The NCR Historical News

Sunday, February 07, 2155

History of The Wasteland

By Jacob Smith

War, war never changes

If you were able to describe the world we
live in to someone from way back in the
21st century, they would have called it
post-apocalyptic. While not an entirely
accurate description, it gets the idea
across.
All of the great monuments,
convenience stores (hell, convenience
itself), and the entertainment technology of
the 21st century are all gone. The buildings
have been morphed into burned out husks,
the open land glows with radiation. Any
trip outside (and sometimes inside) the
fortified walls of any of the larger remaining
cities is always met with violence. The
Wasteland is overrun with criminals,
Radscorpions, and worse.
However, this way of life is not postapocalyptic. You see that would imply
some sort of world ending event followed
by a Judgment Day/Reckoning and finally
a Heaven for the good and a Hell for the
wicked. What we received instead was a
world changing set of events followed by
generations of people just trying to get by.
Hell is dished out in any sized portion you
could dream of. We live in a time that is
merely Apocalyptic.
This is an attempt to set the record straight
about how we ended up this way and what
we can do about it now. Hopefully this will
prove to be a useful reference for those
wanting to catch a peek of the things that
are waiting for them outside.
Solets start at the beginning; The Great
War.
The idea of conquest in the name of riches
is nothing new. Even a quick glance back
through history will reveal a very basic
pattern. Winner takes all, to the victor go
the spoils, you snooze, you lose; this is the
first lesson of history. The Roman empire,
the British empire, the Third Reich, even
small scale land grabs such as Iraqs
invasion of Kuwait were all fueled by the
desire to control resources.
The second lesson is a little harder to pick
up on, but its there. Sometimes being the
victor, maintaining victory or even the fight
itself is simply self-destructive. You end up
spending or destroying the very riches you
were trying to gain.
By the mid-21st century the riches that Man
had usually waged war over had grown
from the simple list of gold, ports, slaves,
and arable land. This list now included oil,
coal, lumber, and technology. And when

these things started getting scarce, people

began to become very afraid.
Like many impending crises, the dwindling
of the Earths natural resources went
largely unnoticed
by the
general
population.
That is until a televised
documentary about the tapped out oil fields
in Texas put the issue front and center in
everyones living room. It did not take long
for the rising panic to cause world leaders
to take overt actions (despite attempting to
deal with the problems in quiet, ignorable
ways for years).
The United States began laying down
economic sanctions against Mexico using
the cover story that the government of
Mexico was unstable and was therefore a
threat to the U.S.s national security. The
real reason for stirring up trouble was, of
course, to create a politically viable reason
to send in American troops to secure the
oil refineries and other North American
business concerns. Despite this rather
open case of appropriation, the Resource
Wars kicked off in earnest in the Middle
East and Europe.
The European Union had begun military
actions against the Middle East in
response to rising fuel costs.
Fully
prepared to fight to the death for their oil
and land, the nations of the Middle East
launched counter attacks. Before long, the
entire Earth was engaged in a war
seemingly without resolution.
The U.S. began sending an everincreasing amount of troops to Alaska to
secure the oil reserves. Tempers flared
between Canada and the U.S. over this
issue. Meanwhile, the conflict between
Europe and the Middle East devolved into
a limited nuclear exchange.
These
developments lead to the creation of the
Vaults.
It did not take long for the oil fields in the
Middle East to dry up (effectively ending
the war while exhausting both sides). With
the worlds greatest deposit of oil gone,
countries prepared to fight over the scraps.
China, in particular, had its eye on the
Alaska oil reserves.
In 2066, China finally invades Alaska. The
result is not only a major increase in
military hardware (Power Armor was
invented to combat Chinese tanks), but
also the U.S.s annexation of Canada.
Even as Alaska fell to communist China,
The United States managed to tap the last
known deposit of petroleum. This deposit
is miles beneath the surface of the Pacific
Ocean.

