January 1st, 2245. It has been over 47 years - almost a century since our Brotherhood destroyed the out-of-control warmachines of the Calculator, a megalomaniac artificial intelligence owing much of its thinking capability to a multitude of disembodied human minds conntected to it, originating from Vault 0, a secret vault hidden underneath an ancient pre-war military base once referred to as the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the old America's command center from which the globe was condemned to nuclear holocaust.
Since those five decades, the Brotherhood of Steel has pulled back significantly. We'd dealt with this threat, at great cost. But there was no way we could have feasibly held the land over which we'd spread so quickly to crush the machines that threatened to exterminate us all.
Ever since, we've been busy replenishing our ranks, and consolidating our hold on the old metropolis of Chicago and the surrounding lands. Though its population is still miniscule by pre-war standards, some measure of life has begun to return to the city, a tiny spark of civilization in the darkness of the wastes, lit by those who followed the Brotherhood's knights and paladins to the Great Lakes, having grown used to the safety provided by our warriors and not at all keen on returning to begging for mercy from raider bands.
Under our protective aegis, these people now largely live in peace and, by any contemporary measure, prosperity. Smaller workshops and even the odd factory have been reopened, and under the strict guidance of our scribes, produce all manners of technological wonders long considered irrevocably lost.
But it would be folly to rest upon our laurels (a pre-war plant that has unfortunately not been seen since the Great War), as they say. As our wealth grows, so does the envy of our neighbors.
The Reavers, a technoreligious cult blindly worshipping the machines of the Old World without so much as an attempt to understand them, have reorganized to the South after their crushing defeat at the hands of the machine menace, and will likely prove to be far less amicable to our continued existence if they should grow in power. They are only barely better than the common example of savage Raider scum, but could prove to be a threat regardless, given they may very likely possess advanced weaponry.
To the North, we may very well encounter further remnants of the Mutant Army that we've clashed with at the same point in the past. More disconcertingly are the reports from our scouts dispatched into Mutant territory, all of which claim that the Mutants are still being led by the former Paladin Latham, a deserter from our ranks who by now goes by the name of "Gammorin" and was believed to have been killed decades ago. It is beyond likely that he will seek vengeance against us for the past.
More disconcertingly, our scouts dispatched to the East report that the area around Washington D.C. and parts of the New England Commonwealth are under the control of a faction referring to themselves as the "United States of America". Until further notice, these reports have been redacted and will remain secret. The Brotherhood still possesses ample records of the last time it had to deal with an organization claiming to be the legitimate successors of the United States government, and we can ill afford mass panic at this moment.
With all those things in mind, the Brotherhood leadership has more or less unanimously decided to prepare for the likely inevitable conflicts in our near future. While we were ill prepared for the long journey to this city, the fact that it took a violent storm to bring down our airship whilst we were unassailed by more mundane, human threats only serves to demonstrate the potential value air power may have in the near future. As such, research has begun to develop a means of rebuilding our airship fleet, and perhaps even develop the technologies necessary to replicate pre-war airplanes.
Likewise, further expansion of our forces is a high priority, and two additional Battalions of aspiring Brotherhood Initiates have been recruited from the populaces under our protection and are undergoing training as we speak.
Much to the chagrin of the settlements under our protection, the Brotherhood is also renewing its push for them to take a more dedicated role in ensuring their own safety. Instead of relying solely on Brotherhood help or the common villager's rifle for safety, settlements under Brotherhood protection will now be required to maintain their own full-time town guard, commanded and trained by a Brotherhood Knight Liaision.
Some towns have protested this as a direct infringement upon their independence and freedom. Unsurprisingly, none of them seemed to value either over safety, faced with the prospect of being left out in the open without Brotherhood protection at the mercy of raider gangs.
It is expected that this measure will free up Brotherhood core forces for future frontline operations, and provide more skilled recruits further down the road.
In more internal matters, General Dekker has been put in charge of all Brotherhood Paladin operations. In the future, we will likely deploy them as a closed formation of superheavy infantry to break the enemy ranks decisively.
For this reason, he has been ordered to see to it that the Paladin formation is brought up to proper Battalion strength at any cost, even if he has to transfer aspiring or otherwise promising combat personnel from the other units to do so.
While these aspirants will likely be equipped with older models of powered armor compared to the paladins themselves, it is expected that this will still lead to a net gain in total combat effectiveness.
This concludes the situation report of the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel as of January 1st, 2245.
Well, this would be my first ever attempt at an AAR. We'll see how this goes, especially beyond the opening post. I'm unsure how much I'm going to put into every post from here on out. If I'm to cut back on the number of pictures or anything based on forum rules, let me know.
Regardless, let's follow the exploits of the one Brotherhood Chapter that had its shit together in the Falloutverse before it was cruelly and unjustly banished into the Retconnian.
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