Detailed North America
Fallout The Eagle And The Bear [Fallout AU]
- Thread starter Navarro
- Start date
SuperHeavy
Well-known member
So has the US moved some of their admittedly limited submarine fleet to cut off the West from China? Even plunking cargo ships moving along the coast would be helpful.
Navarro
Well-known member
Look, they don't know about Communist China surviving - they're not totally omniscient!
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
What sort of economy does Communist China have? Similar to today's CCP? How many ethnic groups have they genocided now?
TyrantTriumphant
Well-known member
When the Enclave finds out that Red China still exists, the level of rage is going to be impressive. When they find out the reds are working with the NCR, the gloves are going to come off on this war. With the kind of weaponry and mad science that both sides will be willing to unleash at that point the world be on the brink of a second apocalypse.
Jarow
Well-known member
We don't know much about China yet, but we do know "China" isn't currently united, I think it's 3 parts right now (Communists, a group in some way descended from American soldiers to some degree, and one other I can't remember at all), but I don't remember exact details now. This makes it a bit harder to genocide people.
Lanmandragon
Well-known member
Did they end up eating that icbm that you can launch in 3? I always wondered if it actually made it and what happened.
Navarro
Well-known member
You'll see - it's gonna be really demented.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Hopefully the NCR's not too dumb to allow em stuff to potentially take over economics-wise
Duke Nukem
Hail to the king baby
Imagine being a Chinese villager and then suddenly getting nuked lol
The Real Lee
Member
I want to know what happened to the sub commander in Fallout 4, will he make a return, and more importantly will he remember Nate? If it comes out the the President released a filthy communist bandit who nuked America what will the political fallout be?
ForeverShogo
Well-known member
The closest we ever got to finding out what happened to China was this tactical shooter that never really got passed the concept stage. But it was meant to have stuff like if you destroyed a bridge in one mission there'd be less enemies in another because their ability to move forces around took a hit.
===
The Brotherhood of Steel has been expanding and seizing more and more territory under their control. Their area of influence stretches as far as Alaska, where the Brotherhood's new headquarters is now located. Local humans are either drafted into the Brotherhood's ranks as cannon fodder or enslaved, and mutants are outright eradicated. It's the Brotherhood that the player would oppose during the first half of the game.
The player controls a squad of revolutionaries known as The Cause. Throughout the game, it would gain momentum, starting in Oregon, then moving through Washington and Canada. Each reclaimed town would vow loyalty to the player's cause.
However, after defeating the Brotherhood, the player would learn why the Brotherhood set out to Canada and Alaska in the first place. The rebels must now venture across the Bering Strait, through Russia and Mongolia and finally into China, in order to destroy the Doom's Day Missile that could obliterate what is left of America. The endgame would take place within the Forbidden City, where the Chinese Emperor resides.
===
Supposedly forces operating out of Taiwan would end up retaking the Chinese mainland and re-establishing the Chinese Empire. Then, after they kicked the shit out of the Communist remnants I guess they decided they were still pretty fucking salty about the nuclear exchange so they constructed some kind of super nuke they were going to launch at the United States to . . . I guess make sure America was extra fucked.
The Brotherhood wanted to capture the Doom's Day Missile for their own use. The Cause would basically be racing to dismantle it before China, the Brotherhood, or the Huns could use it. (The Huns basically being Mongolian Raiders.)
If any of the above looks familiar to you, it would seem you also play Hearts of Iron 4. Because the Old World Blues mod basically repurposed some of that stuff. With the Troll Warren, Washington Brotherhood, and The Cause all being factions in said mod that originate from Fallout Extreme. (Though the Washington Brotherhood is trying to get to Alaska for completely different reasons than the Brotherhood of Fallout Extreme.)
Though that's just stuff from a game that was cancelled before it ever truly went into development. I mostly forgot what has been said about China's state in this story.
===
The Brotherhood of Steel has been expanding and seizing more and more territory under their control. Their area of influence stretches as far as Alaska, where the Brotherhood's new headquarters is now located. Local humans are either drafted into the Brotherhood's ranks as cannon fodder or enslaved, and mutants are outright eradicated. It's the Brotherhood that the player would oppose during the first half of the game.
The player controls a squad of revolutionaries known as The Cause. Throughout the game, it would gain momentum, starting in Oregon, then moving through Washington and Canada. Each reclaimed town would vow loyalty to the player's cause.
However, after defeating the Brotherhood, the player would learn why the Brotherhood set out to Canada and Alaska in the first place. The rebels must now venture across the Bering Strait, through Russia and Mongolia and finally into China, in order to destroy the Doom's Day Missile that could obliterate what is left of America. The endgame would take place within the Forbidden City, where the Chinese Emperor resides.
===
Supposedly forces operating out of Taiwan would end up retaking the Chinese mainland and re-establishing the Chinese Empire. Then, after they kicked the shit out of the Communist remnants I guess they decided they were still pretty fucking salty about the nuclear exchange so they constructed some kind of super nuke they were going to launch at the United States to . . . I guess make sure America was extra fucked.
The Brotherhood wanted to capture the Doom's Day Missile for their own use. The Cause would basically be racing to dismantle it before China, the Brotherhood, or the Huns could use it. (The Huns basically being Mongolian Raiders.)
If any of the above looks familiar to you, it would seem you also play Hearts of Iron 4. Because the Old World Blues mod basically repurposed some of that stuff. With the Troll Warren, Washington Brotherhood, and The Cause all being factions in said mod that originate from Fallout Extreme. (Though the Washington Brotherhood is trying to get to Alaska for completely different reasons than the Brotherhood of Fallout Extreme.)
Though that's just stuff from a game that was cancelled before it ever truly went into development. I mostly forgot what has been said about China's state in this story.
Duke Nukem
Hail to the king baby
That sounded like it could have have been interesting , its a shame it was never finished.
Guncannon
Pessimistic Pilot
Just trying to make a living knee-deep in rice patties, then BOOM, fried rice.
Chapter Sixteen
Navarro
Well-known member
The chapter was getting too big, so I changed my mind and decided to just put the damn rest of it in chapter 17.
==*==
Chapter Sixteen
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 our current budget for such 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 and Bobcat AA/AT Vehicle projects 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 for $200bn has been noted and approved. Victory – after so long – is something beyond price.
==*==
20:00 PST, December 9th 2331
Irving Residence. Aradesh District, Shady Sands
Dr. Walt Irving was tired, but that was no excuse to shirk in his duties. While he was a special advisor to the NCR government, he was also an esteemed professor at Shady Sands University – and that, much as he tried to avoid it, meant taking on grad students. He had just finished discussing the doctoral thesis of one Rosa Raines – a bright young lady with red hair, whose visits his wife always turned a disapproving eye towards on account of her looks – when suddenly the conversation took a different turn.
“I’ve an idea, Professor Irving,” she suggested.
“And that is?”
