Ishmael Ashur

Ishmael Ashur, known as Lord Ashur to The Pitt's inhabitants, is the lord of The Pitt and leader of the Pitt raiders in 2277.

Beginnings
Ashur was born on the west coast of America, as he grew up he became a loyal member of the Brotherhood of Steel, and like most of the Brotherhood he vowed to recover any and all advanced technology.

Going East
In 2254 the Brotherhood's ruling council decided to send a contingent of soldiers to the East Coast, with three important objectives. First, to scour the ruins of Washington, D.C., once the nation's capital, and recover any and all advanced technology. Second, to investigate the reports of super mutant activity in the area. Third, to re-establish contact with the Brotherhood of Steel and return them under Lost Hills command (the Brotherhood of Steel's main airship had crashed near Chicago during a large storm, and all communication was lost with the Lost Hills bunker). Ashur was part of this team of soldiers, under the leadership of one Owyn Lyons, other members of the party included Rothchild, Henry Casdin and Knight Paladin Tristan.

The Scourge
Not being able to contact the Midwestern Brotherhood the Brotherhood pressed on towards Washington. During their travels the Brotherhood came across a disturbingly vile town known as The Pitt. The town was lawless; rape gangs, raiders, slavers, and many other kinds of horrors all freely wandered, terrorizing the few innocent survivors, most of which were either sick or dying. Anarchy ruled the streets. The Brotherhood then led the Scourge, a large-scale military action that wiped out nearly the entire population of The Pitt. In a single night, the Brotherhood swept through the city, eliminating any resident who put up a fight. Although the intent of the Scourge remains unclear, several non-mutated children were taken from The Pitt easily by the Brotherhood and placed into initiate training, such as Paladin Kodiak.

During the Scourge, Paladin Ashur was caught in an explosion and was presumed to be their only casualty, so the Brotherhood left him within the mill and moved on forward towards Washington, D.C.. Ashur lay there for hours, but soon he was pulled out of the rubble by scavengers trying to steal his armor, Ashur impressed them, some even considering him a god. He then brought together the scavengers in the area, starting the city.

Lord of The Pitt
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. It wasn't long before Ashur realized that simple raider gangs would not be enough, to his discretion he soon started to use slaves (whom he insists on calling "workers" to remind them that they all have a chance at freedom, no matter how slim); 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.

The Pitt began to slowly rebuild, the slaves made great progress in making things operational in the Pitt again, Ashur occupied Haven as his temple, overseeing the Pitt from its highest peak. At some point during his time at the Pitt, Ahsur married Sandra Kundanika, she was a Pitt Raider scientist and then moved into Haven along with Ashur.

A New Hope
A year or two before 2277 Sandra had become pregnant, the baby she was carrying was a girl. When the baby was delivered she was named Marie. Marie had a special ability that the rest of the Wasteland lacked, she was immune to radiation. Ashur and Sandra quickly set to work on developing a cure for their fellow inhabitants of the Pitt, hoping that the people of the Pitt could finally have a cure.

Daily schedule
Ashur is found in his office at the top of Haven, and gives speeches to the slaves of The Pitt every once in a while. He also runs The Pitt's radio station.

Quests

 * Unsafe Working Conditions: Your first interaction with Ashur is when he gives a speech to the slaves to pick a fighter for The Hole.
 * Free Labor: After you're done fighting in The Hole, he will ask to meet you and talk to you about becoming a Pitt raider. You can then choose to side with him or Wernher, and if you side with him you fight to stop the slaves revolt, and if you side with Wernher you kill him.

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

Behind the scenes
Both Ishmael and Ashur are Biblical names. Ishmael was the son of Abraham, who was exiled by his own parents. Ashur was the second son of Shem, the son of Noah. Ashur was also the name of the capital of Assyria, an ancient Mesopotamian empire in what is now modern-day Iraq.

Bugs

 * Sometimes after the initial meeting dialog with Ashur he will repeat the words "Don't let me keep you" a few times to 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.
 * After accessing the computer in the room with Marie, Ashur's corpse is very likely to disappear if you have killed him, so be sure to loot his body before using it.
 * Ashur's speech prior to entering the arena is bugged. In the PC version of the game, he will skip every other text block, causing the speech to be much shorter (the skipped portions of the speech can be heard in the background playing at the same time as the heard portions). The full speech plays in the Xbox and PlayStation version of the game.