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nightingaelic · 2 years

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Fo3 companion reacts to the East Coast Brotherhood growing more xenophobic and militarized under Arthur Maxson?

Goddammit Arthur, why couldn't you be a well-written character, why do I have to do everything myself around here

TW: Sexual content, misogynistic language, death

Things changed, after the super mutant uprising was quelled. Once Vault 87 had been destroyed and the FEV monstrosities cut off at the source, the Brotherhood of Steel began to fill the gaps in its ranks. The chapter already had a pile of Enclave tech and manufacturing equipment to fuel a regime, and once it opened its doors to Initiates, the ranks grew. Many a wastelander was drawn to the promise of gear, of training, of three square meals a day and a bed to sleep in. People clamored to get the attention of Scribes and Knights at recruiting calls, and the hordes of other would-be soldiers only made life in the Brotherhood seem more appealing.

Looking back, it was hard to say where it all began. Plenty of fingers were pointed at the new Elder, his decisions to forgive the Outcasts and their rhetoric, to focus on skill and might, to spread the chapter's protection and influence as far as he could. There was merit in those accusations, just as there was wisdom in the words of those who knew the Brotherhood before they came east - a Brotherhood that hid in bunkers, that was born out of disgust for a nation's betrayal, that trusted no one and feared otherness. Some blamed the competition that arose as people tried to join this new iteration, the selectivity that the East Coast Brotherhood adopted in order to choose its next members, and some blamed the chapter's growth itself and the necessary seizures of land, food, water, and control from those too weak to resist. There were plenty of answers to the question of why the Brotherhood changed, but only one thing could be agreed upon: If there were people in power armor or orange flight suits around, you kept your speculations quiet.

Star Paladin Cross: As one of the few soldiers in the Brotherhood who only answered to the Elder and was therefore left alone by those in the lower ranks, Star Paladin Cross counted herself lucky. Internal politics had never been her strong suit. She had respected Elder Owyn Lyons' decisions, challenging as they were to the Codex, and she had followed Elder Sarah Lyons into battle up until the girl's bitter end. Elder Arthur Maxson was young and ambitious, and it did not surprise Cross to see him surround himself with those of a similar build. She knew that wasn't her, and it didn't bother her. Initially.

Ambition when left unchecked grew into arrogance and greed, Cross realized too late. Not catching it in Maxson sooner became her largest regret. The citizens of the Capital Wasteland began to twist, in the eyes of the Brotherhood officers. They became resources, pawns. How many men could they muster from Megaton, to replace the troops they had lost attacking raiders in the north? Could the Aqua Pura trade routes be bent, leveraged, in order to make the western razorgrain farmers comply with patrols? How many more parts could they strip from Rivet City's mechanical levels to outfit the airship that was sitting on the tarmac at Adams Air Force Base?

"We are a machine," Maxson said to Cross, when she finally approached him about her concerns. "Efficient, precise, constructed with purpose. We are the endurance of humanity, the best hope they have of surviving. We protect them from themselves, and we pave the way forward."

"A machine cannot grow," Cross countered. "It can endure, but it cannot shift its gears or reshape its components. It cannot fathom a use for parts from other machines, it can only use that which it was built to use. The humanity of today is not the humanity of yesterday."

And though he heard her out, though he thanked her for her wisdom, Cross knew that Maxson hadn't really understood. He couldn't grasp the meaning she was trying to impart: He was the machine, and this was the purpose he had been built for.

Perhaps Maxson was beyond her reach, Cross decided, but as she looked out over the yard in the Citadel and the drills being run at Adams Air Force Base, she saw others like him. New recruits, youthful and eager to find their place within the Brotherhood of Steel, looking for guidance. When she walked among them, their eyes turned to her in curiosity, in respect, in awe. Cross ended her pursuits outside the Capital Wasteland and took a personal interest in the training of the Initiates. She observed the Paladins as they outfitted their squads with power armor, listened to the Scribes instructing classes on the Codex, watched the Lancers as they moved from flight simulation pods to the reality of a humming vertibird, and she intervened wherever she saw absolutism, essentialism, or anyone demanding that the Initiates set aside their old lives entirely.