“After this war is over and the Enclave is gone for good – why don’t we forget about Old America?”
“You don’t mean?-”
“I do. The Enclave has tried to rewrite history to portray Richardson as a hero and not a villain, to present Frank Horrigan as a noble bodyguard and not a vicious thug, to blacken the name of Ronto, to deny that the Brotherhood tamed the ‘Capital Wasteland’ and not them. Why shouldn’t we turn it around on them?”
“But why? The goal of a historian is to search for truth, not to try and create it – that’s perverse.”
“Why not? You yourself have written that we need to begin again, that the Enclave was the consummation of the Old World. Why do we need to teach that before our Republic there was a continent-spanning democratic empire? That the Golden Gate Bridge was built in 1937 under ‘President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’? Surely it’s enough to know that we have an Executive, a Judiciary, and a Legislative Branch, that the great suspension bridge crossing the San Francisco bay was an achievement of the Californian people?”
“You can’t teach on the Enclave without the necessary context.”
“In 2242, the leaders of pre-War society tried to exterminate all mankind and conquer the world. They were thwarted and rightfully punished for their actions, and their threat forever ended many years later. That’s all the context you need to teach.”
“We need to be able to learn from the past to avoid making the same mistakes that brought the Old World to its ruin.”
“We already have escaped from the potential to make those mistakes. Why dwell on the minutia of how it failed? You’ve constantly written yourself that we need to get out of the shadow of a dead past, of pre-War America. Live in the present – live in the future. Well, I know one way to do that.”
“I don’t know whose influence has gotten into you-”
“Look, I’m not parroting somebody else here. These are my own thoughts.”
Irving mused. How could he reach this woman and get her away from the folly of her ideas? The world needed to be confronted as it was, not as how one would like it to be. That was one motto he had stuck with as a journalist, and why he had resolutely thrown his life into debunking Enclave propaganda about their nation being a paradise – not to mention that it sold well and had brought him many accolades. His book refuting the supposed live footage of their ‘Mars landing’ had certainly been a rip-roaring success across the NCR.
“Well, I guess you’ve made up your mind. Don’t bring up this nonsense again – we have your Doctoral thesis to focus on!”
He had a feeling it wouldn’t end there, though.
==*==
10:00 AM CST, 13 December 2331
AFB O’Hare, Illinois
The biting wind went through AFB O’Hare, chilling the bones of those unfortunate enough to be outside. The great airbase had been a major international airport pre-War, and stretched over almost nine square miles – a pity most of it was useless right now. When there wasn’t snow piling up on the runways, there was freezing rain, and when there wasn’t freezing rain they were iced over. It was a constant battle to keep even less than half operational.
You who have ordained for the land’s salvation,
Through famine and fire and sword and lamentation,
Now unto You we lift our supplication,
God save the Nation!
God save the Nation!
The holy songs he had sung during the service yesterday kept running through General Julius Chase’s head, reminding him over and over again of the stakes he was dealing with here as he looked over the dismal scene from his office. Not that he expected the good Lord to truly send a miracle – as the saying went, ‘God is on the side with the best artillery’. His promotion to four-star General and concomitant authority over Midwestern Command after the death of Gen. McDowell had been made on the assumption that he would be capable of saving the Steel Belt from NCR invasion. Though untested – everybody was – he damn sure wouldn’t let the President down.
What flag is this you carry towards the western shore?,
The same our first sires lifted up, the same our fathers bore,
In many a battle’s fury it’s shed the crimson rain,
What God has woven in His loom let no man rend in twain!
To Canaan, to Canaan, the Lord has led us forth,
To plant upon the rebel towers the banners of the north!
He ran bitterly through the figures again. He had 18,000 US Army soldiers available along with 60,000 National Guard – he had ordered the units of Indiana and Ohio to carry out a defence-in-depth of those states as soon as reports of the enemy offensive towards Indianopolis had hit, so those units were unavailable for the time being. The Canadian troops – 100,000 – were being held up by terrible weather on the border of eastern Michigan and Ontario.
If you’re in the battle for the Lord and right, keep on the firing line,
If you’d win my brother, surely you must fight, keep on the firing line,
There are many dangers that we all must face,
If we die still fighting it is no disgrace,
Cowards in the Service will not find a place,
Keep on the firing line!
He steeled himself and ran over the positives. First off, the six strongpoints around the base - Des Plaines, Park Ridge, Elk Grove, Wood Dale, Franklin Park and Rosemont – essential to its defence would be complete in two days, with the assistance of local construction firms. Those men were as good in a power-frame as his own engineers, when under experienced supervision. Furthermore, the areas between and around them had been fortified with a mixture of razor wire, trenches, minefields, pulse fields, and dragons’ teeth. Secondly, the base had been equipped during the Travis Administration with an experimental laser-defence system designed to hit enemy shells as they descended – if it worked, he would enjoy an advantage with his artillery and be able to fire without worry of retaliation. Thirdly, a battery from the Chemical Corps had arrived two days ago, along with the most lethal nerve agents yet developed – along with various agents intended not to kill but to maim – all to be used at his discretion.
Fourthly, he had made the engineers cannibalise spare force-screens to add another layer of protection onto his remaining tanks. While the old projectors weren’t able to create a full-on bubble-shell, it was enough to give them a precious degree of survivability. Although it meant he would not be able to replace field defences that burned out until resupply arrived.
Fifthly, he had reinforcements well on the way, more than he had estimated would be coming.
Recently transferred to General Alex Autumn’s Central Command – one Army Corps along with a Marine Expeditionary Force, both at Adams – were the two US Army Corps at Boston and NYC respectively, formerly of Northeastern Command. 128,000 men in total, to meet up at Pittsburgh in two days and then move out west as fast as possible. In addition, 96,000 men from Granite’s Southeastern Command, under General Dornan of the USMC, were being sent to break the siege at St. Louis and then redeploy against the NCR force heading for Indianopolis, along with a Corps-strength formation from the Texan army of whom half had finished their retraining and re-equipping to US Army standards.
Whether they arrived in time was the big question. Tamerlane, he had read at West Point, had once said it was better to be on hand with ten than absent with ten thousand – though the weapons of war had advanced immeasurably beyond the scimitars and bows wielded by that ancient steppe warlord, the adage was still true. Davenport was on its last legs, and if it fell soon – as it doubtless would – 60,000 enemy troops would be freed up to join the assault on O’Hare.
A final oddity, as well. He (doubtless along with the commanders racing to reinforce him) had been given classified orders from the very top not to cut off the NCR soldiers’ retreat and encircle them, but to harry and pursue them back into Brotherhood-controlled territory. It went against all military logic not to seek the total destruction of their armies, but he would try his best to fulfil the orders anyway, seeing as they came straight from the acting President.
But he would not give up. Should O’Hare be unable to hold, he would destroy as much as could not be evacuated – and fall back to the city where assisted by the citizenry (some 120,000) he would hold as long as he could, until Autumn and his men arrived. He knew what the NCR wanted, after all.