Article 5-26

The Chinese-American war continued to

escalate while the rest of the world
crumbled. Food supplies were running
out, riots were occurring daily, and there
were still no viable solutions on the
table.
The U.S. sent Power Armored troops
into mainland China, which turns into a
fiasco. Fortunately, for the U.S., the
American army is able to reclaim
Alaska. This victory is short lived.
While entrenched in a protracted war
with another nation, the domestic
situation in the United States became
untenable. The entire nation seemed
poised for violent revolt. The war with
China might have been something of a
victory, but any sort of idea of winning
was long gone.
And thats when it happened. Someone
pushed the button and changed the
world. Everything we knew became
unraveled in a matter of less than two
hours.
On October 23rd , modern civilization
died in a sea of mushroom clouds and
heat. That day was forever engrained in
our minds.
In the past, U.S. historys most powerful
events were so immersed in the culture,
such as July 4th , that they were
celebrated. The dates they occurred on
became a sort of short hand for what
they signified and formed a calendar of
national identity. Not only did they
represent the events, but also the
implied context, feelings, and aftermath
left in their wake.
This phenomenon was not unique to the
U.S. either. Specific dates had special
meaning for various countries around
the globe. Each culture had its own
defined, but separated, collection of
events and histories.
October 23rd, 2077 cut across all
national borders. On that day the sky
burned, the earth blackened. On that
day, all people of all nations were united
in a terrifying and deadly maelstrom.
Theres an old saying.
History is
written by the winners. If thats the
case, then history stopped being
recorded on October 23rd 2077. As the
bombs fell and the Vault doors closed,
all winners and history began to be
erased. Those left behind to tell the
story of what happened were merely
survivors and history became a folk
legend degrading with each generation
retelling the story.

Vault City Rogue Press

Tuesday September 5th, 2240

A Peoples History
Imprisoned safely behind a
large vault door
By Sarah Grey
In 2054, the American government
funded an initiative dubbed Project
Safehouse. The aim of this project was
to build strategically located shelters to
protect the populace in case of nuclear
or biological attack. The beginning of
the European-Middle Eastern conflict
drove the need for this program.
Each of these 122 shelters was
designed to house 1000 people. The
people inside would be safely sealed
within the Vaults protective walls for a
minimum of 10 years. Or, at least, thats
what the populace was told. The real
purpose of the Vaults was far less
altruistic, a shocking and terrifying angle
well explore later.
The Vaults themselves were large
underground structures constructed to
withstand any sort of attack. The water
and air filtration systems were
supposedly impervious to high intensity
blasts and were also very efficient at
removing toxins and radiation. There
were vast supplies of food, government
provided entertainment tapes, and
survival guides. Arguably, though, the
most important resource in the Vault
was the G.E.C.K.
The G.E.C.K., or Garden of Eden
Creation Kit, was a self-contained
devised
designed
to
jumpstart
terraformation in the post-nuclear war
world. The kits contained a small cold
fusion reactor, soils, seeds, fertilizer,
and basic force field tech. Each Vault
was supposed to have two of these
units and they were to be deployed as
soon as the Vault doors opened. The
460 Holodisks that came with the kit
were loaded with numerous how-to
guides for construction as well as the full
contents of The Library of Congress.
Vault City was essentially grown
from one of these kits and remains a
singular success in the kits use. While
not every citizen may agree with all of
our governments actions (and are
thusly jailed), we can all agree that the

city serves as a symbol of hope for the

entire Wasteland. All hail Vault City!
Not all Vaults were as lucky as own
ancestral Vault 8 though. Some Vaults,
such as Vault 13, did not receive their
G.E.C.K. (or maybe they were stolen).
Also, since not all 122 Vaults have been
found, we can assume that their kits did
not work, or that their Vaults did not
survive the war.
This goes back to the chilling truth
that was brought up earlier. Not all Vaults
were supposed to work. In fact, only Vault
8 was designed to neither be without flaw
nor hitch. The Government did not create
these Vaults as a safe refuge for the
nations smartest, bravest, richest, most
powerful, nor even most famous people.
The Vaults were constructed to be a sort of
Social Darwinist experiment.
The U.S. government (remnants of
which remain to this day, known as The
Enclave) had recognized the inevitability of
nuclear war and the destruction that it
would have on the Earth. Figuring that
even if they survived such devastation,
there would be nothing left on the entire
planet with which to build on. Essentially,
all the things that we as a species had
waged war over for since we could walk
upright would be gone. This was not a
problem that a simple G.E.C.K. could
solve. The solution was a new planet.
Vault records received by a ceased
wanderers possession through Holodisks
revealed that The Enclave at one time prior
to the war had looked into (and possibly
accomplished) the creation of an
interstellar spacecraft. This spacecraft, of
course, only had limited capacity for
travelers. Only the strongest and best
should be allowed to colonize the human
races new home. How to choose the said
individuals? Enter the Vaults.
Each Vault, with the noted exception
of Vault 8, which was used as a control
group, was graced with an intentional
design flaw. These flaws gave each Vault
a unique set of circumstances to which to
test the inhabitants. Those deemed worthy
(i.e. the survivors) when the Vault doors
opened were supposed to be given the
invitation to join the self-appointed elite in
their journey to the stars.

