied lands?

I mean they’ll really provide a negative image, coming from economically poorer areas and seeing all of this prosperity and locals who don’t want to cooperate

It’d be like a Communist Invasion to “liberate” a place, only to discover that the residents who are highly anti-Communist are prospering and NOT oppressed

 

[Navarro]

Their equivalent of that are the seats of Congress for the territories the Enclave doesn't control. Those are given out pretty much out of open nepotism and patronage.

Speaking of which ... I don't understand where people get the impression that I'm portraying the NCR leadership as tyrants making war for no discernable reason. They're democratically-elected and from their POV if the 'Enclave' wins their entire population faces brutal enslavement AT BEST.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Speaking of which ... I don't understand where people get the impression that I'm portraying the NCR leadership as tyrants making war for no discernable reason. They're democratically-elected and from their POV if the 'Enclave' wins their entire population faces brutal enslavement AT BEST.

I wonder how they'd feel about the truth

General Lance Robertson accepted relatively quickly that the whole war was "just politics" instead of a "noble crusade against tyranny" partially because he knew that even without the whole genocide and mega-Nazism stuff

The Enclave was STILL planning on invading NCR territory

 

[Navarro]

Man, getting all these family connections (and not just for E-USA!) to work nearly drove me mad. Remind me not to do intergenerational sagas in future.

BTW, the survival of Pres. Richardson's family was not originally planned. Originally the meet-cute at Fort Independence (which is going to be moved up in the timeline when I get round to revising that part of AM) had her surname be 'Richards' but it auto-corrected because I had used 'Richardson' so often (mostly referring to the aircraft carrier) and after backspacing it I changed my mind and decided to roll with it.

 

[Navarro]

I wonder how they'd feel about the truth

General Lance Robertson accepted relatively quickly that the whole war was "just politics" instead of a "noble crusade against tyranny" partially because he knew that even without the whole genocide and mega-Nazism stuff

The Enclave was STILL planning on invading NCR territory

It would vary. "NCR political leadership" isn't a hive mind.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

It would vary. "NCR political leadership" isn't a hive mind.

It will demoralize not just the troops but also the leadership

Though, Brotherhood MO is unchanged, they all have access to dangerous levels of technology and are bringing back the USA of the past that lead to this Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland(ignore China)

 

[ForeverShogo]

Honestly, it's something of a surprise that the NCR so readily accepted the genocidal nature of the Enclave.

The Enclave operated in secret and only truly terrorized a single population of degenerate tribals and the vault dwellers they broke off from, not really doing much of anything to the NCR itself.

Then one of those tribals detonates a nuke, vaporizing any and all evidence of what the Enclave was actually planning to do.

And the NCR just kind of takes it on good faith that these raving tribal weirdos are 100% telling the truth and must be unconditionally believed when they say the group they seemingly (mostly) exterminated wanted and were trying to exterminate the entire world's non-Enclave, non-Vault population. To the extent they were willing to gather up an army and finish off what (they thought) was left of them at Navarro.

I mean. Sure. You could ask why they would lie about it. But you could also ask why they weren't written off as raving lunatics.

These are people who were originally Vault Dwellers and who IMMEDIATELY degenerated into stereotypical, spear chucking tribals living in tents with a goddamn Temple of Trials and a Chosen One.

The fucking Chosen One is the grandchild of the Vault Dweller. These people went from Vault Dwellers to MAXIMUM TRIBAL within a single generation. My first thought would be Arroyons are fucking crazy.

And yet somehow, despite being shitty tribals living in shitty tents . . . Adding the rest of the Vault population to their numbers after the events of Fallout 2 results in this.

 

[Navarro]

Honestly, it's something of a surprise that the NCR so readily accepted the genocidal nature of the Enclave.

The Enclave operated in secret and only truly terrorized a single population of degenerate tribals and the vault dwellers they broke off from, not really doing much of anything to the NCR itself.

Then one of those tribals detonates a nuke, vaporizing any and all evidence of what the Enclave was actually planning to do.

And the NCR just kind of takes it on good faith that these raving tribal weirdos are 100% telling the truth and must be unconditionally believed when they say the group they seemingly (mostly) exterminated wanted and were trying to exterminate the entire world's non-Enclave, non-Vault population. To the extent they were willing to gather up an army and finish off what (they thought) was left of them at Navarro.

I mean. Sure. You could ask why they would lie about it. But you could also ask why they weren't written off as raving lunatics.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense in that regard but it's canon according to FNV (to the extent that they hunt down Arcade Gannon who wasn't even born at the time, and Dr. Henry who defected to the NCR pre-FO2). TBF there are A. Ron Meyers and Dr. Henry as additional sources, but they wouldn't know that much and Meyers is some drunk hobo living on an oil freighter who thinks Navarro and Control Station ENCLAVE are the only Enclave bases when the infiltration of Navarro has you posing as a transfer from another Enclave base (not to mention that FNV's depiction of the Remnants heavily implies that the FEV genocide plan was a deeply-held secret within the Enclave itself).