Remember Lord, what Edom did on the day that Jerusalem fell,
Tear it down, they cried, tear it down to its foundations!
And if that failed, so be it.
-*-
Flight Lieutenant Arlene Autumn sat in her bunk in the barracks underneath the surface facilities at AFB O’Hare, sick of the interminable waiting. She had flown all the way from Texas to here and not gotten a single combat mission yet. The weather was terrible – this was the worst winter since they started keeping records again – but surely High Command wanted them to do something other than endless PT and simulation training. Not that she had a problem with the former, she had a reputation at Abe Lincoln High as an athletic girl herself, but still.
Especially as at the start of February – presuming they made it through all this – she was going on mandatory rear-line duty, lasting six months. Six months of instructing rookie pilots, posing for recruitment posters, and training with various planes until she saw action again, all the while knowing the war was still going on – it threatened to drive her mad.
Some new planes had also arrived straight from the factories back east one day ago – a squadron of 16 VH-01s, the official designation coming from the unofficial nickname used by the test pilots based on its design, ‘Vertihawks’.
As she had heard it, the Air Force had issued a request to once more gain access to tiltrotor aircraft during the late Castiglione Admin – the Army and USMC had compromised under the proscription that the USAF’s craft would not be allowed to carry troops. So rather than just settling for a vertibird with half of its tactical role gone, the USAF, working in tandem with Daedalus Aerospace, had carried out a new program to create a dedicated tiltrotor gunship which had just started to go into full production. Hence the VH-01.
Where the vertibird was bulbous – its cockpit resembling a dragonfly, as many had noted – the vertihawk was all sharp angles, a configuration designed to lend it radar stealth properties (along with its radar-absorbent construction), making it resemble more a bird of prey than an insect. It carried twenty-one air-to-ground missiles, two rocket pods along the wings, a plasma gatling with co-axial automatic grenade launcher built into the nose, and a remote-operated gatling laser as side gun. The cargo bay had been replaced completely with a bomb bay capable of carrying up to 2,000 pounds of explosives.
The USMC was said to be contracting with Daedalus for a transport/gunship variant, to be designated the VB-03 – the Army probably would too, eventually.
So, at any rate, she had heard there would be marginally higher temperatures and less strong winds in four or so days – enough that the runways would be much safer to use and hopefully she could fly.
==*==
18:00 AM CST, 13 December 2331
St. Louis, Missouri
General Blackwell took another puff of vaporised tobacco and looked on the latest report situation in St. Louis. Bad, but not unendurable. Food was low, even with the relay active as much as it could without burning out and riverboats from Memphis and downstream constantly braving the river. All civilians and soldiers were on strict rationing, with violation to be sentenced by public lashing – an especially bad punishment in the current weather. He was also starting to run low on ammunition.
The NCR commander surely knew that, and had issued an offer of surrender. To which Blackwell’s response had been curt. It was well-known how the NCR had treated those who surrendered at Navarro – did they seriously think treating their opponents like mindlessly hostile video-game enemies was ever going to work out in the real world?
Dornan was coming up from the south in two weeks, he’d been told. One element would travel along the river while the other cut a swathe through Missouri. He hoped they arrived ahead of schedule – the NCR and Brotherhood were obviously preparing for an assault.
Well, assault or not, even if a few of his troops were fool enough to surrender, they would never take him captive to parade around as a ‘dangerous war criminal’ before putting him to death.
==*==
THE CALIFORNIA TIMES
12/14/31 Edition
ENCLAVE DEFEAT AT ROCKFORD, MIDWEST
Our brave boys over in the Midwest have recently won a stunning victory at Rockford over the Enclave, in one of the first engagements with them since the celebrated victory at Navarro in 2249 – which our much-honoured President Tandi sadly did not live to see, dying one day before the Two-Headed Bear was raised over the ruins of the Enclave base. Though our top reporters – Bill Weston and Jesse McLean – were regrettably killed during the battle as they were chronicling it from the air, reports from the front are that the Enclave army was encircled and ‘utterly destroyed’, according to several troopers. Some shattered remnants – like the remnants of Navarro – did limp over to ‘AFB O’Hare’, the Enclave’s main base in the region, but our man in the Midwest, General Lance Robertson, will surely deal with them soon.
Lance is said to have personally reconnoitred the Enclave slave camp at Rockford and to have returned shaken – what that means for a man who saw first-hand the barbarities enacted by the cartels during the Sonora War beggars the imagination. He did however not have the camp liberated, instead electing to move on the Enclave base as the primary strategic target. We are sending a correspondent to interview General Ortez, who was reported this morning to be moving straight through the camp at Peoria.
[Cont. page 20]
==*==
12:00 PM CST, 15th December 2331
Illinois, 38 Miles North-West of O’Hare Air Force Base
“...And there won’t be snow in Enclave lands this Christmas-tide,
The greatest gift they’ll have this year is life…”
The radio continued playing its interminable tune as Lance Robertson looked over the reports in his command vehicle pleased by the recent news – just this day, in the wee hours of the morning, the enemy hold-out at Davenport had fallen. The 60,000 men there were now free – he had instructed them to join the main force aiming for AFB O’Hare with all due haste.
Regrettably the bridges and parts of the highway had been destroyed during the fighting, rendering it infeasible as an additional crossing-point for at least several weeks, with his engineer companies needed for the general offensive at O’Hare.
Partisan activity in his rear was a continuous thorn in his side that Brandt had instructed 10,000 of his Brotherhood contingent – that being 25,000 – to suppress with the Brotherhood’s typical means for dealing with irregular warfare.
“If only,” he said, and turned the damned thing off.
He knew what Brandt intended with his 5,000 best men in two days – a series of lightning vertibird raids deep into Enclave territory to destroy as much military industry as possible. NCR High Command had urged Lance to prevent such an action, but all his efforts had been fruitless. Brandt was going in. Which gave him about 10,000 Brotherhood troops to act in support, less then half of what he had expected to receive. Under whom, he was unsure – the Brotherhood rank-structure was opaque to him.
To the south, Ortez was making good progress, having moved through Peoria with minimal resistance – though he had sent a distressed communique stating the disturbing nature of how utterly normal the town had been, finishing with the assumption that it must be a Potemkin village built specifically to fool an NCR invasion, and that Bloomington and Champaign must be the slave camps he had been expecting to liberate.
At St. Louis, the siege was stable, as per usual. The enemy had stopped counter-attacks on the 13th – whether it was due to their recognition of their position or some other change in the situation. But Friedman’s offer of surrender on that day had been met by a curt reply.
“Get lost, bearfucker. Do you think we don’t remember Navarro?”
So Friedman was preparing for a general assault on the 26th, immediately after the Christmas celebrations, with an eye to ending the siege and freeing his own troops up for advance into enemy territory.
For his own part, Robertson believed he would be in position to launch the general attack by the 20th.
