Free States

The Free States are one of several factions found in the online RPG Fallout 76. They are a group of secessionists and anarcho-capitalists who broke ties with the USA and built their own bunkers to protect themselves from the inevitable nuclear holocaust of the Great War/World War III under the leadership of Senator Sam Blackwell and Raleigh Clay.
Their bunkers are mostly found in The Mire, the swamp-filled region of Appalachia. During the months leading up to nuclear Armageddon with the People's Republic of China, the Free States had known that nuclear war was inevitable and used that time to set up their bunkers, despite being labeled as traitors to the United States, especially with the posters set up around Harpers Ferry by loyal Americans that served as propaganda, labelling the Free States as Communists who turned their back on America. However, when the Great War/World War III finally came, the Free States took refuge in their bunkers while the people who saw them as traitors faced their fate in the nuclear holocaust.
Two years after the Great War, the Free States reclaimed much of The Mire, including Harpers Ferry, doing their best to fortify Harpers Ferry for future attacks from the Scorchbeasts, and had been working on a special system to detect the Scorched and Scorchbeasts, known as the Scorched Detection System (SDS), creating lures that could force the Scorchbeasts to land, leaving them at the mercy of the Free States. Raleigh Clay served as the face of the Free States at this time while Senator Blackwell worked things from the shadows using his position as a Senator for the Appalachia Territory, but when Raleigh was arrested, Blackwell was forced to reveal his Free States ties to get him released, exposing himself as a secessionist as well. While he still tried to maintain his Senatorial position and keep public opinion of him up, especially against Daniel Hornwright's plans to automate Appalachia, putting many workers out of a job, when he started getting a little too nosy into Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Eckhart's secret plans, Hornwright had a hired fixer send Blackwell a warning that he is to back off from investigating Hornwright or else, threatening to go after his daughter Judith if he didn't. Fearing this was Eckhart's doing because of his snooping into the Enclave's plans, Blackwell was forced to take Judith and retreat to his secure Free States bunker, disappearing from public view.
The Free States had been in good terms with The Responders and the Brotherhood of Steel regarding fighting the Scorchbeasts, with the Brotherhood maintaining control of Grafton Dam, allowing a steady supply of goods between Morgantown and Harpers Ferry. Unfortunately, the Raiders kept interfering in the work being done between the Responders, Free States, and Brotherhood, despite best efforts to keep them at bay, even with the secret help of the Order of Mysteries. Worse, Blackwell knew that the Enclave would be looking for him as he still possessed a keycard to gain access to the Whitespring Bunker due to his status as a Congressman for the Appalachia Territory, and he knew of the Department of Agriculture being the main funders for the bunker, meaning that Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Eckhart had ulterior motives for the bunker and those members of the Joint Chiefs and Presidential line of succession that were assigned to the bunker in the event of nuclear war. Though he initially escaped their hunts for him thanks to where his Free States bunker was concealed in The Mire, which was within the caves behind an abandoned waste dump for radioactive waste, when he decided to do an interview with Charleston Herald reporter Quinn Carter, it allowed Eckhart to send his agent, Jefferson Grey, to eliminate Blackwell once and for all after Blackwell had done a good job avoiding the earlier search parties, including Enclave stealth Vertibots/Vertibirds when he heard them drone over The Mire looking for him, especially after Blackwell told Quinn his paranoia about Eckhart and the Enclave was not just some Armageddon induced fear and he had legit knowledge of their secret plans. Luckily, Blackwell hid his Whitespring access card in a safe locked by an encryption code designed around his daughter's death date. He had originally been willing to surrender to Eckhart and the Enclave to save Judith by bringing her to the Whitespring to be given medical attention, but she died in his arms before he could even make the journey, leaving him to bury her in a grave outside the bunker and the abandoned waste dump it was hidden by. Grey still managed to get into Blackwell's secure bunker and kill him, but in order to do so, he had to reset the power to override the laser grids leading to Blackwell's inner study. This caused the lures that kept at bay the Deathclaws Blackwell used to guard his bunker to be deactivated, and Grey realized it too late when he heard the angry beasts roar as they returned to tear him apart, ensuring Blackwell's death could not be reported back to the Enclave. Worse, the Enclave then released the Scorchbeasts on Appalachia in a bid for Eckhart to gain access to the Appalachian Automated Launch System and the nuclear I.C.B.M. missile silos to finish off Communist China. That led to the Free States being wiped out by the Scorchbeasts only a few years before Vault 76 opened after the Scorchbeasts overran the Brotherhood's anti-air perimeter in the Cranberry Bog and then attacked Harpers Ferry and other locations in The Mire, scattering the Free States survivors to the winds, leaving their equipment behind to be used by the Vault 76 Residents to aid them in combating the threat of the Scorchbeasts themselves. Firebreathers Responder Hank Madigan, a former Brotherhood member, tried to reach the Free States to still get access to the SDS, but the Raiders got to him first and killed him, leaving his corpse with Rose before they were forced to flee themselves to avoid becoming Scorched or being killed.
When the Vault 76 Residents reach Abbie's bunker, the first Free States bunker to be found as it was also the one found by the Vault 76 Overseer as she tried to gain access to the silos herself earlier, she had left pre-programmed recordings to help guide the residents with repairing the SDS sensors in The Mire, fix the uplink Madigan was looking for, delivering it and a holotape with instructions to Rose, and then collect vital computer data from the Harpers Ferry Armory and Senator Blackwell's personal terminal at the Charleston Capital Building to help reboot the system and get it operational again to ensure that the lures the Free States used to ground the Scorchbeasts temporarily to slay them were fully operational once more. After exploring what was left of Paladin Elizabeth Taggerdy's Brotherhood with Fort Defiance and entering the Scorchbeasts' main hive in the Glassed Cavern, the Vault 76 Residents later returned to the Mire to access Senator Blackwell's Free States bunker themselves to recover his access card to the Whitespring Bunker to meet with MODUS and stop the Scorchbeast threat once and for all.
==Members==
*Adler
*Annie Garcia
*Carpenter
*Carson family:
**Caleb Carson
**Elizabeth Carson
**Madeleine Carson
**Max Carson
*Cedric
*Clay family:
**Martha Clay
**Megan Clay
**Michael Clay
** Patricia Clay
**Raleigh Clay
*Charlie Walker
*Courtney Kelly
*Daniel Cohen
*Duncan McKann
*Deke
*Ella Ames
*Edward Hayes
*Floyd
*Henry
*Horace
*Jackson Lake
*Jacob Lerner
*Jacqueline Murphy
*James Thorn
*Jed Kramer
*Jeremiah
*Kendyll Sims
*Kora
*Larry Comstock
*Lucy Harwick (formerly)
*Lydia's family:
**Lydia
**Natalie
*Mike
*R. Fields
*Randy Calloway
*Sam Blackwell
*Samir family:
**Nari Samir
**Sara Samir
*Singh family:
**Abigayle Singh
**Calvin Singh
**Geneva Singh
**Niraj Singh
*Sunday family:
**Jesus Sunday
**Juan Diego Sunday
*Terrance Quince
*Vivie Steinbeck
*Zak
;Robots
*Hardball
*Free States vendor
*Rover
*Vendor bot Wallace
;Treehouse village residents
*Caroline
*Darlene
*Gavin McCullough
*Lorne
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