Fallout history 101 part five: VIPs and select locales

Fallout history part five will detail the characters and places that make the game come alive. It’s hard to decide just who is the most interesting or which destination is the most important. This lesson includes non companions whose story is worth mentioning and places that are not essential to the story, but create the depth of history we know the series to have.

Origins of The Brotherhood of Steel

Other posts in this series begin as early as possible. However, the people mentioned here are not around until after the bombs drop. Lets begin in 2077, among the chaos of war. Roger Maxson, a military officer, and his men desert the oath of service after executing several scientists in the Mariposa Military Base. Maxson and his men found human experiments for the FEV and, in despair and confusion of witnessing this, assumed control. His men and local families not only survived the nuclear attack in the base but also prevented the FEV from leaking into the Wasteland. Afterwards, the group migrated to the Lost Hills bunker and created The Brotherhood of Steel.

Arthur Maxson is the last descendent of the legendary Roger Maxson 

Harold and The Master

Five years before the war, Harold is born and kidnapped and taken to Vault 12 by a robot that stunned him. Vault 12’s weird experiment involved the inhabitants being no more than 15 years old. Harold managed to escape the same year and went on to become a merchant. He first settled in the Hub where he was successful, although the fear of mutant cattle became alarming to his work. In an attempt to explore the problem, he and his friend Richard stumbled across the Mariposa Military Base and was infected by the FEV. Richard fell into a pool of the FEV and Harold assumed him to be dead. Richard later became The Master of the mutants by experimenting on those who wandered into Mariposa. He is later successful and creates his army called “the Unity”.

The Master

He later woke up already mutating. A few years later, a tree begins to grow out of his head. Harold travelled for almost 150 years until the tree in his head (Bob) became ill. He revisited Vault 12 and they took him in and cured Bob’s disease. Harold’s memory of the vault was had faded over a long life and felt like “a new experience” because of it. He stayed with Vault 12 for a while and eventually left to wander the Wastes again. Bob continued growing and eventually rooted himself in the Capital Wasteland where he gained the attention of a cult-like group who also planted themselves in that spot called Oasis. 

Quickies

Children of the Cathedral

The Master created a false religion called the Children of the Cathedral. This religion, or cult, was a coverup for the Master’s plan to implement the FEV into humans as a baptism. 

Shady Sands and the NCR

Shady Sands was founded in 2142 and quickly emerged as a peaceful, progressive, and an economically viable homestead for many travellers. Because of their success, mostly due to the town elder’s daughter, Tandi, Shady Sands was eventually renamed The New California Republic. They continued to grow in influence and eventually became the dominating political force in the northern California/Oregon area.

The Enclave

These guys. Jeez. Ok, they’re a pre-war organization composed primarily of top-tier government officials and they knew nuclear war was inevitable. So they did a bunch of shady stuff like develop the FEV to create a mad-scientist-esque army of mutants (that didn’t happen) and they stole weaponry from RobCo and REPCONN to make power armor. They ordered all the freaky experiments for Vault-Tec to test any scenario that might occur in space travel. Yeah. The plan was just to annihilate earth and start over on another planet to slowly destroy that one too. They pretty much pulled the strings for everything before and after they left their safe oil rig in the middle of the ocean.

…or, whatever.

Alright, that’s all for part five. There are so many important people and places so this should be covered again. Next time, Fallout History 101: Candy and Comics. 

Sugar Bombs! Grognak the Barbarian! Sunset Sarsaparilla!