--*--
A hundred metres away, Corporal Fields was talking intently to Private Cassandra ‘Cassie’ Castillo. He had asked her out after the exhilaration of the battle – they had walked round camp, talked quite eagerly, and they had mutually agreed to continue their relationship. They had almost gone further but neither was willing to go quite that far yet. And her potentially becoming pregnant on campaign was certainly an issue that neither of them were willing to deal with.
And so, right now they were talking about more recent events, over lunch. It was dried fish, boiled - not entirely palatable, but better than tasteless salient green.
“I wonder what General Robertson saw at Rockford,” Fields commented. “I heard he was really pale after he went, and he definitely ordered the men who went in there with him never to speak of it.”
Cassie narrowed her big black eyes.
“Probably something worse than the worst intel reports,” she said with a shiver not caused by the cold, ruffling her light brown hair. “I don’t know what else could have shaken him so much.”
“I sure hope the Enclave fold like they did there,” she continued.
--*--
Almost a klick away, Sentinel Brandt was speaking firmly to his subordinate in his own command tent.
“No,” he said to Paladin-Commander Alfred Lyons, noting the man’s shock of unruly blonde hair. “I will not focus on just one Enclave industrial centre.”
“We stand a better chance of doing more damage if we concentrate our main force,” Lyons said in reply. “Move the whole group rapidly from city to city on vertibirds.”
“We also risk it facing total destruction. Putting all our eggs in one basket is not an option. And besides, if we attack sequentially the next city after the first will likely be prepared for us, and if not that then certainly the one after that will. We need to hit fast and hard, destroy as much as we can over as wide a territory as possible, then retreat to the Argo-class airships to use as bases strike deeper in.”
Brandt also, admittedly, disliked Lyons. The eccentric – at best – leader was permissive when it came to outsider-permitted technologies in his domain of the Black Hills and environs, and also when it came to raising up outsiders into the Brotherhood. Such actions veered on breaking with the Codex, and he not only carried them out but believed adoption of them by the whole Brotherhood would greatly enhance their power.
The promotion of great numbers of new Knights, Lancers and Cavaliers certainly would not help the Brotherhood – they were not only soldiers but administrators of lower-level territories, and with the high level of recruitment – beyond any that the Elders of Vault Zero had done pre-2288 – in past decades to be able to properly fight a full-scale war, there were too many of said group and not enough land for them all to administrate already. Many of the Knights were eager for glory and new land – and if it was not found in fighting the Enclave, they would inevitably take this desire out on each other. And the Brotherhood would disintegrate into civil war and anarchy.
“Paladin-Commander Lyons,” he finished. “While I am away you will be in command of the contingent of troops moving with General Robertson’s forces.”
==*==
15:00 CST, December 15th 2331
Illinois, West of Peoria
Jonathan Diehl, correspondent and photographer for the California Times, could hear shouting and shots fired outside the armoured truck as a partisan ambush attacked the supply convoy he was travelling with. Though part of him wanted to observe the battle, another was drawn by the opportunity of taking an iconic picture – something that would secure his legacy in the Times’ hall of fame so much as the interview he would have with General Ortez later today.
Perhaps it could even accompany said interview.
Feeling some trepidation Diehl lifted the top escape hatch of the vehicle, moving too fast for the soldier who tried to hold him back, and climbed the ladder up top. He heard shouting from below and a pull on his pants leg, but ignored them as he tried to catch some image worthy of his-
A stray laser-beam hit his un-helmeted head, and he fell back dead into the truck. As they moved on from the ambush, the soldiers who had escorted him lamented that they had been sent to escort such a criminally foolish civilian into a combat zone.
==*==
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998735
AMERICAN THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Lawless hearts need firm discipline.
WHEREAS THE SECESSIONIST, anti-American insurrectionist movement designating itself the ‘New California Republic’ or ‘NCR’ while claiming to be a civilised nation-state, and to stand for democracy and the rights of man, has shown itself repeatedly to hold the most esteemed and ancient principles of international law in contempt, these being conventions that have held since the most early times of recorded human history:
1. The special status of diplomats, whom they have repeatedly treated as ‘fair game’ for assassination, and have treated Consulates of the US Government as valid military targets – as demonstrated by the repeated attempts to shell the Austin Consulate during their invasion of the Texas region.
2. The special status of Heads of State, whom they have repeatedly viewed as ‘fair game’ for assassination, regularly celebrate the first – successful – attempt they have made for such, and have boasted in their propaganda about how they will execute the President of the United States once they achieve victory.
3. The naked abuse of the concept of war crimes to arbitrarily designate US government officials and military personnel as war criminals en masse, and to execute and imprison them for life under farcical military tribunals after their having surrendered, such constituting a deeply serious abuse of PoWs, and futhermore to extend said treatment to the children of such who hold no formal position within the US Federal Government or US Military.
In consultation with the President, I have made the following decisions:
1. Any ‘NCR’ individuals involved in successful or attempted killings of United States diplomats are to be treated as war criminals.
2. The same for any successful or attempted killing or mistreatment of United States Federal government officials.
3. To prevent mistreatment of our captured troops, it will be made plain that for every US soldier summarily executed by the ‘NCR’ for ‘war crimes’ or who dies in captivity, the US Army will transfer ten ‘NCR’ PoWs to the custody of the criminal justice system to be tried and executed for treason – namely as United States citizens (which they are, being born on United States territory to parents who were also born on such, and who are ultimately descended from American citizens who survived the start of the great period of anarchy throughout our nation) who have unquestionably levied war against it and adhered to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. If more than 10,000 of our soldiers are executed by the ‘NCR’, or die or suffer permanent debility as PoWs under their custody, ‘NCR’ uniformed combatants in general will be designated as unlawful combatants and remanded to the criminal justice system.
Let us hope that these consequences for their history of lawless, barbaric actions help the ‘NCR’ governmental and military structures to behave with the minimum of behaviour appropriate for a civilised nation-state, as they claim to be. If they continue to behave in such a manner as they have in the past, they know not what fury they bring upon themselves.
ACTING PRESIDENT LEOPOLD RICHARDSON
16/12/31
P.S. Nichols, have the full text of this broadcast on the radio frequencies the DPI uses for its Californian programming. Even if their civilian populace are blocked from listening, if their ‘government’ doesn’t heed the memo … they’ve earned it.
==*==
06:00 CST, 17th December 2331
Situation Room, NCR Presidential Palace
“The latest Enclave broadcast is concerning,” President Kimball stated, as the individuals summoned took their accustomed seats. “Their threat towards our soldiers is clear.”
“As to the issue,” Secretary Moore said. “As our previous policy states, we will not launch the tribunals until we have our total victory. However, I will make it clear that any mistreatment of captured Enclave soldiers until that point is to be punished most harshly, and they are to receive the same rations as NCR soldiers.”