Limited Edition

Some of the Vaults had rather

minor challenges set to them, such as
Vault 70s lack of sufficient clothing.
While it might have been a source of
consternation for the Vaults largely
Mormon population, it pales when
compared to Vault 68 with its population
breakdown of 999 men and one woman,
or that of Vault 29s lack of anyone over
the age of 15. Most would agree,
however, that the Vault with the worst
possible experiment assignment was
Vault 12.
Located in Bakersfield, California,
Vault 12s doors were designed to not
close. The inhabitants of the Vault were
exposed to an extremely high level of
radiation. The survivors of this horrible
experiment were mutated into ghouls.
These violent cannibals rechristened
Bakersfield Necropolis. These violent
cannibals are well known throughout the
Wasteland and frighten even the most
battle-hardened traveler.
There are
rumors of a more peaceful Ghoul
population that lives in the sewers. One
wonders if this is wishful thinking.
These Vaults were presented as
the last hope of the human race
surviving the war.
But, they were
nothing more that yet another game
played on the public by the power elite.
As the war waged and the cities melted,
these 4-yard thick walls entombed the
hopeful underground.
Meanwhile, the heads of The
Enclave waited out the war not in
Vaults, but rather the Poseidon Oil Rig,
located off the coast of San Francisco.
They waited for the day they could enlist
those who emerged alive from the
Vaults and leave Earth forever.
Something must have happened
though.
Either the blasts from the
bombs or the resulting radiation must
have destroyed the spacecraft, or
maybe it was not yet complete when the
bombs fell. Either way, the plan for
colonizing a new planet never came to
fruition. Now The Enclave is stuck with
the only option available to it: reclaim
and reform the United States.
There is, of course, resistance to
such a plan.

Vault City Rogue Press

Tuesday September 5th, 2240

A Peoples History Part 2

From the ashes of nuclear
devastation
By Sarah Grey
In 2098, Vault 8 opened for the first time in
21 years. There were a number of young
adults and children who had never seen
the outside world before. For them, there
was nothing more terrifying and freeing
than the idea of open space. For those
who remembered what life was like before
the war, there was nothing so shocking as
seeing that world literally turned to dust,
ash, glass, and rubble.
People emerged from their shelters
and began trying to piece together some
semblance of a working society. Farms
began to spring up, basic hunter/gatherer
activities were established, and scouting
for goods and other survivors were all
incorporated into daily life. It did not take
long for social phenomena like bottle cap
based economies to become a fairly
common feature amongst these fledgling
villages.
Life was hardly returned to
normal, but there were emerging constants
that could be relied upon.

Unfortunately,
one
of
those
constants was self-defense. While many
of the human survivors had been safely
hidden from the radioactivity, wildlife was
not.
There were giant radscorpions,
mutated large rats, fire -breathing lizards,
carnivorous plants, and many other
creatures to deal with. There were also
ghouls, raider hordes, and mutants that
threatened life on a daily basis.
Not all mutations were the result of
radiation.
West Tek, a government
sponsored experimental facility, designed
a man-made virus called the Forced
Evolutionary Virus (FEV) originally
intended to create a super soldier, for
the military before the Great War. FEV
had some unexpected side effects and
research was violently halted just prior to
the war.
Those exposed to F.E.V. were
either mutated into brutish, unintelligent
giants (provided they survived) or, more
rarely, became Super Mutants.
The
Super Mutant is also large and amazingly
strong, but is also immune to radiation
and even boasts improved intelligence!
Despite the possibility of good,
being achieved with FEV, it can be (and

Limited Edition

is) used as a weapon of enslavement

and terror. There has already been at
least one madman who tried to raise his
own Mutant army. The risk of abuse of
this technology is astoundingly high.
While FEV was around prior to the
war, very few people knew of it. After
the Vaults began to open though, its
presence was not something that could
be ignored or covered up.
The world that awaited that first
generation of people to inhabit the postwar Earth must have seemed as alien
as any target plant of the Enclave.
Some human traits might reassert
themselves (war, economies, vehicles,
weapons), but this world was nothing
like its predecessor.
Vault 8 was neither the first nor the
last Vault to open. Each Vault opened
according to its own schedule. Some
stayed closed for a mere 10 years and
some were intended to open after a
staggering 200 years had passed.
Since not all of the Vault locations are
known, it is possible that some Vaults
are still locked.

