Riding the Bluff

by Disastrous Consequences

Fallout in the birthplace of the Blues, Memphis. The Outsider, a "new kid on the block," is the pivotal point in the upcoming battle at the Final Stand of the River. Will he be able to survive the harsh reality of the Bluff Wasteland?

1. Prologue

The year was 2077 when the bombs first fell across the world, devastating the surface of the planet. However, a lucky group of people were chosen by Vault-Tec to reside in underground bunkers known as Vaults for a duration while the surface became safer and less irradiated. Little did the residents of these Vaults know, they were the subjects of various social and scientific experiments, most of which ended in failure. However, a few ended in success. One such success was in Vault 187, a Vault entirely populated with higher-level thinkers.

At the head of the Vault of geniuses, the Enclave and Vault-Tec placed a newly-finished android project from RobCo, an android known as the ZEUS Super-Computing Android. For the 121 years the Vault remained closed, Zeus acted as the Overseer of the Vault, and when given the all-clear by the Enclave, Zeus was the one who led his group of geniuses to the surface.

Under Zeus's guidance, the Vault dwellers built a large fortress in the middle of the downtown area of the city of Memphis, where few gangs had settled. Over the next twenty years, as the Vault dwellers began to pass their legacy onto the children, the Fortification was finished and people began to move into the area. Noticing the increased population, Zeus commanded the building of a radio tower and a plasma cannon on the highest level of the Fortification, to spread the message of the Olympians—as the Vault dwellers and their children had become known by the citizens of the Bluff Wasteland—and to protect their stronghold.

However, the Olympians were not the only power that held influence over the region. Miles to the east, an old Naval base housed a fellowship whose mission it was to protect and preserve the technology of the Old Country known as the Brotherhood of Steel. These soldiers and colonists formed a peaceful society to protect the technology from the outsiders, yet they were envious of the strong energy weapons used at the Fortification, so they signed a peace treaty between the Olympians and the Brotherhood.

Using the Treaty of the Bluff as cover, the Olympians, under counsel of Zeus, started a war against the Enclave, who was neither expecting nor prepared for a war on this territory. Together with the Brotherhood of Steel, the Olympians dealt the Enclave a humiliating defeat at the Battle of the River, but Enclave soldiers never go quietly. After the Enclave influence in the region had diminished to its absolute lowest, a few soldiers disbanded and formed a group that claimed to have the mission of "establishing a new Order in the Wasteland, separate from the mentalities of the Old Country," under the name of the Revolutionists.

Unable to stop the Revolutionists from razing their colonies to the ground, the Olympians fled into their fortification, Zeus advising the Brotherhood to wall in their fortress as well. The Revolutionists established their own colonies along the outside of the Fortification so as to keep the Olympians in check while also spreading their message of the New Order across the Wasteland.

As the Revolutionists kept the Olympians "in check," Zeus prepared for a final stand to eliminate the Revolutionists from his territory, arming a weapon much more powerful then the deadly plasma cannon mounted on the roof of the Fortification.