“You’re bowing to their threats,” Irving commented. “I don’t-”
“It is an objective fact, Special Advisor, that there are many NCR soldiers held as slaves in Enclave territory, beyond our reach for right now. I will take the measures I deem necessary to ensure they remain alive until those prison camps are liberated.”
“I understand. What really interests me is that ‘Nathan Washington’, the supposed Old World survivor, has disappeared. There seems to have been some kind of military coup or internal power struggle, which resulted in him losing power to be replaced by this ‘Leo Richardson’ figure. When we have all the files in their archives, I will be glad to write a book on internal Enclave politics post-Navarro.”
“Be that as it may,” Vice President Cole stated. “Every minute their ‘Acting President’, the spawn of Richardson himself, breathes is still an obscenity. The Enclave tried to murder the world, slaughtered my people by the hundreds in their foul experiments, and they dare try to claim the moral high ground over us? When we hang them all, part of me wants to wring his neck myself.”
“Calm down!” Irving shouted. “The war with the Enclave is a moral necessity, but it must be conducted in a calm and measured fashion. To wallow in anger and hatred while waging it is only counter-productive. You want justice for your ancestors, and it shall come in due time.”
Kimball sighed.
“I just want to fix this nation. I want it to be safe and strong and free. I want to deal with the Barons and New Reno. I want to end the Brotherhood feudalism in the mid-west. But I can’t. We need those bastards right now to help hold up our republic against the darkness looming in the east, and there’s no time to get our house in order when a pack of slavering savages are at the door. Soon … I know. Our long watch will be over, and I vow that it will not have been in vain.”
He then adjourned the meeting.
==*==
Chapter Sixteen
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 our current budget for such 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 and Bobcat AA/AT Vehicle projects 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 for $200bn has been noted and approved. Victory – after so long – is something beyond price.
==*==
20:00 PST, December 9th 2331
Irving Residence. Aradesh District, Shady Sands
Dr. Walt Irving was tired, but that was no excuse to shirk in his duties. While he was a special advisor to the NCR government, he was also an esteemed professor at Shady Sands University – and that, much as he tried to avoid it, meant taking on grad students. He had just finished discussing the doctoral thesis of one Rosa Raines – a bright young lady with red hair, whose visits his wife always turned a disapproving eye towards on account of her looks – when suddenly the conversation took a different turn.
“I’ve an idea, Professor Irving,” she suggested.
“And that is?”
“After this war is over and the Enclave is gone for good – why don’t we forget about Old America?”
“You don’t mean?-”
“I do. The Enclave has tried to rewrite history to portray Richardson as a hero and not a villain, to present Frank Horrigan as a noble bodyguard and not a vicious thug, to blacken the name of Ronto, to deny that the Brotherhood tamed the ‘Capital Wasteland’ and not them. Why shouldn’t we turn it around on them?”
“But why? The goal of a historian is to search for truth, not to try and create it – that’s perverse.”
“Why not? You yourself have written that we need to begin again, that the Enclave was the consummation of the Old World. Why do we need to teach that before our Republic there was a continent-spanning democratic empire? That the Golden Gate Bridge was built in 1937 under ‘President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’? Surely it’s enough to know that we have an Executive, a Judiciary, and a Legislative Branch, that the great suspension bridge crossing the San Francisco bay was an achievement of the Californian people?”
“You can’t teach on the Enclave without the necessary context.”
“In 2242, the leaders of pre-War society tried to exterminate all mankind and conquer the world. They were thwarted and rightfully punished for their actions, and their threat forever ended many years later. That’s all the context you need to teach.”
“We need to be able to learn from the past to avoid making the same mistakes that brought the Old World to its ruin.”
“We already have escaped from the potential to make those mistakes. Why dwell on the minutia of how it failed? You’ve constantly written yourself that we need to get out of the shadow of a dead past, of pre-War America. Live in the present – live in the future. Well, I know one way to do that.”
“I don’t know whose influence has gotten into you-”
“Look, I’m not parroting somebody else here. These are my own thoughts.”
Irving mused. How could he reach this woman and get her away from the folly of her ideas? The world needed to be confronted as it was, not as how one would like it to be. That was one motto he had stuck with as a journalist, and why he had resolutely thrown his life into debunking Enclave propaganda about their nation being a paradise – not to mention that it sold well and had brought him many accolades. His book refuting the supposed live footage of their ‘Mars landing’ had certainly been a rip-roaring success across the NCR.
“Well, I guess you’ve made up your mind. Don’t bring up this nonsense again – we have your Doctoral thesis to focus on!”
He had a feeling it wouldn’t end there, though.
==*==
10:00 AM CST, 13 December 2331
AFB O’Hare, Illinois
The biting wind went through AFB O’Hare, chilling the bones of those unfortunate enough to be outside. The great airbase had been a major international airport pre-War, and stretched over almost nine square miles – a pity most of it was useless right now. When there wasn’t snow piling up on the runways, there was freezing rain, and when there wasn’t freezing rain they were iced over. It was a constant battle to keep even less than half operational.
You who have ordained for the land’s salvation,
Through famine and fire and sword and lamentation,
Now unto You we lift our supplication,
God save the Nation!
God save the Nation!
The holy songs he had sung during the service yesterday kept running through General Julius Chase’s head, reminding him over and over again of the stakes he was dealing with here as he looked over the dismal scene from his office. Not that he expected the good Lord to truly send a miracle – as the saying went, ‘God is on the side with the best artillery’. His promotion to four-star General and concomitant authority over Midwestern Command after the death of Gen. McDowell had been made on the assumption that he would be capable of saving the Steel Belt from NCR invasion. Though untested – everybody was – he damn sure wouldn’t let the President down.
What flag is this you carry towards the western shore?,
The same our first sires lifted up, the same our fathers bore,
In many a battle’s fury it’s shed the crimson rain,
What God has woven in His loom let no man rend in twain!
To Canaan, to Canaan, the Lord has led us forth,
To plant upon the rebel towers the banners of the north!
He ran bitterly through the figures again. He had 18,000 US Army soldiers available along with 60,000 National Guard – he had ordered the units of Indiana and Ohio to carry out a defence-in-depth of those states as soon as reports of the enemy offensive towards Indianopolis had hit, so those units were unavailable for the time being. The Canadian troops – 100,000 – were being held up by terrible weather on the border of eastern Michigan and Ontario.
If you’re in the battle for the Lord and right, keep on the firing line,
If you’d win my brother, surely you must fight, keep on the firing line,
There are many dangers that we all must face,
If we die still fighting it is no disgrace,
Cowards in the Service will not find a place,
Keep on the firing line!
