Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel

Flag of the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel

The Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel is the dominant faction in the post-war Midwest. While it's army is semi-mechanised, and the Brotherhood makes extensive use of vehicles both in combat and non-combat roles, it's overwelming firepower and technological superiority is often used to defend it's land from constant attacks, stunting the Brotherhood's expansion.

## **History**

### **Rise to Power**

Sometime prior to 2198, an air-convoy comprising of multiple airships and an assortment of other aircraft was entirely wiped out. The main airship, barely-functional, was crash-landed near the outskirts of Chicago, where the survivors were forced to persist in hostile territory far from their brothers in the west. They founded a new chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel, headquartered in Bunker Alpha, from where they slowly began to spread.

Initially, their rise to power began through mutual cooperation with nearby villages and tribes. The advanced technology, medical techniques and fighting prowess of the Brotherhood allowed them to protect and serve many communities who soon fell under their influence, and eventually, became a part of the Brotherhood itself. Outside recruits were welcomed, and it became tradition for tribes and towns to send many of their children to the Brotherhood upon reaching the age of thirteen. Their own liberalised beliefs and the inclusion of outsiders into their ranks caused the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel to cast down the traditional Brotherhood technological hoarder values and adopt more communal, open ideals.

Beginning in 2196, bands of raiders, tribes and general survivors fleeing the wrath of the Calculator's scouts began to encroach on Brotherhood territory, and the territory of those who fell under the Brotherhood's sphere. An extensive campaign to eradicate the threat was conducted alongside a second campaign to secure key areas south of the Midwestern Brotherhood's primary area of control. This brought much of the southern and southwestern Midwest under the Brotherhood's control fairly quickly, but also brought them into contention with other groups.

### **Gammorin and the Calculator**

The Brotherhood's expansion came to a grinding halt when they first faced the forces of Gammorin, a super-mutant army led by former-paladin Latham, an original survivor of the air-convoy's destruction. Low morale plagued the Brotherhood's forces, and Latham, familiar with their tactics, was able to counter their every move. At St. Louis, six out of eight detatchments deployed by the Brotherhood were wiped out, and captured General Simon Barnaky. Subsequent mutant assaults were bogged down, however, with the succesful defense of Kansas City. An elite squad headed by the one known as 'The Warrior' was deployed to Osceolla, where former Paladian Latham was assassinated, causing his army to rout. A number of mutants subsequently joined the Brotherhood of Steel.

After the destruction of Gammorin, the Brotherhood continued it's push west, only to encounter the cause of their earlier troubles - the Calculator. Still in the dark about the true nature of the Calculator's army, the Brotherhood was forced to push onwards in the hopes of discovering more. An expedition to Junction City saw Brotherhood technicians to recover information from a captured robot pertaining to it's source, Great Bend. Brotherhood forces assaulted the city, destroying the limited robot garrison and extensively trapping the city's industrial sector to deny the Calculator the chance to recapture it. After a brief internal conflict, the Midwestern Brotherhood received pleas from the Reavers for assistance, who claimed that the Calculator's forces were unstoppable. Spurred on by the promise of receiving believed-to-be-lost knowledge from the Reavers, the Brotherhood rescued their surviving forces from their last stronghold at Newton.

Open war had begun, with the Calculator and the Brotherhood openly engaging eachother in several across-the-board engagements. The Calculator's forces were superior in numbers and strength, forcing the Brotherhood to rely on unconventional tactics and careful planning to hold off the robotic tide. Brotherhood agents destroyed several robot repair facilities at Canyon City, providing them with the momentary burst of weakness within their enemy's army that they needed. In a follow-up attack, the primary power source for the robot army, a nuclear power plant, was decisively destroyed by Brotherhood forces, further weakening the Calculator's army. Now only able to rely on the generators at Vault 0 for power, the robot army's advance was slowed significantly. Even with these decisive blows the Calculator's army remained inherently superior to the Brotherhood's, and the war was still tipping in the Calculator's favour.

A desperate final-effort assault was launched on Cheyenne Mountain and Vault 0 by the Brotherhood of Steel. After defeating the Calculator's garrison, a nuclear warhead was used to breach Vault 0's blast door, allowing for a direct attack on the heart of the robot army. Elsewhere, the Calculator had restarted his offensive and was besieging Bunker Epsilon; the situation had become desperate for both sides. Eventually, the Warrior and his forces reached the Calculator, destroying him and deactivating his army. Vault 0 self-destructed soon after, and the Brotherhood came out of the war victorious.

### **Constant Warfare**

For almost a century afterwards, the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel endured constant warfare that stunted their once-rapid growth. Their next major war came in 2230, with the Niagara War, in which the Brotherhood decisively defeated the forces of the Front for Canadian Freedom who had invaded the Buffalo area, and scorched much of their controlled territory. Things escalated when in 2276 the Legion began to properly move into Colorado. They waged an extensive campaign within the city of Denver and against neighbouring settlements, pushing out or destorying the remnants of the Midwestern Brotherhood in the area, causing them to lose their last foothold in Colorado. By 2287, the Midwestern Brotherhood has entered a period of momentary respite wherein it has prepared the deployment of an army to the Buffalo Wasteland in order to defeat the Enclave and reunite with the lost Buffalo Chapter.

## **Diplomacy**

### **Brotherhood of Steel**

#### **Eastern Chapter**

During the reign of Elder Lyons, the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel considered the Eastern Brotherhood to be a model form of Brotherhood, and both were on good terms. However, since the ascension of Elder Maxson, a general falling-out in relations has occured, with the Eastern Brotherhood now favouring it's ties to the original chapters in the west. There is a distinct ideological rift between the two.

#### **Western Chapters**

The Western Chapters of the Brotherhood of Steel typically follow the more traditional beliefs held by the original, founding groups of the Brotherhood in California. In previous years, a schism existed between the West and East, with the Midwestern Brotherhood and Lyons' Brotherhood being at odds ideologically with the Western Chapters. The rise of Elder Maxson has changed this, and the Midwestern Brotherhood has returned to being what it was originally; a pariah organisation of the Brotherhood of Steel.

### **Caesar's Legion**

The Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel and Caesar's Legion exist in a perpetual state of hostility, however neither side wants to commit a large amount of resources to an outright war with the other. The Brotherhood is unable to fight a protracted war in Legion territory, and the Legion is unable to push into the Midwest. Travelers often pass to and from the Midwestern Brotherhood and Legion, and many traders in Colorado hold both Brotherhood and Legion citizenships.

### **Enclave**

##### **Buffalo**

The Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel considers the Buffalo Enclave a severe threat, and has gone so far as to deploy an entire army to snuph out the Enclave in Buffalo.

##### **Chicago**

For many decades, an informal truce has existed between the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel and the less-radical Chicago Enclave. The city itself is generally deemed untamable, and the well-dug-in Enclave responds with extreme violence to Brotherhood attempts to conquer the inner city. As the Brotherhood has controlled the pre-war industrial district of Chicago for almost a century, pushing further into the city is not a major priority for them, and so confrontations with the Enclave are extremely rare, and always accidental.