Author's Note

There is a single currency worth more than caps that no trader will take. It is more rare than fuel, more valued than gold, and never traded. A minigun can cost up to a thousand caps. Sufficient ammo even more so. Power armor is priceless, but all of it pales to the value of trust. So easily broken, yet it is the key to peace.

Peace is paved over for Progress~~[Interlude 0]

He could handle many things. He had even killed an Enclave soldier wearing hellfire amour in ten seconds flat using nothing but his fists and trench knife. It was poorly designed armor,the spiked guard could press both of the quick release buttons. From there, it was trivial to slit the throat. The Enclave had not anticipated fighting in close quarters with competent opponents. A shortcoming that led to many casualties when fighting him.

What he could not stand, that he could not bear: Is a mystery. An unknown, a secret connected to anything, everything. Something only hinted at, even if the only hint is the lack of a story. A gap in the tale, a hole that hid in the telling. Even legends have their roots in truth, embellished beyond truth.Even as the truth behind the stories grew more horrific, he needed to know. Truth after truth, fact after fact, each he learned. Stories made to comfort, sanitized from reality. He was addicted, he needed to know.

One story, lay buried in his mind. Half overheard, and even less remembered, it would answer a burning question of his. It would give him his fix. A single night in megaton would answer his questions, if only to lead him to more. It was who he was. A man determined to bear the weight of the truth. To learn what his ancestors faced, to be a living memory.

The story started with a case of scotch. A night to remember the lost, the sacrificed heroes. To remember his father, and to pay respects to her brethren. It had begun as just the two, but through the night many joined. Each of them had their stories. Lucy spoke of her parents, of their dream to open a postal office. Lucas spoke of his wife. She had died when the town was still building, defending her family to the death. Moria spoke of her younger sister, who walked away one day, without a clue of what she'd face.

In a nearly silent undertone, Jericho muttered his own story, of the lady he had loved. A fellow raider, in the same gang. She had ambitions though. She was determined to lead the gang, it was what made him love her. When she challenged the raider boss, the duel that ensured was swift but nonetheless brutal. By the end, her body was unrecognizable. Her blood became a mist about the boss's knife. The next night, the boss was dead and his knife missing. Jericho swore to never to pick a fight with him, for an unmistakable knife was stabbed into his table. A knife just like the one that kept the raider boss in power. Although in that deep moonlight, it took a completely different look.

When he failed to return, people wondered. A day may have been nothing, even three days. But no sightings at all? When it became a week, the Brotherhood of Steel began an informal investigation. Lyons Pride volunteered to conduct the search. In two days they had found his last known personal quest. Equipped to eradicate the super mutants known to inhabit the area, they deployed. When they hit the ground, all they found were the Outcasts securing the facility against further intrusion. Whist no shots were fired, tensions rose to new heights. Without their leadership, Riley's Rangers considered disbanding. They chose to stick together, but leave her moniker behind them. They joined big town, becoming their security force.

Without competition, Talon Company expanded. They reached the point where the Brotherhood deployed against them, assured that their reclaimed air force would insure victory. They had not anticipated Talon Company to shoot their vertibirds out of the air with missile launchers, and bombard their infantry with artillery. They had thought their power armor untouchable by all but the Enclave and super mutants. They were proved wrong.

They had underestimated the strength of Talon Company, thinking that they were equipped with combat knifes and shotguns. Never realizing they had sentrybots and missile launchers. Never respecting the threat they posed. Without Liberty Prime tank their munitions, the brotherhood began deploying units in mass. Lines were drawn, trenches dug, and throughout it all no one dared wander.

This was not ignored. Seeing an increased demand, the south began exporting food to fuel the conflict. More and more of point lookout was converted into farmland to feed the fighters in the Capital Wasteland. Smugglers expanded, finding more supplies for their best buyer. Talon Company pays well when you supply on demand. To the north, the Pit also saw opportunity. War requires three things, soldiers to kill each other, food for them to eat, and munitions for them to use to kill. The south had claim to one, the north another. To the far north, there was another faction. Barely reaching its prime, one who had its eye on the war.

The battles were long and bloody. Project Purity was shelled to destruction. Fort Banister was ripped apart by heavy lasers. Megaton was sieged, occupied, liberated, and sieged again. The Brotherhood's T-60 light infantry was torn asunder under the barrage of high explosives and automatic rounds. They reverted back to an older time, one of thicker armor and colder superiors. Of more death and less honor. A time where they fought on their soil to reclaim what had been taken.

After the war, the Brotherhood never became what it once was. Leader after leader died, effectively meaningless. When they cast their eyes to the north, they went looking for a new start. A chance to build themselves without the history they had in the Capital Wasteland.

Time stretched on. Leaders rose and fell, until Maxson came to power. He galvanized the Brotherhood. Reforged them, and led them onto a crusade. He led them north, to where a crime most horrifying was constantly happening. Synthetic Sentience would not be tolerated by the Brotherhood, no matter where it is created. It would be exterminated. No matter the cost. As they rose, and flew north, many flocked to his side. Closing ranks against the local threats.

But they had to fight through the infested ruins of New York. Abomination after abomination. Mutants wielding weapons they cannot understand in a state of constant war. Everything the Brotherhood stands against. Every crime they saw, they had to put down. Every gatling laser, every missile launcher, every monster. All of it was forced into compliance, or destroyed. By the time they reached the commonwealth, it was nothing like their scouts had reported. It was more. More mutants, more synthetics, more raiders flowing in from the east. More abominations crawling across the sea. Even the farmer militia had energy weapons, if only to deal with the local threats. They also found something that terrorized them. The Institute may need execution for its crimes, but the Gunners terrified them. Another Talon Company. More robots, more energy weapons, more bases, and even more personnel.

Their actions, were to utterly destroy them. To systematically take every military asset they had, and turn to their cause. They would not risk another drawn out war between them and a Talon Company, or rather Gunners as they called themselves here. They brutally shattered the Gunners, taking each of their vaults, clearing their plaza. However, it was not without losses. For every brotherhood soldier who fell, a half dozen gunners went down, but there was hundreds of gunners. And scarly a hundred of them.

The Commonwealth saw these knights fly in, and eradicate the gunners. Many began to worry, would they assume their role? Was that conquest done to make them helpless? If the Gunners could not stand against them who could? Who would? Every faction had its own answer. The minutemen, under new leadership, established friendly contact. The Railroad immersed itself deeper into Diamond city. The Institute, ramped up research into FEV, seeking to create shock troopers that can defeat the titans of steel before them. These new super mutants would evolve in combat, regrowing limbs even better than before. Equipped with weapons unlike any seen in the wasteland. Miniguns that seem to never reload, bullets that explode upon impact... No one had seen such things. While the Brotherhood fought them throughout the city of Boston, the farmers dealt with the ones spreading out. The Minitumen built themselves up once more, as men and women banded together to fight the greenskins.

As the combined forces pushed closer and closer to Cambridge, a secret meeting between the heads of bother organizations took place. A plan was formed, and together they would end this threat. In one week's time, their best would strike at the heart of the vile beast. Unwilling to ask any of his soldiers, the general of the minutemen went alone.