He steeled himself and ran over the positives. First off, the six strongpoints around the base - Des Plaines, Park Ridge, Elk Grove, Wood Dale, Franklin Park and Rosemont – essential to its defence would be complete in two days, with the assistance of local construction firms. Those men were as good in a power-frame as his own engineers, when under experienced supervision. Furthermore, the areas between and around them had been fortified with a mixture of razor wire, trenches, minefields, pulse fields, and dragons’ teeth. Secondly, the base had been equipped during the Travis Administration with an experimental laser-defence system designed to hit enemy shells as they descended – if it worked, he would enjoy an advantage with his artillery and be able to fire without worry of retaliation. Thirdly, a battery from the Chemical Corps had arrived two days ago, along with the most lethal nerve agents yet developed – along with various agents intended not to kill but to maim – all to be used at his discretion.
Fourthly, he had made the engineers cannibalise spare force-screens to add another layer of protection onto his remaining tanks. While the old projectors weren’t able to create a full-on bubble-shell, it was enough to give them a precious degree of survivability. Although it meant he would not be able to replace field defences that burned out until resupply arrived.
Fifthly, he had reinforcements well on the way, more than he had estimated would be coming.
Recently transferred to General Alex Autumn’s Central Command – one Army Corps along with a Marine Expeditionary Force, both at Adams – were the two US Army Corps at Boston and NYC respectively, formerly of Northeastern Command. 128,000 men in total, to meet up at Pittsburgh in two days and then move out west as fast as possible. In addition, 96,000 men from Granite’s Southeastern Command, under General Dornan of the USMC, were being sent to break the siege at St. Louis and then redeploy against the NCR force heading for Indianopolis, along with a Corps-strength formation from the Texan army of whom half had finished their retraining and re-equipping to US Army standards.
Whether they arrived in time was the big question. Tamerlane, he had read at West Point, had once said it was better to be on hand with ten than absent with ten thousand – though the weapons of war had advanced immeasurably beyond the scimitars and bows wielded by that ancient steppe warlord, the adage was still true. Davenport was on its last legs, and if it fell soon – as it doubtless would – 60,000 enemy troops would be freed up to join the assault on O’Hare.
A final oddity, as well. He (doubtless along with the commanders racing to reinforce him) had been given classified orders from the very top not to cut off the NCR soldiers’ retreat and encircle them, but to harry and pursue them back into Brotherhood-controlled territory. It went against all military logic not to seek the total destruction of their armies, but he would try his best to fulfil the orders anyway, seeing as they came straight from the acting President.
But he would not give up. Should O’Hare be unable to hold, he would destroy as much as could not be evacuated – and fall back to the city where assisted by the citizenry (some 120,000) he would hold as long as he could, until Autumn and his men arrived. He knew what the NCR wanted, after all.
Remember Lord, what Edom did on the day that Jerusalem fell,
Tear it down, they cried, tear it down to its foundations!
And if that failed, so be it.
-*-
Flight Lieutenant Arlene Autumn sat in her bunk in the barracks underneath the surface facilities at AFB O’Hare, sick of the interminable waiting. She had flown all the way from Texas to here and not gotten a single combat mission yet. The weather was terrible – this was the worst winter since they started keeping records again – but surely High Command wanted them to do something other than endless PT and simulation training. Not that she had a problem with the former, she had a reputation at Abe Lincoln High as an athletic girl herself, but still.
Especially as at the start of February – presuming they made it through all this – she was going on mandatory rear-line duty, lasting six months. Six months of instructing rookie pilots, posing for recruitment posters, and training with various planes until she saw action again, all the while knowing the war was still going on – it threatened to drive her mad.
Some new planes had also arrived straight from the factories back east one day ago – a squadron of 16 VH-01s, the official designation coming from the unofficial nickname used by the test pilots based on its design, ‘Vertihawks’.
As she had heard it, the Air Force had issued a request to once more gain access to tiltrotor aircraft during the late Castiglione Admin – the Army and USMC had compromised under the proscription that the USAF’s craft would not be allowed to carry troops. So rather than just settling for a vertibird with half of its tactical role gone, the USAF, working in tandem with Daedalus Aerospace, had carried out a new program to create a dedicated tiltrotor gunship which had just started to go into full production. Hence the VH-01.
Where the vertibird was bulbous – its cockpit resembling a dragonfly, as many had noted – the vertihawk was all sharp angles, a configuration designed to lend it radar stealth properties (along with its radar-absorbent construction), making it resemble more a bird of prey than an insect. It carried twenty-one air-to-ground missiles, two rocket pods along the wings, a plasma gatling with co-axial automatic grenade launcher built into the nose, and a remote-operated gatling laser as side gun. The cargo bay had been replaced completely with a bomb bay capable of carrying up to 2,000 pounds of explosives.
The USMC was said to be contracting with Daedalus for a transport/gunship variant, to be designated the VB-03 – the Army probably would too, eventually.
So, at any rate, she had heard there would be marginally higher temperatures and less strong winds in four or so days – enough that the runways would be much safer to use and hopefully she could fly.
==*==
18:00 AM CST, 13 December 2331
St. Louis, Missouri
General Blackwell took another puff of vaporised tobacco and looked on the latest report situation in St. Louis. Bad, but not unendurable. Food was low, even with the relay active as much as it could without burning out and riverboats from Memphis and downstream constantly braving the river. All civilians and soldiers were on strict rationing, with violation to be sentenced by public lashing – an especially bad punishment in the current weather. He was also starting to run low on ammunition.
The NCR commander surely knew that, and had issued an offer of surrender. To which Blackwell’s response had been curt. It was well-known how the NCR had treated those who surrendered at Navarro – did they seriously think treating their opponents like mindlessly hostile video-game enemies was ever going to work out in the real world?
Dornan was coming up from the south in two weeks, he’d been told. One element would travel along the river while the other cut a swathe through Missouri. He hoped they arrived ahead of schedule – the NCR and Brotherhood were obviously preparing for an assault.
Well, assault or not, even if a few of his troops were fool enough to surrender, they would never take him captive to parade around as a ‘dangerous war criminal’ before putting him to death.
==*==
THE CALIFORNIA TIMES
12/14/31 Edition
ENCLAVE DEFEAT AT ROCKFORD, MIDWEST
Our brave boys over in the Midwest have recently won a stunning victory at Rockford over the Enclave, in one of the first engagements with them since the celebrated victory at Navarro in 2249 – which our much-honoured President Tandi sadly did not live to see, dying one day before the Two-Headed Bear was raised over the ruins of the Enclave base. Though our top reporters – Bill Weston and Jesse McLean – were regrettably killed during the battle as they were chronicling it from the air, reports from the front are that the Enclave army was encircled and ‘utterly destroyed’, according to several troopers. Some shattered remnants – like the remnants of Navarro – did limp over to ‘AFB O’Hare’, the Enclave’s main base in the region, but our man in the Midwest, General Lance Robertson, will surely deal with them soon.
Lance is said to have personally reconnoitred the Enclave slave camp at Rockford and to have returned shaken – what that means for a man who saw first-hand the barbarities enacted by the cartels during the Sonora War beggars the imagination. He did however not have the camp liberated, instead electing to move on the Enclave base as the primary strategic target. We are sending a correspondent to interview General Ortez, who was reported this morning to be moving straight through the camp at Peoria.
