The Appalachian Brotherhood of Steel (video)

By the year 2077, over a decade of conflict had raged between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China. In Appalachia, war games commenced - pitting a unit of Army Rangers against a group of Marines posing as enemy forces. The rangers were named Taggerdy's Thunder after their commanding officer, Lieutenant Elizabeth Taggerdy. Under her command were Sergeant Wilson, Corporal Moreno, Corporal Weber, Private Esposito, and Private de Silva. Everything was going according to Taggerdy's battleplan. Until nuclear armageddon arrived on the morning of October 23.

Retreating to their base camp at Spruce Knob Lake, the Thunder monitored the radio for days. To their surprise, they heard Captain Roger Maxson broadcasting from the bunker known as Lost Hills in California. His unit had seceded from the US military days before the nuclear exchange after claiming to have discovered sinister, sanctioned experiments on human captives at the Mariposa Military Base. Though Maxson was a traitor as far as the government was concerned, Taggerdy decided to give him a chance after initial hesitation. What she learned shattered her own loyalty to the US government. Maxson shared the crimes they uncovered, and how soldiers like them were led astray by those in charge. They soon found evidence to back Maxson's words. Civilian subjects of a super-soldier program using the Forced Evolutionary Virus at Huntersville.

The Thunder eventually accepted their discoveries - and Maxson's remote leadership. They spent the winter at Camp Venture, a survival training camp, turning it into their headquarters. Other survivors trickled in, and Taggerdy used the opportunity to grow the ranks. However, morale was low. They needed something to believe in, a reason to live. Maxson provided that reason. He offered Taggerdy and her soldiers a new purpose, a new identity. He proposed they integrated into an ideology he called the Brotherhood of Steel. Taggerdy and her charge were caught off guard by what appeared to be an outrageous plan. She could understand defending others, but why as Scribes, Squires, Knights, and Paladins? Maxson's plan was more than just a new name and titles. The Brotherhood would preserve technology and knowledge to safeguard against its abuse.

The newly anointed Paladin Taggerdy and her Appalachian Chapter grew quickly, and Camp Venture was soon at capacity. The Allegheny Asylum in the Cranberry Bog was chosen as the new headquarters, being renamed to Fort Defiance. While Thunder Mountain Power Plant was seized from the pre-war secessionist Free States. It was at this point when the first reports of giant mutated bats flying in from the deeper Bog area started to appear.

As the Brotherhood settled in, trade routes were opened with the Responders, a consolidated civilian group to the west. Relations flourished as they found a common cause in serving humanity. Their alliance peaked in 2086 at the Battle of Huntersville, when they contained the Super Mutant threat. Though there were losses, including the death of Squire de Silva, it was a decisive victory.

Elder Maxson was jubilant. The victory convinced him that survival was assured, and he used the occasion to evolve the Appalachian Brotherhood's primary goal of securing technology and knowledge. However, over time, relations strained when the Brotherhood started making greater requisitions of material and manpower.

The mutated bats first encountered in the Cranberry Bog were growing in number. Worse - they were spreading a contagion that warped other lifeforms into hideous, lesion-ridden drones. The Brotherhood called the afflicted the Scorched, and the Scorchbeasts that created them. Realizing the gravity of the threat, Scribe Grant at Fort Defiance and his counterparts at Lost Hills worked together. Racing to devise tracking technology, armaments, and research into a cure - while the Knights braced the frontlines.

Knowing they were barely containing the threat, Taggerdy confided in Maxson that maybe more severe methods were warranted. Using Appalachia's automated nuclear silos. Enraged, Maxson shut her proposal down. To use the very technology that brought so much death in the first place was unthinkable to the Elder. It was a line he would not cross. There had to be [an] alternative, he reasoned. He pushed for further cooperation with people outside of the Brotherhood, but echoing the same mindset his own son put forward, Taggerdy was unconvinced - lacking the trust for outsiders being brought into the fold.

He never learned if Taggerdy found success, as the communication satellite linking the two was failing. In their last exchange, Maxson implored Taggerdy to hold their ground and adhere to their beliefs, reassuring them that they [would] continue looking for a way to defeat the Scorchbeasts and re-establish contact. Then, there was silence.

The mounting losses and severing of supply routes forced them to mothball Camp Venture in July 2093, with Fort Defiance and Thunder Mountain becoming their two remaining strongholds.

In a last-ditch effort, Paladin Taggerdy launched Operation Touchdown to find the prime Scorchbeast site on January 29, 2095. Accompanied by the most experienced Knights they could muster, she and Moreno left to track down the lair, leaving behind a trail of transponders for the rest of the Brotherhood to follow. They found the main source of the Scorchbeasts in a mining complex to the southeast. Taggerdy, Moreno, and the handful of Knights that survived this far fought their way into the heart of the cavern. Cornered by a massive Scorchbeast, they made the ultimate sacrifice. Detonating their explosives, martyring themselves, and sending shockwaves through the tunnel system. Despite an initial absence, Scorchbeasts began to return, and by June, it became clear that Touchdown ultimately failed.

The Brotherhood began to buckle, with Weber going missing on patrol, and Esposito being killed in action. The final stand took place on August 18, 2095, as a Scorched horde descended upon Fort Defiance. Senior Knight Wilson led a valiant defense, but there were no known survivors.

Now, 8 years later, the Brotherhood's First Expeditionary Force is on its way from their headquarters in New California to assess the situation, re-enforce, and re-establish contact between the two sides. Unknowingly heading into a very different Appalachia...