The NCR Historical News

Sunday, August 13, 2164

Todays Wasteland:
A Survivors Guide
By Jonathon Stone

Civilizations struggle to arise

There are a number of powerful factions
and relatively prosperous places in the
Wasteland. It is always a good idea to
know a bit about them and their histories
before shooting your mouth off in a bar in a
strange town.
The Brotherhood of Steel, while not
large, is probably the most technologically
advanced faction in the Wasteland.
Secretive and suspicious, this organization
worships technology and sees itself as the
only group responsible enough to use it.
They are not at all involved in maintaining
order or delivering justice. Their main goal
is to develop tech and consolidate their
power.
Roger
Maxon
founded
the
Brotherhood in response to witnessing the
FEV experiments on prisoners while he
was a member of the U.S. military. Maxon
led a revolt at the Mariposa base where
the experiments were being carried out.
On October 20th, 2077 he declared the
based succeeded from the U.S.A. This
was a mere three days before the bombs
fell. Amazingly, the radiation levels around
the base were fairly low. Maxon led his
men to Lost Hills and formally founded the
Brotherhood. Their influence has spread
considerably since then. However, given
their xenophobic and secretive nature,
their growth has been eclipsed by other
factions.
The Eastern Brotherhood of Steel, a
splinter group of the main force, was
formed in the Chicago area. This group
had argued for the sharing of technology
and recruitment of new members to the
fold. After being rebuked, this small subfaction of the Brotherhood was sent east to
observe and report Super Mutant activity.
Their airship crashed during a storm. The
survivors formed this break away faction
and began operating independently of the
Brotherhood of Steel. Holodisks reports
indicate that this Eastern Brotherhood of
Steel, while more open minded in sharing
technology, rule with an iron fist.

Like The Brotherhood of Steel, The

Enclaves roots extend far beyond the
Great War. The Enclave was at one time a
faction within the U.S. government. This
group was the power elite within the power

elite. Not only did they have the power

and resources that came with running
one of the most powerful nations on
Earth, they had every large corporation
(such as West-Tek) in their pockets.
After 2077, The Enclave had to
change its focus and aim for some newer
goals.
There have been rumors of
people
disappearing
and
strange
machines flying in the air near west
coast.

Rounding out the pre-Great War

societies that survived the nuclear
onslaught are the Hubologists. Founded
by Dick Hubbell, Hubologists see their
lifes mission as repairing a pre-war
space shuttle in order to relocate (or
something) to a large wheel in the sky.
No one else, of course, has ever heard of
or seen this great wheel.
Still, the
Hubologists believe.
There is some evidence that point to
Dick Hubbell having invented the religion
as a hoax in order to scam money.
However, since there is so little unbiased
information about Mister Hubbell still in
existence, no one can say authoritatively
if that is the case.
Most people do, however, agree that
Hubology is strictly for crazies. Despite
their fervor and weirdness most do seem
to be relatively harmless.
Especially
when compared tojust about anyone
else you might run into in the Wasteland.

In addition to dangerous and

powerful groups, the Wasteland has a
number of dangerous and powerful
places. Primary amongst these would be
the NCR, or New California Republic.
Comprised of 5 states (Shady, Maxon,
Hub, Los Angeles, and the Glow). NCR
boasts a population of over 700,000,
which makes it clearly the largest power
center in the former United States. The
capitol of city is also known as NCR and
has a population of over 3000 people
itself.
Originally founded by the inhabitants
of Vault 15, NCR had an unparalleled
growth rate.
In addition to its high
population and strong economy, NCR is
known for its representational democratic
government and the outlawing of
prostitution, public intoxication, and
gambling amongst other things.