[Cont. page 20]
==*==
12:00 PM CST, 15th December 2331
Illinois, 38 Miles North-West of O’Hare Air Force Base
“...And there won’t be snow in Enclave lands this Christmas-tide,
The greatest gift they’ll have this year is life…”
The radio continued playing its interminable tune as Lance Robertson looked over the reports in his command vehicle pleased by the recent news – just this day, in the wee hours of the morning, the enemy hold-out at Davenport had fallen. The 60,000 men there were now free – he had instructed them to join the main force aiming for AFB O’Hare with all due haste.
Regrettably the bridges and parts of the highway had been destroyed during the fighting, rendering it infeasible as an additional crossing-point for at least several weeks, with his engineer companies needed for the general offensive at O’Hare.
Partisan activity in his rear was a continuous thorn in his side that Brandt had instructed 10,000 of his Brotherhood contingent – that being 25,000 – to suppress with the Brotherhood’s typical means for dealing with irregular warfare.
“If only,” he said, and turned the damned thing off.
He knew what Brandt intended with his 5,000 best men in two days – a series of lightning vertibird raids deep into Enclave territory to destroy as much military industry as possible. NCR High Command had urged Lance to prevent such an action, but all his efforts had been fruitless. Brandt was going in. Which gave him about 10,000 Brotherhood troops to act in support, less then half of what he had expected to receive. Under whom, he was unsure – the Brotherhood rank-structure was opaque to him.
To the south, Ortez was making good progress, having moved through Peoria with minimal resistance – though he had sent a distressed communique stating the disturbing nature of how utterly normal the town had been, finishing with the assumption that it must be a Potemkin village built specifically to fool an NCR invasion, and that Bloomington and Champaign must be the slave camps he had been expecting to liberate.
At St. Louis, the siege was stable, as per usual. The enemy had stopped counter-attacks on the 13th – whether it was due to their recognition of their position or some other change in the situation. But Friedman’s offer of surrender on that day had been met by a curt reply.
“Get lost, bearfucker. Do you think we don’t remember Navarro?”
So Friedman was preparing for a general assault on the 26th, immediately after the Christmas celebrations, with an eye to ending the siege and freeing his own troops up for advance into enemy territory.
For his own part, Robertson believed he would be in position to launch the general attack by the 20th.
--*--
A hundred metres away, Corporal Fields was talking intently to Private Cassandra ‘Cassie’ Castillo. He had asked her out after the exhilaration of the battle – they had walked round camp, talked quite eagerly, and they had mutually agreed to continue their relationship. They had almost gone further but neither was willing to go quite that far yet. And her potentially becoming pregnant on campaign was certainly an issue that neither of them were willing to deal with.
And so, right now they were talking about more recent events, over lunch. It was dried fish, boiled - not entirely palatable, but better than tasteless salient green.
“I wonder what General Robertson saw at Rockford,” Fields commented. “I heard he was really pale after he went, and he definitely ordered the men who went in there with him never to speak of it.”
Cassie narrowed her big black eyes.
“Probably something worse than the worst intel reports,” she said with a shiver not caused by the cold, ruffling her light brown hair. “I don’t know what else could have shaken him so much.”
“I sure hope the Enclave fold like they did there,” she continued.
--*--
Almost a klick away, Sentinel Brandt was speaking firmly to his subordinate in his own command tent.
“No,” he said to Paladin-Commander Alfred Lyons, noting the man’s shock of unruly blonde hair. “I will not focus on just one Enclave industrial centre.”
“We stand a better chance of doing more damage if we concentrate our main force,” Lyons said in reply. “Move the whole group rapidly from city to city on vertibirds.”
“We also risk it facing total destruction. Putting all our eggs in one basket is not an option. And besides, if we attack sequentially the next city after the first will likely be prepared for us, and if not that then certainly the one after that will. We need to hit fast and hard, destroy as much as we can over as wide a territory as possible, then retreat to the Argo-class airships to use as bases strike deeper in.”
Brandt also, admittedly, disliked Lyons. The eccentric – at best – leader was permissive when it came to outsider-permitted technologies in his domain of the Black Hills and environs, and also when it came to raising up outsiders into the Brotherhood. Such actions veered on breaking with the Codex, and he not only carried them out but believed adoption of them by the whole Brotherhood would greatly enhance their power.
The promotion of great numbers of new Knights, Lancers and Cavaliers certainly would not help the Brotherhood – they were not only soldiers but administrators of lower-level territories, and with the high level of recruitment – beyond any that the Elders of Vault Zero had done pre-2288 – in past decades to be able to properly fight a full-scale war, there were too many of said group and not enough land for them all to administrate already. Many of the Knights were eager for glory and new land – and if it was not found in fighting the Enclave, they would inevitably take this desire out on each other. And the Brotherhood would disintegrate into civil war and anarchy.
“Paladin-Commander Lyons,” he finished. “While I am away you will be in command of the contingent of troops moving with General Robertson’s forces.”
==*==
15:00 CST, December 15th 2331
Illinois, West of Peoria
Jonathan Diehl, correspondent and photographer for the California Times, could hear shouting and shots fired outside the armoured truck as a partisan ambush attacked the supply convoy he was travelling with. Though part of him wanted to observe the battle, another was drawn by the opportunity of taking an iconic picture – something that would secure his legacy in the Times’ hall of fame so much as the interview he would have with General Ortez later today.
Perhaps it could even accompany said interview.
Feeling some trepidation Diehl lifted the top escape hatch of the vehicle, moving too fast for the soldier who tried to hold him back, and climbed the ladder up top. He heard shouting from below and a pull on his pants leg, but ignored them as he tried to catch some image worthy of his-
A stray laser-beam hit his un-helmeted head, and he fell back dead into the truck. As they moved on from the ambush, the soldiers who had escorted him lamented that they had been sent to escort such a criminally foolish civilian into a combat zone.
==*==
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998735
AMERICAN THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Lawless hearts need firm discipline.
WHEREAS THE SECESSIONIST, anti-American insurrectionist movement designating itself the ‘New California Republic’ or ‘NCR’ while claiming to be a civilised nation-state, and to stand for democracy and the rights of man, has shown itself repeatedly to hold the most esteemed and ancient principles of international law in contempt, these being conventions that have held since the most early times of recorded human history:
1. The special status of diplomats, whom they have repeatedly treated as ‘fair game’ for assassination, and have treated Consulates of the US Government as valid military targets – as demonstrated by the repeated attempts to shell the Austin Consulate during their invasion of the Texas region.
2. The special status of Heads of State, whom they have repeatedly viewed as ‘fair game’ for assassination, regularly celebrate the first – successful – attempt they have made for such, and have boasted in their propaganda about how they will execute the President of the United States once they achieve victory.