Was it enough? Cross didn't know. Maxson continued to reach beyond himself, and his people lauded him even as they stepped over the common wastelanders on their way to glory. She knew she couldn't change the chapter's trajectory entirely, or abandon the cause she had sworn long ago to uphold. But if she could convince the newest of the Brotherhood to look carefully as they stepped, remind them to see themselves in the eyes of those they pushed past, perhaps the resulting future would be kinder than if she hadn't bothered.

Butch DeLoria: Life in Rivet City went on despite the growing tensions in the Capital Wasteland, and Butch happily swapped sides of the issue depending on who was in his barbershop chair. He picked up all sorts of stories from the wastelanders who came through - heroic, horrifying, harebrained, take your pick - and tossed most of them in the trash as unbelievable. Judging by the hack jobs he saw on the occasional Brotherhood soldier that sat down in front of him, they weren't quite so powerful that they could manage to snare a decent hairdresser for their troops.

That summer though, the metal hallways of the decaying aircraft carrier grew unbearably hot. The Capital Wasteland sun had never been particularly kind to the ship's residents, but the maintenance team usually kept the heat on the lower levels at bay through a well-worn system of ventilation shafts, fans, and fusion-powered climate conditioners. When Butch woke up one morning sweaty and irritable, he went straight to Henry Young to complain, but the handyman was just as angry as him.

"It's the main compressor," Henry explained, waving a wrench around to punctuate his words. "The damn thing's gone. I've got CJ and Bryan looking everywhere for a replacement, but you just can't find parts like that anymore."

"Well who took it?" Butch demanded to know.

Henry sighed. "I've got the only key to the section, and no one's been sniffing around it since we let that bunch of Scribe types come look at our fusion plant."

The gaggle of Scribes in question was still in town, laughing and sharing cold drinks by Gary's Galley. Butch ignored their conversation and stalked right up to the one in the center, who looked like he was in charge of the squad. "You. Any particular reason why you turned the heat up in here? Give us our shit back, or everyone is gonna boil."

The conversation died quickly, and the Scribe held up his hands. "Like mirelurk hatchlings in a pot," he agreed. "We were having the same problem on the Prydwen. All fixed, now."

"Swell." Butch seized the Scribe by his collar. "And what about us?"

The rest of the Scribes were reaching for their laser pistols, but their leader stopped them. He looked up at Butch with a mix of pity and disdain. "Give it up, greaser. You're not getting it back. It's Brotherhood property now, like this whole damn ship."

Butch knew when he was outnumbered, but his retreat still felt shameful. Through his remaining connections to Vault 101 he was able to get Henry the part he needed, but it took a few sweltering weeks before the lone wanderer walked in the door holding the new compressor. Butch could've kissed them, but instead he tossed his shaving towel aside and eyed them knowingly. "You doing something about them?" he asked.

They nodded. "What I can. Could use your help, though. One vault dweller's enough to give the Brotherhood trouble. Two might just be too much for them."

Clover: Super mutants weren't the only recipient of the growing Brotherhood chapter's ire, and the raiders of the Capital Wasteland learned pretty quickly that they were no match for the larger, more well-equipped gang. Paradise Falls was one of the last raider settlements to hold out, but even that historic hub of DC's slave trade was rather empty on the day the Brotherhood of Steel came calling.

Eulogy Jones died as he lived, trying to sing a sweet song of persuasion through a sour smile. The Brotherhood Knight with the minigun wasn't in the mood though, and the slaver's guts made a nice painting against the back wall of his pad. Crimson burst into tears and threw herself onto the floor, wailing, but Clover eyed her would-be savior with mild interest. "You got a name, lover?"