Article 12-66

Some of the positions that can be

found in the government are Senators,
Governors, Council people, and a
President. They serve the greater good
of the NCR while maintaining states
rights.
NCR has a very large and fully
outfitted army with which to protect its
borders and is also one of the more
civilized areas. With the freedom of
religion and laws designed to protect the
citizenry, NCR (on the surface at least) is
a desirable and safe place to live. Some
might argue that the strict laws prohibiting
alcohol, drugs, and any number of natural
forms of entertainment actually make the
area oppressive and dull.
There is some amount of conflict
between the states that make up the
NCR
and
its
capitol.
These
disagreements are mostly centered on
control of trade routes and their
tariffs/taxation rights. Some of these
debates can get quite heated and a
number of the states view themselves as
rivals, but there does not seem to be any
indication that there will be any sort of
major schism in the near future.

Without a doubt, NCR polar opposite

is New Reno.
With no central
government and certainly no laws
prohibiting drugs, booze, gambling, and
escorts, New Reno is a depraved
wanderers paradise. You can have all
the fun you could ever imagine in New
Reno, if youre prepared to pay the price.
Before the Great War, gambling
towns such as Reno, Nevada were
considered to be recession proof. No
matter how bad things were doing in the
world, people still liked to throw dice,
drink a few too many, catch a show, and
maybe even pay for a nights worth of
amore. New Reno proves that nothing,
not even the end of the world can erase
humanitys drive for cheap thrills and
reasonably priced deals. In its own way,
its kind of beautiful.
New Reno is not so much policed or
governed as it is kept in line by four
mob families. The families Salvatore,
Wright, Mordino, and Bishop each have
their own turf and each have a hand in
making sure the tourists keep coming.
Anyone that makes a nuisance of his or
herself and is thought to be driving away
business will probably end up in
Golgatha. For those not in the know,

Golgatha is a large graveyard outside of

town.
Another
popular
(somewhat
involuntarily so) draw to New Reno is Jet,
a highly addictive mind-affecting drug
created in 2241. This powerful stimulant
was invented right there in the smallest big
city in the Wasteland. A person on a Jet
bender could not only gamble for several
days without any kind of sleep, but could
also be convinced to do just about
anything to get more Jet. And while Jet
can be found in most any settlement now,
there is no Jet like New Reno Jet.
There are some rumblings that the
ruling families, especially the Mordino, are
eyeing nearby Redding as a new property
to expand into. This has, of course, been
met with nothing but denials.

Just off the bay in northern California

lies San Francisco. This city is unique for
many reasons. One of the main ones have
to do with its re-founding.
Most of the settlers in San Francisco
are descended from a Chinese submarine
crew that ran aground off the coast
sometime after the Great War. These
people are known as the Shi. A large
number of the rest are Hubologists. In
addition to this strange collusion of people
are small populations of artists, misfits, exmilitary, and criminals.
According to

records, this mix provides San Francisco

with an atmosphere very much like the
one it has during the pre-war era.
The city itself exerts a bit of mob rule
(mostly handled by the Shi).
San
Francisco seems to pay NCR no mind
and by all appearances just keeps
trucking along fine without their influence.
Martial arts play a large role in the
culture of the city. There are large
demonstrations and rivalries between
schools. These exciting and often deadly
encounters only add to the mystery and
intrigue of the place.

Finally, there is Vault City. While

Vault City is as active and organized as
anything within the NCR, Vault City
citizens are not as hung up on false and
antiquated senses of morality and
freedom.
Born from the dwellers of Vault 8,
Vault City quickly established itself as an
advanced and progressive city-state.
Vault Citys society is split into different
castes (Full Citizens, Servants and
Outsiders); we are all given a place in the
social order here.
Within the walls only Citizens are
allowed and those who had earned a day
pass (diplomats, heroes, and the like)
inside of our walls. The rest of the rabble

could stay out in the Courtyard where

they could peddle their wares and do
whatever it is they do out there. Most
wanderers who have managed to finagle
a day pass have noted that the Courtyard
is more lively and chaotic and fun.
However, it is also more dangerous and
dirty. Vault City is not favorable to chaos
and grimeor interesting times.

