Ishmael Ashur

Ishmael Ashur, known to many of the Pitt's inhabitants as "Lord Ashur", is the leader of The Pitt, a raider and slaver town, and serves as the main antagonist of The Pitt DLC. He is said to have found a cure for mutations. He is first formally introduced during the quest Unsafe Working Conditions, right before the Lone Wanderer goes to fight in The Hole. Ashur can later be met in person after the Lone Wanderer has fought his/her way through The Hole. The meeting is organized by Werhner and Midea to get the Lone Wanderer closer to the cure.

Biography
Ashur reveals his personal history and motives, as well as much of the history of The Pitt, in a series of holotapes found in his personal safe, addressed to his daughter Marie. He reveals he was once a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, and participated in their assault on the Pitt twenty years ago, known as the Scourge. During the fight, Ashur was caught in an explosion and was presumed dead, so the Brotherhood left him within the mill. After being pulled out of the rubble by scavengers trying to steal his armor, Ashur impresses them, some even considering him a god (Some Pitt raiders call him "Lord Ashur" and Midea sarcastically calls him the "God-King"). He then brought together the scavengers in the area, starting the city.

He chose to start the city in The Pitt because he was touched by the tenacious locals, and the fact that it contained the only operational steel mill the Brotherhood had ever run into. So he recruited everyone in the area, killed raider leaders and made the rest follow him. When that wasn't enough, he resorted to using slaves (who he insists on calling "workers"); he admits he hates to do this, but claims "it has to be done" since citizens of The Pitt are unable to have children due to the Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion. His ultimate goal is to create the first city that is "producing" once again, and he claims that every other post-War community (including the Brotherhood of Steel) has lived off of leftovers and has been unable to create things anew.

The accuracy of this blanket statement by Ashur is unclear, as is whether or not he is including The Enclave or the New California Republic in his assessment, since those communities clearly do have advanced capacity to produce and manufacture new material. Despite Ashur's condemnation of the Brotherhood of Steel as "lazy" scavengers, in the original Fallout they were also depicted as possessing some form of manufacturing capabilities. It's entirely possible he knew about these facts, but kept them secret to inspire the slaves further.

Ashur's daughter
The citizens in The Pitt are not sterile (unlike Ghouls or Super Mutants), but because the area is so heavily radiated, children are almost always born horribly mutated and change into Trogs just a few weeks after birth. Ashur's daughter Marie is unique, since she was apparently born with no mutations at all, not even a sixth toe. Marie cannot be more than a few months old, since she's still very small and unable to talk, walk, or crawl.

While Marie's parents do not seem to share her total immunity, it is worth noting that Sandra, her mother, does not have the skin lesions seen on many other Pitt Raiders, and despite twenty years in the Pitt, Ashur also appears to be healthy (if somewhat dirty and sunburned).

Related Quests
Upon first entering The Pitt, Ashur can be heard on the radio Pitt Broadcast frequency, in which he gives various propaganda speeches regarding The Pitt and the place of its various slave/citizens in its society.

Ashur makes his first personal appearance in Unsafe Working Conditions, just before the player enroles in the arena fights in The Hole. He is seen giving a motivational speech to the Pitt Slaves from a balcony on the high catwalks that overlook the Downtown slave yard.

After the player completes the arena fights and becoming a honorary Pitt Raider, he finally meets Ashur face to face in his office in his Haven stronghold, where Ashur reveals that the player's main ally Wernher was formerly Ashur's second-in-command, and offers the player a chance to renounce Wernher and join him instead. This begins the final quest of The Pitt, Free Labor.

The player can side with Ashur, or attack and kill him at this point. Ashur is protected by a automated turret and a handful of Pitt Raiders; his wife Sandra and a few additional Pitt Raiders will also run in and join in the fighting as the battle progresses. Alternatively, the player can wait for Ashur to leave the office on business, then steal the Cure while he's away and flee to The Pitt Downtown.

If the player steals the Cure without a fight, at the end of the quest Ashur and his wife Sandra will be waiting to confront the player in the Haven courtyard, after the player unleashes the Trogs upon Uptown. The player may fight and kill Ashur at this point, or hide for several seconds and watch as a horde of hungry Trogs swarm into the courtyard and attack Ashur.

If the player sides with Ashur instead, he will reward the player with the Booster Shot perk and access to the Ammo Press after the player disposes of Wernher.

Moral aspect
Much like his nemesis Werhner, he cannot be judged as simply "good" or "evil". You do receive negative karma if you side with him and kill him, but there is no karma impact if you side against him and kill him. He often makes sacrifices that he claims "have to be done" like buying slaves to work in the steel mill or experiments on his daughter Marie. Although he uses slave labor, and enforces that labor with extremely harsh draconian methods, he intends to free the slaves once his city's population is able to reproduce again. This implies that once a cure is found, he will administer it to the slaves as well.

If the player sides with Ashur in the Free Labor quest, during their final conversation Ashur will admit to the Lone Wanderer that his original motive for rebuilding The Pitt was simply personal glory, but now that he has a child of his own, he is currently motivated by a desire to make a better future for her.

Statistics
Ashur is equipped with a Combat Shotgun, and wears his unique personal power armor. His health is about on par with a normal Brotherhood of Steel Paladin, although at higher levels his combat skills are somewhat better. Also, his Power Armor and Combat Shotgun are in unusually good condition (about 75%), giving him better than normal protection and damage.

Bugs

 * If you shoot Ashur with a Mesmetron He will stand up and fire at his guards. If the guards sucessfully kill Ashur they will not become hostile towards you and act as if nothing happened.


 * Sometimes when you kill Ashur, Pitt Raiders will not become hostile towards you except for the ones in the area you killed Ashur. Also Sandra will still become hostile towards you.


 * Sometimes after the initial meeting dialog with Ashur he will repeat the words "Don't let me keep you" a few times to forever before leaving. This appears to be a bug, supposedly caused by speaking to others in Haven before speaking to Ashur or by skipping through too much of Ashur's dialog.


 * Ashur will sometimes fall down (exactly like Harkness if you turn him into Zimmer) at random moments. You can also loot while he is in this state and guards will not be hostile when gets back up.


 * Usually, after finishing the main quest, and regaining entry to Haven, Ashur will be waiting for you on his floor, alive but having only what was left after looting his corpse. He is marked essential hereafter, and cannot be killed. However, unusual glitches have been reported, for example, once dismembered limbs floating near their appropriate areas, and Ashur walking weirdly, as if skating.
 * In the above case, Ashur cannot be killed, nor looted for any possessions. He will simply go unconscious repeatedly with no XP gain, and no Loss or Gain of Karma. Thus in doing so, all you really get is a waste of ammo.

Appearances
Ashur appears in The Pitt add-on for Fallout 3.