The Knight ignored her and gestured to a Scribe behind him. Clover hissed as the woman drew close, but she fell silent once her slave collar began to come apart, piece by piece. When the Scribe was finished, Clover took a step back and rubbed her newly-exposed neck. "What... what am I supposed to do now?"

"Not our problem," the power-armored Knight replied, annoyed.

Clover knew how to take care of herself. She slunk through the blasted gates of the slaving hub as soon as she was able, melted into the blur of the wasteland and tried to fathom a new purpose. She burned her bloodstained pink dress, swapped it out for wool and leather, crouched under corrugated steel scraps and wished for rain to wet the lump in her throat. She wandered through settlements like a woman possessed, glaring at anyone who came too close and lusting after the meager produce that merchants laid out for sale. She didn't expect it to be free - nothing was ever free - but the price was always too high. Caps. Information. A smile, or a convincing touch. Caps were hard to come by and all of Clover's local knowledge was out of date, but the latter two were familiar requests. Though she struggled with the idea of offering herself as a commodity after all the shit she had been through, the hunger in Clover's stomach and the dull reassurance that at least she was the one in control of her own commodification won out.

By the time she made it to Rivet City, Clover had strings of caps jingling around her waist and neck. One of the first men who snagged her for a few hours was an off-duty Knight-Captain, rough and eager but arrogant as a brahmin bull. No matter how she tried to shut him up, he wouldn't stop waxing poetic about the great battles he'd fought in, the wasteland insects he had squashed. "Grayditch, Evergreen Mills, Paradise Falls... I was there," he assured her. "Goddamn raiders didn't know what hit 'em. We'll wipe 'em all out, you'll see."

"What about the slaves?" Clover asked as she climbed on top of him. "What do you do with them, after you kill the bosses?"

The Knight-Captain made a face. "Nothing. We freed them, didn't we? I'm not paying you to talk, whore."

The resident robot Mister Buckingham found the gentleman still in bed the next morning, with his throat slit. The woman he'd been entertaining was nowhere to be found, though the Brotherhood of Steel conducted a full sweep of the ship and put out a call for information. Stories eventually trickled aboard the aircraft carrier about a new valkyrie who was wreaking havoc in the name of the Abolitionists and slaves all across the Capital Wasteland, but no one ever made the connection to the woman who'd vanished.

Sergeant RL-3: Change was afoot in the Brotherhood of Steel for sure, but from where Sergeant RL-3 was stationed, it was slow to leave the main DC ruins. The stalwart Mister Gutsy model had dutifully protected the settlement of Canterbury Commons since its last partner had dropped it off, joining Dominic and Machete on their daily rounds and cooking any unwelcome visitors with plasma blasts and flames.

The settlement's newfound security after the superhero debacle brought an uptick in interest from the local caravans. What started as a few brahmin and wares spread over the grass turned into a circle of dedicated vending stalls, then a bustling marketplace that drew in shoppers, workers, scavengers, guards, and most importantly, attention. By the time the water caravans and the basin's purification processes made their way north, it was a cherry on top of the booming business that Canterbury Commons was already enjoying. New houses were going up, farmers were staking out plots of land, and the town had notoriety throughout the ruins as the place to be.

It was a reminder of America past for Sergeant RL-3 to see individuals in power armor stomping around the marketplace, participating in the great game of capitalism and holding down the home front. Rushing into combat alongside them was even more invigorating for the old war-bot, and something akin to nostalgia flickered along its circuitry whenever a Knight filled attacking enemies with lead. It began to salute every Brotherhood soldier it encountered, and they started to treat it as a sort of town mascot, happily waving to the bot and saluting back whenever they arrived with water shipments or left for missions. The fact that the rest of the guards around town didn't have the same rapport with the Brotherhood visitors was merely a mark of how dedicated it was in its position, compared to them.

