Fallout: Warfare background

It's the past. It's the future. It's a little of both.

The Fallout world is not quite our own. Somewhere along the way, it diverged. It's still recognizably our world, but with some changes. One of which was World War III, which lasted a very brief amount of time, but was unbelievably destructive. More energy was released in the early moments of that war than all previous conflicts combined.

Also released was a mutated form of FEV - the Forced Evolutionary Virus. A combination of the FEV and the radiation in the air, earth and water caused all sorts of havoc among the survivors. Mutant creatures, mutant humans, plague, death and despair -- it was a really bad time.

Not everyone struggled in the wastelands... A few, a lucky few, survived deep in the underground Vaults, built previous to the war at great expense to the taxpayer (and great profit to Vault-Tec!) This, however, is not their story.

Many years after the devastation of WWIII, humanity (and the mutant scum that appeared) slowly began to crawl back out of the gutter of life. Of course, not everyone was particularly pleased about this. Many factions developed, and these factions moved into conflict with each other. This is a little closer to our current story.

Wars in the Fallout world are no longer fought with ICBMs, large armies, directed particle beam weapons, navies, air forces and other implements of civilized warfare. It has been reduced to men (and women) armed with whatever is available, perhaps a knife or an ancient rifle, and fought with small numbers. Bands of combatants, little better than gangs in the worse cases, fight for territory, salvage and, of course, for blood.

The Brotherhood of Steel is one of the few factions devoted to making the world safer for everyone (even if everyone doesn't want it safer). The Mutant hordes, remnants of the huge Super Mutant army of the Master and the Unity, struggle to find peace amongst the very people they were designed to replace. Raiders, and their technological savant brothers called Reavers, fight over the scraps of civilization. The strange Beastlords roam the wastes, enslaving the will of mutant critters. And a new menace, one that truly puts the Steel into the Brotherhood, has been recently discovered. Is this robotic plague the bane of humanity or a key to the reconstruction of a better time?

Across the battered remnants of America, and around the world, factions fight over the scraps of their ancestor's folly. Survival is a constant way of life for those that still care.

The War is long over, but the battle continues...

Brotherhood of Steel
The Brotherhood of Steel (BOS) is a techno-religious organization, with roots in the US military and government sponsored scientific community from before the war. The BoS is mostly composed of the descendents of those military officers, soldiers and scientists, but it is starting to admit more outsiders to it's rank as it grows. The BoS is divided into different ranks. Initiates are trainees who are expected to perform well enough in the training process to be promoted to Squires. After proving themselves, Squires are promoted to Knights. After many years of service and experience, the best Knights are promoted to Paladins -- the pinnacle of the Brotherhood military.

It is also possible to serve the Brotherhood as a Scribe. Scribes are responsible for copying the ancient technologies, maintaining the current technology and even experimenting with new weapons and other useful devices. Scribes rarely leave the safety of the BoS bunkers, but they are sometimes called into the field to examine a piece of technology or perform a task beyond the skills of the Brotherhood soldiers.

The Mutants
The FEV virus combined with the radiation, more than the radiation itself, caused multiple mutational strains within the human species. The two most prevalent strains are Ghouls and Super Mutants. The Master, a FEV mutated genius, was able to adapt the FEV virus to create the Super Mutants, while the Ghouls are more of a "natural" mutation. Both Ghouls and Super Mutants have fallen on hard times (well, that's not technically true, actually ghouls are better off than they were 10 years ago, but they are still pretty brahmin slime to most people). They will occasionally work with each other to promote the Mutant Platform.

Raiders & Reavers
The wastelands of Fallout are an unhappy place. Some people try to improve their happiness by lowering the happiness of other people around them. Others are there because they have a Cause. Both Raiders and Reavers roam the ruins, challenging those that would threaten them. Rarely do you see Raiders and Reavers in the exact same tribe or gang. It's not completely out of the ordinary, however. Both lead similar lifestyles. Both have been known to make arrangements. Still, of all the factions in Fallout, you can very easily see Raider versus Reaver battles (or even Raider versus Raider, more often than you would think -- it's sort of a self-balancing raider population control).

Beastlords
Other mutations are more subtle. It is said that some mutants have the ability to reach within the minds of the easily impressionable (animals, politicians and marketing personnel) to control their very thoughts. This has not been proven by the Brotherhood Scribes, but the activities of those known as the Beastlords certainly lends some credence to these tales. Probably the most fearsome thing about the Beastlords is their control over the beasts. Secondly, they are fond of poison, which can cause problems for even the most stalwart of bands.

Robots
Very little is known about the Robots. They do seem to be a new type, perhaps of new construction. They are organized by function, and that implies a higher authority controlling them or at least rationing the types of robots available in any one theatre of conflict.