Brotherhood of Steel First Expeditionary Corps

The Brotherhood of Steel First Expeditionary Corps is the force currently occupying the New England Commonwealth; they are the remnants of the Australian Brotherhood of Steel, a military government which dwelled in Australia before its' collapse. They are generally a non-aggressive force, focusing on restoring things like electricity, water, and accessible food to New England; However, they have been as of late engaged House Tartarus and the Magnolian Loyalist Movement in east America. However, they possess a strong military presence in the Caribbean, where they actively attempt to maintain control over the crime-ridden regions of Panama and Central America.

## History - Pre-Corps (early Brotherhood history)

The First Expeditionary Corps was, in fact, not an organization created by the Brotherhood of Steel during their time in Australia; rather, the group came into existence after the Sydney Royal Fleet left the ports of Brisbane and Gold Coast, leaving their doomed homeland behind.

The Brotherhood of Steel was once a highly-advanced organization: the creators of Power Armor, hyperspace travel, and the renown Venator-class Star Destroyer. First coming into existence around March of 2020, they originally devoted themselves to patrolling the lower regions of the Great Victoria Desert, later being absorbed into the Australian military as a legitimate military branch due to their breakthroughs in Power Armor. They proved themselves in their first military operation, the Kestrel Purge, when they discovered and destroyed factories producing Protogen for the USF underneath Australia. This proved to be a prelude to a much larger attack, as around the time of the Third Furry War, Empoleon (the leader of the USF) led a large-scale invasion of Australia, which proved to be the Brotherhood's first true war. Though Australia's larger military collapsed, the Brotherhood survived, pushing the USF out of Australia and picking up the pieces of the shattered government in the war’s aftermath.

Over the next few years, the Brotherhood re-built Australia, dealing with internal threats from terrorists and extremists before moving beyond Earth in their old fleet of eleven Venator-class destroyers (all of which survived the early wars beyond Earth, and were retired to the Gold Coast Extraplanetary Historical Monument before their reactivation during the Aubergine Conflict). The Brotherhood's first off-planet conflict came in the form of the Great Sol War, the first large-scale war to take place in the Solar System. The war began when the Trump Empire, a faction in direct opposition to Orange Biker's UGR, enacted plans to invade Earth. Working alongside the Empire was a group of desperate refugees known as the Fallen, specifically two Houses of Fallen, the Houses of Winter and Kings, who were sent ahead of the Fallen's massive space-faring refugee civilization that formed the brunt of their active society. The Brotherhood of Steel began to colonize Sol in defense, creating their earliest bases on Phobos, Luna, Mars, and Titan. The war between the Fallen and Brotherhood was long and bloody, but ultimately came to a close during the Battle of Titan. The battle began when the House of Kings, on patrol over the waters of Saturn’s great moon, identified a massive energy spike underneath Titan's methane waves. This turned out to be a massive, planetoid-like sphere known by the Fallen as The Traveler. The Fallen reacted rapidly to the Traveler's discovery, as they seemed to recognize the sphere from somewhere else. They mobilized the entirety of the houses of Kings and Winter, which quickly overtook Titan. The Brotherhood responded with their fleet, now some 150 vessels in size, and began a long battle for control of the Traveler. The battle ended when Moondust, leader of the Brotherhood, stormed the Fallen's massive dreadnought flagship, deactivating its' engines after slaying the leaders of both Houses single-handedly. The massive vessel crashed into the Traveler, shattering it. The Fallen, outraged, retreated from the planet to the far reaches of the Solar System, ending the Great Sol War. The war's end also saw the rise of the House of Salvation, a force of Fallen who fled from the Battle of Titan to the remote moon of Europa to strike back at the Brotherhood with a new weapon: A mysterious black Pyramid ship discovered beneath the moon's ice shelves.