Jericho: From his comfortable retirement in Megaton, Jericho had all the time in the world to drink and grumble about what the Brotherhood's growing influence was doing to the Capital Wasteland. His complaints drove off what few people still gave him the time of day in the saloon, and eventually Gob and Nova had to tell him to stop scaring new customers.

"Boot-lickers," Jericho sneered on the day he heard about Paradise Falls' occupation, when Gob cut him off for the night yet again. "You're happy to let those fucking tin cans walk all over you."

"Brahmin shit," Nova spat. "If they walked into town right this second, I wouldn't serve them. They'd shoot Gob and tell me to suck their dicks for a discount. But that doesn't mean they're not making the roads safer for travelers, and it doesn't mean you're not being an asshole, Jericho."

"Fucking hell." Jericho kicked over the stool he'd been sitting on and headed for the door. "Can't wait to lose your freedom, can you? Moriarty's got to be spinning in his grave. Wouldn't even need to put a collar on you two, you'd roll right over for Elder Maxson and his fucking gang!"

Nova grabbed one of his empties off the bar and threw it at him. She missed, but the bottle shattered spectacularly against the wall. "Get the fuck out, Jericho! And don't come back!"

Jericho muttered angrily to himself as he stumbled home, where he collapsed in bed and sank into a restless sleep. He awoke again around mid-day, bleary-eyed but filled with new purpose. He strapped on his armor, cleaned and loaded his gun, and headed for the main gates. There he waited until Doc Hoff's caravan rolled in, right on schedule.

"Hoff!" he said with a grin, once he'd located the chems dealer. "How's business? Still looping up through Evergreen Mills?"

"Not since the super mutant uprising wiped it off the map," the good doctor replied suspiciously. "What do you want, Jericho?"

Jericho made a face. "A job. You look a little short on guards, these days. Been running into trouble out there?"

"Trouble? Nah. But I can't compete with what the Brotherhood's offering." Hoff shook his head. "Aren't you retired? Why give that up?"

"Got a vested interest in getting the local Knights hooked on your product." Jericho shifted his rifle to rest on his shoulder. "There's too many of them for me to shoot, but I know what that shit did to the chain of command when I was still running around with raiders. I'd like to see that happen here. Give the Brotherhood a good kick in the teeth. What do you think?"

"I think you're a few pills short of a prescription," Hoff replied, rolling his eyes. "But if you've got a way to sell chems to the people in power armor, I'm listening. My customer base has been shrinking lately."

"Ah, don't worry, doc." Jericho smiled. "Send come caps my way, and I'll make it worth your while. I can be real sweet when I want to be."

Fawkes: Of course, Fawkes only heard about the Brotherhood's trajectory secondhand, from travelers he encountered that had recently been in the Capital Wasteland. Even before the Brotherhood's victory against Shephard's uprising, being a super mutant around DC was hazardous for one's health. Now, with the Brotherhood being what they were, it was a guaranteed death sentence. Packing his few belongings and bidding goodbye to his friends in Underworld had been one of the hardest things he had ever done, but it was the safest thing he could do, for him and the ghouls.

Fawkes went northeast, following the coast and the maps on the Pip-Boy that he and the lone wanderer had found during their escape from Vault 87, all the way to Baltimore. It wasn't far enough away from the Brotherhood of Steel for him to feel completely safe, but it was the home of the great Hopkins Hospital and its magnificent cathedral of medical books. From the look of things, Baltimore had seen fewer nuclear blasts than DC had, but the monument in the brick square and the church spires across the street from his destination had been knocked over all the same. Hopkins Hospital's great repository of knowledge had been evacuated in haste, and what was left on its tall, ornate shelves was in disarray and heavily water-damaged. He hadn't meant for it to be a permanent stop on his trip, but as Fawkes stood in the center of the atrium, surrounded on all sides by six stories of bookshelves and the broken glass from the skylights above, something in his heart crossed its arms and refused to budge. His journey could wait. This library could not.