3. The naked abuse of the concept of war crimes to arbitrarily designate US government officials and military personnel as war criminals en masse, and to execute and imprison them for life under farcical military tribunals after their having surrendered, such constituting a deeply serious abuse of PoWs, and futhermore to extend said treatment to the children of such who hold no formal position within the US Federal Government or US Military.
In consultation with the President, I have made the following decisions:
1. Any ‘NCR’ individuals involved in successful or attempted killings of United States diplomats are to be treated as war criminals.
2. The same for any successful or attempted killing or mistreatment of United States Federal government officials.
3. To prevent mistreatment of our captured troops, it will be made plain that for every US soldier summarily executed by the ‘NCR’ for ‘war crimes’ or who dies in captivity, the US Army will transfer ten ‘NCR’ PoWs to the custody of the criminal justice system to be tried and executed for treason – namely as United States citizens (which they are, being born on United States territory to parents who were also born on such, and who are ultimately descended from American citizens who survived the start of the great period of anarchy throughout our nation) who have unquestionably levied war against it and adhered to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. If more than 10,000 of our soldiers are executed by the ‘NCR’, or die or suffer permanent debility as PoWs under their custody, ‘NCR’ uniformed combatants in general will be designated as unlawful combatants and remanded to the criminal justice system.
Let us hope that these consequences for their history of lawless, barbaric actions help the ‘NCR’ governmental and military structures to behave with the minimum of behaviour appropriate for a civilised nation-state, as they claim to be. If they continue to behave in such a manner as they have in the past, they know not what fury they bring upon themselves.
ACTING PRESIDENT LEOPOLD RICHARDSON
16/12/31
P.S. Nichols, have the full text of this broadcast on the radio frequencies the DPI uses for its Californian programming. Even if their civilian populace are blocked from listening, if their ‘government’ doesn’t heed the memo … they’ve earned it.
==*==
06:00 CST, 17th December 2331
Situation Room, NCR Presidential Palace
“The latest Enclave broadcast is concerning,” President Kimball stated, as the individuals summoned took their accustomed seats. “Their threat towards our soldiers is clear.”
“As to the issue,” Secretary Moore said. “As our previous policy states, we will not launch the tribunals until we have our total victory. However, I will make it clear that any mistreatment of captured Enclave soldiers until that point is to be punished most harshly, and they are to receive the same rations as NCR soldiers.”
“You’re bowing to their threats,” Irving commented. “I don’t-”
“It is an objective fact, Special Advisor, that there are many NCR soldiers held as slaves in Enclave territory, beyond our reach for right now. I will take the measures I deem necessary to ensure they remain alive until those prison camps are liberated.”
“I understand. What really interests me is that ‘Nathan Washington’, the supposed Old World survivor, has disappeared. There seems to have been some kind of military coup or internal power struggle, which resulted in him losing power to be replaced by this ‘Leo Richardson’ figure. When we have all the files in their archives, I will be glad to write a book on internal Enclave politics post-Navarro.”
“Be that as it may,” Vice President Cole stated. “Every minute their ‘Acting President’, the spawn of Richardson himself, breathes is still an obscenity. The Enclave tried to murder the world, slaughtered my people by the hundreds in their foul experiments, and they dare try to claim the moral high ground over us? When we hang them all, part of me wants to wring his neck myself.”
“Calm down!” Irving shouted. “The war with the Enclave is a moral necessity, but it must be conducted in a calm and measured fashion. To wallow in anger and hatred while waging it is only counter-productive. You want justice for your ancestors, and it shall come in due time.”
Kimball sighed.
“I just want to fix this nation. I want it to be safe and strong and free. I want to deal with the Barons and New Reno. I want to end the Brotherhood feudalism in the mid-west. But I can’t. We need those bastards right now to help hold up our republic against the darkness looming in the east, and there’s no time to get our house in order when a pack of slavering savages are at the door. Soon … I know. Our long watch will be over, and I vow that it will not have been in vain.”
He then adjourned the meeting.
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TyrantTriumphant
Well-known member
Oh no. That can't possible end well. At least the atrocities the BOS will inevitably commit might motivate the Enclave to go to a wartime economy and conscription. If the NCR is dedication everything to victory then the Enclave must do so as well.
I've been wondering what the NCR was planning to do to Enclave personnel after the war. I guess now we know. I'd figured the NCR has become more rational on this issue since New Vegas but I guess not.
Crow gotta eat
That peckish, patriotic, Protestant passerine.
And here we see that Irving is rather honest, if mistaken. The Enclave, or at least most of its leadership, was a bunch of genocidal maniacs, but trying to view the E-USA through that lens, when they are in effect an entirely new faction/nation, has just made him come to the wrong conclusions that would otherwise make sense. Except arguably the Mars landing and Liberty Prime, as both of those were true and within possibility even for a totalitarian faction with this much technology, he just failed to discern that they were true. And he doesn't intend to rewrite history, as he sees the foolishness of not trying to remember it as it was, and the horrible consequences that can lead to, at least trying to do so on such a mass-scale of history (especially if European states are still around to remember it).
Much better than his revisionist student he is talking to who appears to be something along the lines of crossing together a stereotype of a SJW and a stereotype of a right-winger patriot who refuses admit his country did anything wrong at all at any point of their history.
I can see that the Brotherhood is dealing with their own power struggles and the acknowledgement of a possibility of a civil war, and that it is their liberal faction of the Lyons's BoS which may be more at fault as they promote too many people into their ranks but not have enough land for them to personally administer, possibly making them eye other Brotherhood Chapters' lands with envy and greed. Besides all the outsider permitted technological disputes as well between the orthodox and liberal parts of the BoS.
And now we have a more sympathetic view of Kimball who wants to finish the war to put this all behind him so he can deal with his feudalistic neighbors, New Reno crime families and the Brahmin Barons who basically live like feudalistic lords within the Republic. We see just because he is currently tolerating them does not mean he likes them or does not plan to deal with every single one of them when he finally gets the time, resources and ability to do so.
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Navarro
Well-known member
There's some war economy stuff. It's already happening though.
He was talking about the E-US leadership.
And they did become more rational, but:
A. Lee Oliver's amnesty failed in its intended goal, that being to get Enclave expertise and technological knowledge, and thus spurred a good degree of resentment toward the policy that resulted in it getting reversed.
B. They haven't actually gotten the chance to implement their intended policies and never will so there's been no chance for pragmatism or morality to get in the way, for them to stop and think "hey, treating 500,000 people as uber evil war criminals is impossible logistically and nonsensically evil."
C. Cole is really angry at the E-US asserting moral superiority over the NCR.
D. (This is pretty logical). The NCR has little experience with military opposition to it that isn't inherently monstrous. The Khans. The Unity. Richardson's Enclave. The Legion. The Sonoran Cartels. There was the Brotherhood, but even they did shit like dirty-bombing towns. So every war for them thus far has been Good NCR vs Evil Enemies.
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