Especially considering that in the closest historical parallel, American and Soviet leaders had no problem making use of former Nazi scientists and military officers.

So, to make sense of the whole thing ...



==*==

July 20th 2249

Shady Sands

“Madam President, is an attack against the Enclave remnants at Navarro truly a necessity?”

The question from Vice President Tibbett hung in the air uncomfortably. While the emissary from Arroyo had called it a moral imperative, President Tandi knew well that morality was often of secondary or even tertiary importance in the political-military sphere. Arroyo’s claims about a conspiracy to commit global genocide were also unproven – all that the evidence merely pointed to was that Richardson had been stockpiling FEV-based biochemical weapons and testing them on human subjects. Extremely odious, no doubt – but at the worst, Tandi believed they had meant to use them to subdue the area of California, the Enclave not having the manpower for a conventional occupation. Still bad enough, but with their oil rig gone the Enclave were defanged and declawed.

The worst they had done since then was some air attacks on NCR settlers moving too close to Navarro, which had killed a few hundred – and the Vandenberg Incident of a year past, where they had looted an Old World base of a crawler-transporter once used for spacecraft, then levelled the facility.

They could be effectively contained rather easily – and with that done, the NCR could afford to keep its options open. Some had called for fortifying the area around Navarro then leaving them alone until they died off, yet others for even using diplomatic means to integrate them into the NCR. She doubted the feasibility of the latter option, but still …

It was just then that a messenger burst into the room, from the Brotherhood, carrying a green paper folder and dressed in the robes of a Scribe. They had been doing their own reconnoitring around the region of Navarro and it seemed they had at last received their answers.

Tandi read the folder carefully. According to the dossier, based on intelligence gathered by Brotherhood recon teams fifty tons of bio-chemical weapons were stored at Navarro, ready to be deployed within forty-five minutes. Enough for a vertibird air raid to depopulate a whole NCR city, or cause much damage to one of them. A threat to the whole region.

So, war it was then.

“Is the Brotherhood of Steel willing to co-operate with the NCR against the Enclave threat?” she asked, rising up.

“Yes,” the Scribe replied. “We will co-operate fully with your armies against the Enclave threat, to the tune of 3,000 warriors in power-armour. However, once victory is secured – in repayment for our not claiming the technical items and schematics captured in the field, we demand enforcement of the Codex’s stipulations upon all Enclave personnel that come into your hands.”

“And that is?”

“No clemency. No amnesty. Those who pervert science and use advanced technology for malicious ends must be dealt with as Roger Maxson dealt with the crazed Old World scientists at Mariposa.”

“Does this apply to the leadership of the Enclave, or to every individual?”

“To every individual.”

“Even the defectors?”

“Even the defectors.”

Tandi mused over her options. She could not afford the full-scale war with the Brotherhood that would be invoked by a dispute of Navarro’s advanced technologies. So, she would agree to their terms – the claims that they had been planning to exterminate the entire world’s population, regardless of whether they were true or not, would be invoked to justify such actions.

==*==

tl;dr; Blame the BoS.

These are people who were originally Vault Dwellers and who IMMEDIATELY degenerated into stereotypical, spear chucking tribals living in tents with a goddamn Temple of Trials and a Chosen One.


The fucking Chosen One is the grandchild of the Vault Dweller. These people went from Vault Dwellers to MAXIMUM TRIBAL within a single generation. My first thought would be Arroyons are fucking crazy.

According to the FO2 manual, the Vault Dweller even went so far as to teach them advanced sciences ... sciences they should have already known because they're Vault Dwellers. And they only have the one pip-boy, despite the fact that they were supposedly all descended from Vault Dwellers.

The only sensible explanation is that there was no mass exodus from Vault 13, just the Vault Dweller taking advantage of his exile to play petty king over some tribe in southern Oregon.

EDIT:

Plausible scenario - VD wanders northwest from V13, finds a tribe who escaped from one of the Vaults that went horribly wrong some 70/80 years ago, degraded but have legends about coming from a Vault. He takes over as chief, marries a local woman (or multiple), tries to be a one-man uplift but fails, oral tradition by the time of FO2 conflates V13 and the Vault the tribe originally came from.

EDIT 2:

Arroyo (roundabout the Oregon/California border) being the result of a Vault 13 exodus makes no sense when Shady Sands (whose leader is indebted to the VD for rescuing his daughter, and which could definitely use technically skilled peeps) is right outside the door and at minimum there's decently fertile land just beyond the mountains.

And yet somehow, despite being shitty tribals living in shitty tents . . . Adding the rest of the Vault population to their numbers after the events of Fallout 2 results in this.

Well, duh. That was an actual organised group of Vault dwellers settling the area, with a GECK no less.