When the local raiders finally learned to leave him alone, Fawkes settled into his new role as the library's caretaker. He swept up the broken glass, dead leaves, and animal bones from the floor and put loose tiles back in place. He stacked what books were left on the lowest level's shelves, then organized them by author. He hunted down the mole rats in the basement and found some local traders that didn't seem to mind his appearance, or were at least willing to swap building materials for mole rat meat. He hammered new boards over the broken stairs, took intact panes of glass from nearby high rises and fitted them into the library's skylights as best he could, started a tato garden under the statue of Marquis de Lafayette in the middle of the boulevard - and in his spare time, he read.

The people that were left in Baltimore didn't spend much time downtown, but the Hopkins Hospital Library began to work its way into the stories of caravanners who came through the area. You could find refuge there for a while, even if the librarian was one of those creatures that people whispered about, and he would trade tatoes and caps for books to add to his shelves. Fawkes started to see more and more trade routes bend toward the library, and even a few travelers that set out to find him solely because of the books he cared for. It warmed him to see that knowledge was still valued in this crumbled world, even if seeking it out was a perilous thing. He only wished he could share that knowledge with his friends from Underworld, but given the news that kept finding its way to him, it had been the right decision to leave when he did.

The first of the Underworld refugees found their way to the library by accident, on the run from a pack of mongrels that had chased them off their route around the downtown area. Fawkes didn't realize they'd come from the Capital Wasteland until he began to patch them up, using what knowledge he'd learned about dog bites to clean and dress the wounds of their guide. After hearing of Underworld's plight, he sent the guide back to DC with instructions and a promise: Room for any who sought it, for as long as they wanted it.

Tulip brought the next group, and she laughed with joy when Fawkes lifted her clear off the ground in a bear hug. Relations with the Brotherhood were worsening, but Underworld had plans, and more were on their way. Bit by bit, familiar faces began to trickle into the Hopkins Hospital Library, and Fawkes barely had time to bask in the awe on their faces with how busy he was building beds, cleaning rooms, and restocking his supply shelves to accommodate the refugees. Most of his guests moved on eventually, looking for some place a little safer than downtown Baltimore, but enough stayed to start building fences around the city block and tending the vegetables alongside him. They respected the work he had done, added their own talents to caring for his home, and when the sun went down at night, there was singing in the atrium under the stars.

Dogmeat: All of this was beyond Dogmeat, of course, but the loyal canine could tell that something was weighing his companion down. Their step was lighter whenever they entered Arlington now, more careful and measured, and their words to any new people were vague and short. They were still recognized most everywhere, pulled aside and thanked for their role in purifying the water table, but they increasingly looked as though they weren't sure whether they had done the right thing.

The pair were halfway across the Potomac, on their way to Rivet City, when the lone wanderer suddenly stopped in the middle of the bridge to stare at the Jefferson Memorial. Water was pouring from the pipes below the rotunda, cycling out the radiation and spilling life back into the wasteland. Moss and hanging plants were starting to climb around the edge of the spouts, unmistakable pops of green against the brown water that promised new hope for a struggling world. The water thundered into the river below, an unstoppable force that muffled any noise within a mile of the site.

The lone wanderer's eyes slid up, to the orange flag with a white insignia of gears and a winged sword that flapped above the memorial. Their shoulders sank. On the wind, Dogmeat could smell their regrets as surely as the purified water.

Slowly, the lone wanderer sank to the concrete and put their head in their hands. "Dad didn't want this. He can't have. I don't want this. What am I supposed to do, now?"

Dogmeat whined and moved in close to lick their face. They tried to push him away at first, but the mutt wouldn't let up. The two stayed there until the lone wanderer had exhausted their frustration and the sting of salt had left their cheeks.