While these cities might be some of

the most powerful and influential, they are
hardly the only cities worth seeing.
Redding, Klamath, Necropolis, and
Junktown are all worth seeing. As harsh
and unstable as the Wasteland seems to
be, there are some amazing sights to be
had out there.
These towns and cities are at once a
depressing reminder of how far and fast
we as a species fell into the abyss and a
symbol of hope. As each city gets rebuilt,
or a new city gets founded, we are lifted
up. We can build as well as destroy. We
are not just manufactures of death.
At the same time they force us to
look at what we have done. Where we
are now proud to merely have shelter, we
once had thriving metropolises. Mass
communication, great works, decent
roads, vehiclesthese were abundant.
Now we are forced to use their pieces in
order to merely get by. It could be worse.

The Redding Rag

Fable # 12

Legendary Heroes
of the Wastes
By Mason Storm
The Vault Dweller, he doesnt even need
a name. He is a savior, villain, and
legend all in one. What he represents is
so large and so vastly overshadows his
actual life, one wonders if a true history of
his exploits could ever be written.
Fortunately for us, history is dead and we
have the folk tale to live with.
Not much is known about him prior
to the events that turned him into a
symbol. He was born in Vault 13 and by
what little accounts there are; he was a
more than capable person, but hardly a
hero. Like many legendary champions,
The Vault Dweller was just caught up in
circumstances beyond his control and yet
was able to master these circumstances.
Sometime around 2161, Vault 13s
water chip broke. The leader of that
Vault, called the Overseer, chose The
Vault Dweller seemingly at random to be
the one sent out into the Wasteland in
order to find a working chip. Since Vault
13 was supposed to remain sealed for
200 years, the Overseer did not want to
open the doors and send out a party. He
decided that sending merely one member
of the tribe would be acceptable.
The Vault dweller quickly found
himself in a harsh world full of injustice
and exploitative degenerates. Nearly
everywhere he went, he was asked to
help yet another downtrodden person.
Accounts seem to verify that The Vault
Dweller did make some rather morally
ambiguous decisions, but generally acted
on behalf of the good.
When he arrived in Shady Sands, he
was asked to help the town fight the
radscorpions who had invested it. Being
handy with a gun and having no particular
love of radscorpions, he agreed. All in a
days work for a wanderer, really.
But, soon after these beasts had
been taken care of, raiders kidnapped,
Tandi, the daughter of the towns leader.
The Vault Dweller was again asked to
help, even though the problems of this
town are not his own and that the towns
leader openly distrusts him. The Vault
Dweller set out to complete this quest.
Tandi had been kidnapped by the
Khans, a raider gang styling itself after
the Mongols of ancient history. The
leader of this gang was feared (but none
too bright). It did not take long for The
Vault Dweller to find him.

A local trader who was looking for

some adventure and was almost handy in
a fight joined the Vault Dweller in the
conquest of the Khans. The resultant
bloodbath was amazing.
Tandi was safely returned to her
town. The Vault Dweller told her about
Vault 13 to the west and then had to leave.
Tandi never forgot The Vault Dweller.
Eventually she grew up and became the
President of the NCR.
Sometimes, it isnt just individuals that
symbolize a certain zeitgeist, but also
friendships. You wont hear too many
stories about The Vault Dweller that dont
include at least a mention of mean ol
hound called Dogmeat.
No one knows exactly how these two
became friends. Some stories have the
Vault Dweller bribing Dogmeat with
iguana-on-a-stick, while others contend
Dogmeat mistook the Vault Dweller for his
previous owner due to his leather jacket.
The only two things that all accounts of
their meeting agree upon are that it was in
Junktown and Dogmeat had an old man
barred from his own home.
Resolving this issue was a little easier
than fighting raider gangs and soon
Dogmeat and The Vault Dweller were
traveling the Wasteland together. They
fought enemies and kept each other
company. It may seem like a simple not at
all interesting thing now, but at the time
this friendship served a comforting story for
those learning to deal with the vagaries
and paranoia in this post-apocalyptic
world. Friendship and loyalty were things
a lot of people seemed to have forgotten
about.
On or around January 2162, The
Vault Dweller reached The Hub. He was
successful in his attempts to negotiate with
the Water Merchants. This did not save
Vault 13, but it certainly helped. What did
not help was that someone, or something,
was stealing water from Vault 13s
magazine.
Pressing on, The Vault Dweller and
companions, ended up in Necropolis
(formerly Bakersfield, CA) and somehow
manage to recover a water chip. While
there, they experience the full spectrum of
ghouls that make up Necropolis
population. It was not a happy time as one
of the Vault Dwellers companions was
burned to death via a Super Mutants
flamethrower.
The Vault Dweller returned home with
the water chip. When he told the Vault
Overseer about the Super Mutant