After the war's conclusion the Brotherhood continued to expand, eventually founding the Galactic Republic and using a mysteriously-commissioned army of Clone Troopers to fight and defeat the Trump Empire alongside the UGR and combatting the Fallen's Fleet of Ten-Thousand, which pushed the Republic to the brink and nearly destroyed it. This war for the Milky Way ultimately ended in the Brotherhood's favor, however their victory was short-lived as the Republic's Supreme Chancellor, Clovis Bray, somehow took direct control over the Clone Armies, turning them against the Brotherhood and reforming the Republic into the Empire. Clovis even went so far as to kill Moondust on Vance Prime, where most of the fighting took place. The Brotherhood went into hiding, even fleeing Earth, and became known as the New Brotherhood of Steel. After hiding out on the remote planet of Anaxes for six months, the reinvigorated forces of the Brotherhood began to fight back against the Empire, going so far as to assassinate Clovis Bray on the Republic's capitol of Vance Prime, which was the first planet the Brotherhood colonized outside the Solar System. The Brotherhood then turned their eyes to Sol, liberating it with the help of Cassidy Taggart, daughter of Moondust. Earth was then under the control of the New Australian Monarchy, a puppet nation of dictators put in place by the Empire. After a long war in Australia the Brotherhood finally liberated most of the continent; however, the Monarchy had one last hand to play. They rigged the Citadel, the Brotherhood's towering command facility, to overload its' quantum reactor. Despite the Brotherhood's best efforts in a coordinated assault on Sydney between the Geth, UNSC, and Brotherhood, the reactor eventually overloaded, levelling the city. With Earth finally theirs, the Brotherhood reinstated their claim over the Solar System, and the Empire eventually collapsed under its' own leaderless weight.

The Brotherhood continued to reorganize their forces in the Solar System, rebuilding their fleets, until they were warned by the leader of the then-Confederacy (now the Magnolia Republic) that a new force known as the Dominion sought to destroy Earth in their march for domination over humanity in the Milky Way. They believed Earth too important an asset to leave in one piece (literally) and had begun mobilizing a fleet to destroy it. Moondust, having returned from death by killing his postmortem imprisoners the Kahn Makyrs, directed the Brotherhood and Confederacy fleets to ally as he rushed to rally defenders from across the Milky Way to aid them in their plight. After a few months they returned to Earth just in time, and ultimately delivered the planet from destruction. In the aftermath of the war against the now-shattered Dominion the Brotherhood separated their now-massive space forces from their Earth force, calling the new force the United Extrasolar Alliance. The UEA began to re-establish security over the Milky Way, and the Brotherhood itself focused on continuing to repair Australia from the wake of the Empire's reign.

The final of the conflicts the Brotherhood faced was from a force known as the Aubergine, the mortal enemy of Jack Collins and the Magnolian Republic. The Aubergine invaded Earth directly, something even the Dominion failed to do with their attempted orbital strikes, and the Brotherhood rushed to respond, in the end trapping their invaders in the Great Victoria Desert, where they were systematically eradicated. This invasion prompted the Brotherhood to kick their arms development into overdrive, which helped in the coming of their final conflict; however, it proved insufficient.

