Elijah

**Elijah** is the Elder of the Mojave Chapter in 2275.

## Background

A scribe of the Brotherhood of Steel, Elijah defied convention and rose to the rank of elder, an honor usually reserved exclusively for paladins. An exception was granted for him, on the grounds of him being a genius, able to figure out the workings of a device just by looking at it. His scientific acumen was matched only by his drive to recover and develop technology. His approach towards technology, iterating and improving, rather than simply preserving it, was considered unorthodox by his peers. Elijah often dispatched scribes on tech retrieval missions, chasing all the leads he found. His drive to develop new technologies put him at odds with the more conservative members of the Brotherhood, particularly other elders. The conflict developed as Elijah pushed for developing new technologies and new, ethically questionable weapons. The elders, rather than deal with him, decided to send him away, east, to form a new chapter of the Brotherhood in the Mojave.

## Appearances

Elijah appears only in the *Hearts of Iron IV* mod *Old World Blues*.

## Gallery

Elijah's 3.0 portraitElijah's 4.0.0-4.0.1 portrait
## Behind the scenes

* Elijah is based on the character of the same name mentioned in *Fallout: New Vegas* and depicted in the add-on *Dead Money*.
* Zusk wrote Elijah, wishing to present his character as faithfully as possible within his focus tree. This also led to the inclusion of the Think Tank as a faction. Zusk also created the original animated Elijah portrait by hand.
	+ Zusk wished to present an fanon alternate history route in which Elijah succeeded in defeating the NCR at HELIOS One, with Elijah undertaking the same missions he did in the *Fallout: New Vegas* add-ons *Dead Money* and *Old World Blues*, but with the support of the Brotherhood and his sanity intact, rather than alone and borderline insane.
* Elijah's 4.0 portrait was originally commissioned in 2017, as part of a large order of portrait commissions for the mod. However, the portrait was never used and forgotten about until its rediscovery by a junior developer on the developer Discord in 2022, leading to its inclusion in the 4.0 patch.

## References

1. ↑ **What was with the decision to allow the Big Tank to exist as a nation**
Zusk: *"Pretty much me wanting to reflect Elijah as a character faithfully in MOJ's focus tree. To do that, you really need the Think Tank."*
- Obtained from Discord, 6/16/2020
2. ↑ Zusk: *"Admittedly we used a different process for the new animated portrait. I did the original animated elijah portrait by hand, having the scanlines in different layers to not make it too obvious
while the new one we just used a website due to time constraints
( It takes me like 10 hours to do a animated portrait the way I do, worth it tho )"*
- Obtained from Discord, 6/2/2022
3. ↑ Zusk: *"If Elijah wins at Helios, he takes on a bit of a fanon route in his tree where he does the things he does in OWB and Dead Money, but with* the support of the brotherhood behind him *rather then just
going in by himself"*
- Obtained from Discord, 6/16/2020
4. ↑ Zusk: *"Part of the fun with me with Elijah's character is that he gets to touch on, in many ways the peaks of NV - as well as, by this point probably the peaks of the entire franchise in Dead Money and Old World Blues.
> `It would be cool to see his decent into madness via events`
>
>

This is kind of a tricky thing. Really, the* Elijah *we see in OWB will be a bit of a different character. He had some signs of his growing sickness before the loss at Helios - but the loss at Helios was really what pushed him down that path. After he wins at Helios he will be getting something he hasn't ever really received in wide-spread fashion..* Support*, since the paladins with him* trust him *after winning at Helios.

Naturally this shift will influence the tree itself in ways - some events had to be tweaked a bit and some new,* fun *secrets had to be put in to fill in the missing pieces left by the change in character - but I am sure people will like it."*
- Obtained from Discord, 6/17/2020
5. ↑ Zusk: *"So, funny story with the elijah portrait
back in **2017**
we had a ton of portraits comissioned
thats when loony got the usual portraits
the caesar one, the lanius one, the graham one
alongside those
he also got this!
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/981848923436101684/981857756694847488/unknown.png?width=1308&height=1358
Turns out
we just.. forgot about it?
like five years later
a junior dev was doing archeology in our 100,000+ post history dev discord
and found that old portrait
and we figured we would put it in!"*
- Obtained from Discord, 6/2/2022