Charon: Underworld persisted, as it had throughout the spread of super mutants into DC, the Brotherhood's arrival, and the inevitable clash between the two groups. As the Brotherhood pushed the super mutants back, they scattered into the safety of the Mall, where dark corners to retreat to were plentiful and maneuvers in power armor were difficult. The dark corners of Underworld looked enticing enough for a few super mutants to try to force their way in, but Charon, Willow, and Cerberus beat them back from the Museum of History each time. "They never used to be like this," Willow commented after one particularly gruesome clash.

"They're desperate," Charon replied, with uncharacteristic candor. "Soon enough, that'll be us."

Underworld's population had seen an increase as of late, mostly folks who had been displaced by the Brotherhood around the Capital Wasteland. Carol and Greta had their hands full with the number of refugees that had packed up their belongings and come to the Mall, hoping for a safe place away from the miniguns and Gatling lasers of the power-armored regime that saw them as sub-human. There weren't enough beds, there were barely enough supplies, and what few trade routes still came toward Underworld were on edge thanks to the fighting in the ruins and the knowledge that they were risking their businesses for dealing with mutants. Sydney and Emaline had taken over the Ninth Circle, and Sydney did her part to stock the newcomers with weaponry while Emaline served liquor and mediated disagreements between their patrons. The pair passed info to Charon if he came in for a drink: This person knew of a cache in the ruins that Reilly's Rangers had left behind, that person was ex-Brotherhood and looking to give the faction the middle finger, that family had split up in Arefu and was looking for news of their missing relatives.

A majority of people moving into the museum were ghouls, but here and there a smooth-skin would arrive, fed up with the Brotherhood for their own reasons. Charon wasn't one to make friends, but Tulip was, and she already had connections with sympathetic wastelanders that she was willing to use. Together, the unofficial leaders of Underworld concocted a shaky survival plan: Encourage the smooth-skins to take on the outward-facing jobs that might put them in contact with the Brotherhood, and use what time that gave them to ferry ghouls out of DC.

"The Abolitionists and the Railroad will help," Tulip assured Charon quietly behind the counter of Underworld Outfitters. "There are already guides in place to help people go north, even south if they're willing to risk going by sea."

It was slow going, but little by little the refugees began to follow the trails under cover of night, with the help of Tulip, Quinn, Simone Cameron from the Abolitionists, and even old Herbert Dashwood, the retired adventurer from Three Dog's radio plays. Charon hung back in Underworld, keeping the remaining ghouls safe and using his imposing presence to convince the most stubborn of the residents to start a new life far away from DC. His height and a dark word about what the Brotherhood might do one day were usually enough to change minds.

"Why don't you go, if you're so dead set on abandoning this place?" Doctor Barrows asked him, when he finally convinced the physician to pack up his laboratory.

"Can't," Charon grunted. "Have to stay."

He couldn't explain his contract, even to those who already knew about it. It wasn't here, and neither was the person who held it. It tied Charon in place all the same, five words that had been spoken over a year ago by the vault dweller he'd accompanied on their tumultuous journey. Stay here. I'll be back.

So Charon did what he could from where he'd been tethered, and Underworld emptied. Smooth-skins began to outnumber ghouls, which made Cerberus a little perkier and the Brotherhood a little more willing to negotiate. Charon remained, sullen and resigned, yet unable to squash the promise the lone wanderer had made to him. I'll be back. When?

The day after Three Dog announced on the radio that the Prydwen had taken flight with the Elder and its best soldiers aboard, bound for the Commonwealth, Charon's missing overseer walked through the doors of the museum for the first time in two years. They looked tired, ragged. Like they hadn't slept in all the time they'd been away. After taking in the changed state of the settlement, their eyes landed on Charon's, who had stopped in his tracks halfway down the stairs from the upper level.

"I'm sorry," they said. "I've been..."

Their words trailed off. They knew it was insufficient. Charon stared at them coldly, gripping the railing next to him so hard his palms hurt.

#fallout #fallout 3 #fo3 #companions react #elder arthur maxson #brotherhood of steel #lone wanderer #pretty proud of this one ngl #also my reactions are still closed

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