## The Demonic Invasion and the foundation of the Corps

After the Aubergine's failure, humanity celebrated what it saw as another victory against supposedly insurmountable odds. The Brotherhood especially celebrated as they ran the last Aubergine survivors from the Great Victoria Desert, and began to rebuild New Sydney and other regions decimated by the Aubergine. About a week later, however, during a victory celebration being held in New Sydney, the Brotherhood identified a massive gravitational spike several hundred kilometers off Australia’s east coast. A seaplane was sent to investigate, and reported back that the disturbance came from a huge, several kilometer-wide ringed sphere, which seemed to be constructed from Darkness alloy. The sphere hovered over the ocean, and was more heavily armed then any singular defense platform on Earth, even outgunning the approximate combined might of an entire global superpower’s military. This sphere was known to humanity in the following weeks as the Song of Abolition, Harbinger and Harvester alike, but all the Brotherhood saw was a massive threat on their boarders, and dispatched their entire remaining fleet of 11 Venators to quietly neutralize the sphere. The ensuing battle was a catastrophe, resulting in the destruction of all but two Brotherhood ships. With a critical asset of their military crippled, Moondust called a global summit in New Sydney, which was cut short by the Song itself quite literally flying overhead. Approximately twenty minutes later, a massive Dark Energy blast rocked the center of Australia, sending the Brotherhood spiraling into chaos. From the massive crater in central Australia came what would in the following weeks become acknowledged as the first ground forces to assault Earth: the First Legion of Ruin. These powerful demons began to swarm Australia, and the Brotherhood’s first attempt to respond to these threats was met with overwhelming counter-force. With a little under a million men dead by this singular battle, the Brotherhood enacted Redsteel Contingency, a coordinated counter attack and evacuation plan. The UFRF’s Indian fleet arrived in the west a day after first contact with the Demons, and the Sydney Royal Fleet moved to the east. One-million Brotherhood soldiers were dispatched to assist in the unified human counter-offensive against the Song of Abolition in Siberia, and the rest either assisted in the containment is the Australia Exclusion Zone or civilian evacuation. Despite minor successes in Operation: Skyburn and the Battle of Zion Point, the Brotherhood was severely outmatched. The final battle took place in New Sydney, where the Brotherhood fleet had gathered alongside the last of the Brotherhood’s elite guard. Millions upon millions of demons swarmed the city, and the Brotherhood cut them down tens of thousands at a time. Ultimately, however, the last defenders of the city fell back to the Capitol Building, where the city’s Dark Energy Reactor was breached by a Demon attack. In a last ditch effort the Brotherhood attempted to completely deactivate the reactor’s singularity; however, an attack by Ruin’s elite lieutenants resulted in one of the singularity’s stabilization rods collapsing, forcing the singularity to overload and killing all biological life in the city. The Royal Fleet was luckily mostly unharmed, and escaped from the dead city to Brisbane. Here they rallied the last organized members of the Brotherhood military, which numbered roughly 3.1 Million. This surviving force departed the shores of Australia for the last time, and disappeared for two weeks.

Two weeks later, the Brotherhood’s fleet re-emerged, taking over the old British naval base on Bermuda Island. This island was used as a rally point from which the Brotherhood made their next move: the invasion of Maine. Most of the state was already in ruins at the time of their arrival, and the locals quickly decided to ally with the far-superior Brotherhood. From there, the Brotherhood continued on to their primary target, the other five states of New England. However, they would face opposition along the way.

Their primary competition was the still-shattered UFRF, which had broken down into individual regiments after the collapse of their central command in India. Most of the UFRF had already left the nation’s fold and traveled west to help rebuild the Pacific Frontier and would eventually form the North American Republic, but a select few military divisions remained in the East Coast, primarily the old 13 colonies. These UFRF divisions sought to retake their lands to the west no matter the cost, and used New England as their staging ground. These UFRF troops were openly hostile to the Brotherhood’s landings, launching raids against New Hampshire from the New York City Ruins, their base of operations after the Fall of Earth. The war ultimately lasted a little under a month, and ended with New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts falling into Brotherhood hands. New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland were given to the Brotherhood in addition by the NAR, who took the rest of the southeast.

After this conflict, which was named the New England War, the Brotherhood began to expand in growth, recovering from their losses and starting to rebuild the broken East Coast. They eventually allied with the Republic against the European Confederation, building Warmind Scipio and the Great Eastern Trench to aid in the war effort. Their current capitol is New Boston, and their main military epicenter is Washington D.C.

## Territories

The Corps has a strong hold on the six New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, with additional presence in the island of Bermuda, Washington D.C's ruins, and New York, which it gave away as an independent colony for survivors. It also has several garrisons stationed in Panama, which it more or less controls.

## Weaponry-Handheld

The brunt of the First Expeditionary Corps's weaponry comes in the form of old Brotherhood of Steel standard weapons, such as the MP7C5 submachine gun, USP Match pistol, and Khvostov 7G-15 assault rifle. However, they also incorporated UNSC weapons into their inventory after the recovery of a Halcyon-class light cruiser, the UNSC Alpine, which crashed in Maine during the Demonic Invasion. This included vehicles like the Warthog troop transport, Wasp recon VTOL, and weapons like the MA6A Assault Rifle, MK50 sidekick. Finally, they have most recently begun development of their own weapons, but in much more limited capacity.

