This is my fourth Fallout story. I'm going to make the setting a little more interesting by changing the setting dramatically. Such as the environment, the addition of new creatures, and bad guys and a different mentality than what you see in the regular fallouts. One familiar aspect that I'll be using is the Regulators.
I might get chewed out because it's not 'fallout' nature, but hear me out. It's still got the violent setting, and the many dangerous aspects such as Deathclaws, raiders, Talon company, Mole rats, and Feral Ghouls. Just giving it a different twist.
If any wishes to offer advice, I'll gladly take it.
The world is dead, but only if one sees it that way. There is no life, only if you live out on the coasts, surprisingly the further inland you get the more flora you'll see. Albeit some have mutated in this pine forest, they actually absorbed much of the radiation that littered the land.
Saskatchewan province was one of those exceptions. It had always been protected by it's fertile landscape. The annexation by the United States and the Nuclear Holocaust that followed were no exceptions.
While the larger cities like Vancouver, and Ottawa were annihilated by the most destructive forces known, the inner regions were spare. Though it became hard in the years of what was known as 'The endless winter' the pines had endured just as harsh winters before it, as did it's people.
Even after two centuries little had changed. Only the inhabitants did, and the indigenous creatures as well. Many had mutated by the water of the land, poisoning many more. Now large creatures known as Deathclaws, Yao Guai, animals that had escaped from Zoos south of the border, and even birds of prey had become more dangerous.
The two animals that also changed were the cattle, and the horses. The cattle was the most obvious as they had grown large, their utters even bigger, and had sprouted a second head. They were affectionately called 'Brahmin' but like normal cattle they had their uses. Uses of food, beasts of burden, and their milk.
The horses were more subtle, but more noticeable, such as they had grown to a dark shade of gray, their manes had grown white, and strangely had become all female. The surviving scientists determined that they had become asexual, giving birth without mates. Another trait was they could now run faster, harder, and be able to navigate all terrain with greater ease. Another noticeable trait is the heightened intelligence of the gray horses, going as far as some being smart enough to think.
One could only imagine the initial shock of the first people to experience a horse, that prior to the war, were among the least intelligent animals and then often found themselves conversing with the same animals.
Of course, this caused a little difficulty when the use of horses was needed. As they maintained their stallion-like independence, so an agreement was made between humans and horses. Humanity would tend to the wellbeing of the horses and they would allow humans to use them like they used their ancestors.
Perhaps it was just as intimidating to the horses as they realized they had become intelligent. To solve problems, give conversations, and even ridicule humans as being uncivilized, though this was to some of the more stubborn animals.
After two centuries, the gray ladies, as they had become known, were called into services of war once again. By both sides of a struggle that epitomizes good and evil. The evil doers, raiders, mercenaries, slavers, and wicked men, who strike out of the city once called Winnipeg, now notoriously addressed as the Peg.
Though it was not always like this, the Peg used to be a place of sanctuary, of comfort, safety. That was when the MacManus' showed up.
Born into a family a raiders, slavers, sadists, and psychopaths, these Irishmen from the south, showed up and began harassing, torturing, and outright killing without disregard, demanding absolute obedience.
Once they secured both the cities of Winnipeg, and Regina, their raiding parties reached as far as Hudson bay, down into Montana and the Dakotas. They killed, and enslaved dozens of people, all for profit, and entertainment.
The Peg and the one hundred square miles around it represent death, misery, pain, and oppression, and this carried on for years.
But there were those who resisted this reign of cruelty and malice. Men and women who answered the call to something greater than themselves. Few knew how they started, but they openly attacked those that use fear and pain to achieve what they wanted. They could be identified by the gray dusters they wore.
After a long siege they took control of Regina and began it's thriving industry once again. Hundreds flocked to the city and to repay them, offered their services to the 'Gray Paladins'. This ranged from cooking, lodging, the creation of weapons, the production of bullets, repair, medicine, research, and things as mundane as a 'thank you.'
These people are known by their unofficial title as Riders of the Pines.
But they were also known as the Regulators.
I decided to use a prologue like my dear friend AugustianFrog when he began the Duster series. Who is inspirational and brilliant in his writings, and whom I've had he pleasure of just knowing. Thanks man.