presence in Necropolis, he was given a

new mission. This time, the Vault
Overseer wanted him to dispose of this
Super Mutant problem. Most people
now consider this a suicide mission. A
number of scholars believe that the
Overseer knew about the true nature of
the Vault project, feared The Vault
Dweller was close to finding out, and
simply wanted The Vault Dweller dead.
In March of that year, The Master
sent his army of Super Mutants to raze
Necropolis to its foundations. This
forced a confrontation between The
Master and The Vault Dweller.
For those that dont know, The
Master was a dangerous cult leader
whose secret aim was very similar to
that of the Enclaves prior to the Great
War.
The Master ran a cult called The
Children of the Cathedral who were
seemingly out to better mankinds lot.
However, the Children of The
Cathedral were actually secretly
looking to recruit normal humans to
serve
as
operatives.
These
operatives, if approved, would convert
to the Cathedral faith (a mixture of
higher callings, social Darwinism, and
faux altruism), and would be voluntarily
dipped in one of many vats of FEV that
The Master had hidden in his
converted military base.
When The Vault Dweller arrived
back in Necropolis, he saw a burned
city that was sadly worthy of its name.
One of the survivors told The Vault
Dweller that The Master was in hiding
in The Boneyard, a city formerly known
as Los Angeles.
The Vault dweller, intent on
completing his mission, descended on
the city with a heart full of fury.
However, he did not kill randomly or
without strategy.
Beneath the
cathedral was a special Vault. This
Vault was not like the others built by
Vault-Tec prior to the War. This Vault
was never intended to be used, as it
was merely a demonstration model. It
was, of course, still used as a shelter
when the bombs began to drop. Unlike
the other Vaults, this one was
abandoned fairly quickly after the War
was over. When that happened, The
Master moved in.
The Vault Dweller made his way
through the Cathedral (and through the
disciples within) and began his decent
into the Vault underneath. The walls
were melded with a sort of sentient

flesh. There were vengeful mutants.

Death and mockery of life were
everywhere.
At the end of this abysmal journey
was The Master himself. No one knows
the exact details of what came next. All
we do know is that The Vault Dweller
emerged alone, The Master was never
seen again, and the Children of the
Cathedral were broken, scattered to the
winds with no direction.

technology
Dogmeat.

that

cost

him

his

friend,

There are stories that he and all of

the heroes of our time live in a sort of
ghost town that appears and disappears to
wanderers on their own long journeys.
Such is the power of myth.

Once this was accomplished, The

Vault Dweller set out for Mariposa to
dispose of the FEV vats. Using a few
connections he had made with The
Brotherhood of Steel, The Vault Dweller
located the base and destroyed it.

When The Vault dweller returned to

the Vault one final time, he was met not
with a fanfare, but a rebuke. After all of
that hard work, sacrifice, and blood to save
Vault 13, the Overseer told our hero that
he must leave the Vault forever. He was
cast out into the Wasteland for no logical
reason. This is part of the supporting
evidence that the Overseer was a cog in a
greater conspiracy.

This victory came with a high price.

Not only was the base full of Mutants and
robots that nearly cost The Vault Dweller
his life, it had some powerful force field

Undaunted, The Vault Dweller and a

number of faithful left the Vault and
founded the town of Arroyo. Soon Arroyo
was flourishing and strong. The Vault

Dweller took wife and had a daughter

with her. The child eventually became
the Elder of the tribe.
The Vault Dweller wrote his
memoirs and settled into the tribal life.
All was well, until one day, without
warning, he was gone. All that was left
behind was the folded Vault Suit and
memoirs. Some say that sky spirits
took him to the afterlife and other say
he just wanted one last chance to
journey the Wasteland.
It is telling that The Vault Dweller
signed his book of memories as The
Wanderer; for that is what he truly was.
Our world is both brighter and
darker without him in it.
Darker
because we need more stronger
people like him, and brighter because
his myth does so much for our spirits.