## Power Armor types

Power Armor is the most common military assets among the Brotherhood, and come in wide varieties. Original Brotherhood power armor came in the form of the T-45 and Praetor-2, who were eventually adapted to the T-51, T-60, Praetor-III, and even a few limited sets of Mjolnir Gen-VI. Currently the brunt of the Brotherhood’s armor comes in the form of the T-60 combat armor, T-65 heavy assault armor, and T-72 “Iron Eagle” armor, which is the current and most widely manufactured permutation of Brotherhood armor in service. In addition there are several “Specialist” types of armor, such as T-70 Ultracite commandos, SEAWALL Type-1, and KERBEROS armor. All currently utilized forms of Brothethood combat armor is listed below.

T-51: T-51 armor, due to its’ older make and the more common presence of the generally superior T-60 armor, has largely been relegated to training armor for newer recruits. Nevertheless, it has been occasionally used in limited combat scenarios.

T-60: The most common current permutation of Brotherhood armor. Highly versatile and effective in combat, but more expensive than T-72 models. Quickly becoming obsolete.

T-65: One of the rarer models of power armor still in circulation, with only about 300 active sets. An incredibly strong and bulky set of armor, commonly used by the captains of security details at high-priority depots and resupply facilities.

T-70 Ultracite commando units: One of the rarest suits of power armor in the Brotherhood, easily surpassing even T-72 in quality. Constructed using the highly durable mineral known as Ultracite, which is only found in certain mines. Currently only 90 suits of Ultracite armor exists, and due to the armor’s high quality all of them have been relegated to guarding critical Brotherhood command centers.

T-72 “Iron Eagle” is the newest generation of Brotherhood power armor. Manufactured exclusively in New England, T-72 is a perfect balance between cost and durability. Highly modifiable at its’ core, T-72 is powered by Argent-based fusion cores, which are incredibly long-lasting (though not as long-lasting as Dark Energy) and far more common due to the influx of demons in the New England area. T-72 was created as a natural next evolution to the T-60 power armor generation, and is designed with adaptability to multiple harsh environments in mind. It is the basis of all other variations of T-72 armor.

SPECIALIZED UNITS

T-72 “SEAWALL” coastal operatives : Though little natural threats emerge from the post-war oceans, the Brotherhood would be the first line against an off-continent invasion. A version of T-72 was thus developed with coastal environments in mind.

T-72b Kerberos gen-II urban security troopers: Created as a more cost-effective version of the original KERBEROS elite armor. All KERBEROS gen. I armor was lost during the collapse of Australia, and Gen. II, though not with the reinforcements and Dark Energy shields of Gen. I, is still an effective CQC and civil enforcement armor, and is commonly used by troopers in urban environments.

T-72 “Leadbelcher” hazardous environments containment units: The post-war world is filled with anomalous materials which could prove potentially dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. Leadbelcher units are the first responders to hazardous environments situations.

T-72 “Trenchblazer” multipurpose assault units: The first boots on the ground during invasion and peacekeeping operations. Most Trenchblazer operations are redacted to the public.

T-72 “Frostbreaker” Especially designed for an elite recon force dispatched to survey anomalies in Antarctica, T-72 Frostbreaker armor is designed to withstand unbearably cold temperatures for days at a time.

## Brotherhood of Steel military divisions

Currently, the Brotherhood’s military forces encompass 5 individual corps: Ground, Naval, Air, Power Armor, and Special Operations. Ground encompasses all major ground and vehicular armor divisions, Naval incorporates all oceanic assets, Air includes the six major squadrons of New England, Power Armor incorporates all Power Armor-based units in the Brotherhood, and Special Operations includes all spec ops teams within the other four branches.

## Air, ground, and naval vehicles

The Brotherhood of Steel possesses six dedicated aerial squadrons, those being Ghostlight, Seaglass, Arkblade, Invincible, Soulfire, and Starfall squadrons.