I don't know but it's been said-
*cadence beep*
Enclave armor's made of lead.
Ha! I hear the Enclave power armor was better than anything The Brotherhood ever made.
You just think they look cool because their armor was painted black. But nothing says
"The Future of Humanity" like the gleaming steel of that old T51-b power armor. Lots
of folk in the wasteland think we invented it, but it was actually the last great achievement
of the dying empire of America.
In the final years of the resource wars, Alaska had the only remaining oil well left in the
world. America and China fought over it like two ticks trying to suck last drop of blood
out of the world. The Chinese had captured Anchorage, and conventional weapons couldn't
get 'em out, so the men of science put the might of an entire squad into an atom-powered
suit that turned a single man into an unstoppable juggernaut of American ingenuity!
Unstoppable? During Operation Sunburst we killed a bunch guys wearing those outfits.
Pulse grenades and armor piercers.
Yes. And your NCR outnumbered the Brotherhood ten to one.
Must be proud of yourselves...
Fair fights don't win wars. We won it and we got lots of shot-up power armor.
Our engineers gutted them, and some
of the infantry soldiers wear the plates as regular body armor.
You only did it because it
takes training to wear this armor. Most people don't have the knack for moving with
the powered joint servos. Even the Vault Dweller.
When the Vault Dweller finally earned the Brotherhood's trust, they-
Let me guess. Inside the bunker the Vault Dweller found a huge shrine to Roger Maxson.
The legendary founder of the Brotherhood of Steel.
And deep down below was a throne room where Maxson's descendant, King Roger The fourteenth
sat upon a throne of vacuum tubes and tesla coils. The Vault Dweller knelt before him,
and the King said "I dub thee Sir Vault Dweller, Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel". Then
you sent 'em off to defeat an army of mutants... alone.
*curious beep*
No ED-NA that's not how it happened.
The Brotherhood doesn't have a king, we have a council of Elders that make decisions And
a High Elder - but not a king. A hundred and twenty years ago it was John Maxson, Roger
Maxson's grandson.
Yeah, we got files on Roger Maxson. He's your mythological prophet from the days after the
Great War. Led "The Chosen People" on a pilgrimage from Mariposa to Lost Hills and founded the
Brotherhood. Then you people stayed there in your bunker for generations hoarding pre-war
tech that could have helped people rebuild civilization.
Well, Maxson lived through the Great War. Saw the horrors of what humanity could do
to itself if technology got into the wrong hands - even well intended governments can
do things that would test the loyalty of their own soldiers...
Hmph...
Despite what the younger members of the Brotherhood think, Maxson was just an ordinary soldier
who wanted to protect his men and their families. They needed their power armor and energy weapons
to make the journey from the Mariposa military base to the Lost Hills bunker. It served a
practical purpose in those days, but it took on a symbolic nature by the time The Vault
Dweller joined the Brotherhood.
Maxson's grandson, John, was an old man by the time, but all those years of leadership
had made him smarter than the entire council of Elders put together. He knew that the new
breed of mutants in the wasteland were a threat, and that we were the only thing standing in
their way, but the council needed more convincing. They wouldn't commit to any action without
proof of a mutant army. Because The Vault Dweller had experience with the outside world,
they were sent up North to look for evidence of some organization behind the mutants.
Wait, wait wait. The Vault Dweller's Memoir said that they went South to the Cathedral
before they went up to Mariposa.
Well, it makes a better story if they fought The Master last. An epic final confrontation
between good and evil and all that.
You pester me with these stories, but you can't even tell them right -
Wait. What do we have here...
Railroad spike... Hammered. No. Fired by a gun... from over there
Railway rifles. Thought you said the Luddites hated technology.
They hate mass-produced items. Factory-made stuff from the Back When times. They love
smashing up old products and making something new out of the parts with their own hands.
Looks like they picked a fight with - with the person we're tracking. Used their own
weapons against them.
This person we're chasing - They move fast, can kill a pack of tribals armed with Railway
riles, and they're sneaky enough that you can only track them by the piles of bodies
they leave behind. I need to know what we're up against.
I can handle it when we catch 'em. You just help me navigate.
Look, I agreed to help you, and I don't mind an excuse for one more adventure, but we're
far enough from NCR territory that your Pardon doesn't mean anything now. You gotta tell
me, are we chasing a rogue Ranger here?
No such thing as a Ranger gone rogue but I figure you got a right to know. We're tracking
a new kind of robot. An android, sort of.
Didn't know you NCR cavemen had that kind of technology.
We're more resourceful than the Brotherhood thinks. and we had some help from the Followers
of the Apocalypse. Learned a few things from Robert House's tech in Vegas. Hell, our scientists
are still learning new things from old Enclave research.
This is not the work of a robot with a personality matrix. Your android was smart enough to disguise
itself in enemy clothing, to use their own weapons against them, and hide the bodies.
And apparently smart enough to escape the NCR and make its way all the way up here to
Utah.
Yeah... well, the engineers that designed it had some... "daring" ideas on how to compensate
for the limits of AI.
Ya don't say? And it went crazy, rebelled against its creators and now you need my help to
clean up your mess.
Maybe this is why the Brotherhood fought your people over HELIOS.
Not everyone can be trusted-
*warning beep*
Hostiles. Get down.
In the name of King Ludd, I command you to throw down your weapons and face justice for
this atrocity!