Interlude 1

100 VIEWS (SORT OF?) SPECIAL!

Location: Shady Sands, New California Republic

Faction: New California Republic

I was searching looking through some papers I had recently gotten about trade reports for the Hub when I heard a knock on my office door. "Come in." I said, giving the person permission to enter. The door opened, showing Chief of staff Moore entering the room with a smile.

"Good evening Mr. President, I just got the reports from up north, and they're looking good." She started, pride evident on her face. "Most of Oregon has been colonized, with final treaties being ratified in Portland and Torient Hills, although we needed to have an 'argument' with a couple of the settlements" a smirk quickly appearing on her face before disappearing as she continues "meanwhile, our scouts sent to Washington bring quite interesting news. They say that while the east is filled with slavers and other factions, there is both very fertile land and some intact infrastructure, with little radiation. Meanwhile, few of our scouts returned from the west, and they brought surprising news. Apparently, there is a brotherhood chapter there, fighting what our scouts think are the Enclave."

This news was good. If we advance after a few months, we should be able to not only secure very important land and resources, but also finish off some of the republic's oldest enemies. 'If only we went found this before Vegas' I thought, slightly grim.

After we had won the second battle of Hoover dam, the fabled 'Courier' had pushed us out, using a variety of allies he had gained. These apparently included a small brotherhood chapter, a securitron army, almost all of the settlements in the area, and even defectors! Although most of these were former desert rangers and were too shocking, some conscripts and even a few officers and 1st recon had left. I had been lucky enough to pin the blame on Oliver, letting me keep my spot as president and gave me a chance to win the election soon after.

Since then, he had turned the Mojave wasteland into the New Vegas nation. Since the battle, relations had somewhat cooled, with trade between the 2 nations happening at a small scale, not including the Gun runners, which had set up numerous shops and manufactories in the nation to avoid taxes.

Returning to the present, I address Moore "I want you to prepare an expedition to Washington to happen within the next two months. Have General Hsu go for eastern Washington while you take the west. I'm tasking the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 8th Infantry divisions to your mission, along with the 2nd Mechanized division and the heavy infantry corps. Meanwhile, Hsu will take the 4th and 9th Infantry and 1st Mechanised divisions. The rest of the organizing and 'how' you will do your tasks is up to you, although I expect not to hear of you taking every settlement you see, got it?" I finished, giving her a glare.

"Yes sir!" She quickly said, proceeding to leave the room. I shake my head and return to my paperwork, signing them off with 'yes' or 'no' or occasionally signed with my name, Aaron Kimball.

Location: Cascade mountains, project WARF bunker

Faction: Enclave

"Alright men, let's get this meeting started." The call sounded throughout the bunker, silencing all the discussions happening between the various commanders, project leads, and leaders. While usually these meetings would be extremely boring, they've been getting more interesting lately as challenges and new objectives have been given.

"Okay, project heads, give your reports." said President Winter. There were about a dozen of these people, each supervising and leading a different area of science, engineering, etc. The only exceptions were ones assigned to a special project, which was often a new or pre-war artifact. Each of these people gave their reports. To cut it short, most of them were reporting normal standards, with the only exceptions being the head mechanist saying that his team have developed a new engine for the vertibirds, and the head of project skyrise saying that the project

itself was about 86 % complete, with the completion date being about 6 months away.

After these reports were given, Winter asked for the field reports, which was my cue to stand up and address everyone. "Well so far we seem be doing okay on most fronts. Our scouts have once again confirmed that no large factions have appeared east of the Cascades except for the Tri-Cities, Spokania, and New Coulee, but the Tri's are too focused competing against each other to organize to effectively fight us, and those slavers in Spokania are too scared of us or pre-occupied to go against us. The only one that could fight us is New Coulee, but they alone couldn't hope to defeat us. The scouts have also confirmed that all unsecured assets in the area are still within usable capacity, whether they're just abandoned, slightly damaged, or being used by their current controllers."

I paused to look around the room. Everyone was caught in the moment, eagerly listening to what I have to report. So smugly and with a bit of pride, I continue.

"In the North, our ally is gaining strength, absorbing or killing off any settlements they find." Few people actually knew who our allies really were, and the president and I intended to keep it that way for now. "Our plan will come to fruit soon, and we'll have more men and supplies than ever before. As for the south, the NCR is consolidating control in Oregon, and it won't be long before they cross over the Columbia river and advance into Washington. However, they'll likely be too bogged down by slavers, settlements, and the brotherhood before they reach us, and when they do, we'll be ready with our allies."

"Now finally for our western report, the brotherhood has been making some ground in Seattle, but it's small compared to what we do hold. Meanwhile, our expeditions into the Hoh rainforest have been continually going missing, so we've had to pull out from there. Besides these reports and continuing sabotage by the 'overwatcher', we're doing pretty good." I finished up, letting everyone taking it in. After a few moments of silence, the president said "Good job Commander Greg, why don't you get yourself a cup of coffee." I nodded and exited the room, leaving the others behind to tell the specifics of my reports and anything else they had. 'Coffee, here I come!' I thought with a smirk.

Location: ?

Faction: ?

I sighed as I leaned back in the chair, watching all of the groups of the wasteland continue on with their lives, whether it be bartering, scavenging, talking, travelling, tinkering, or fighting. I look down from the various screens to look at the reports I had gotten. I had lost 2 eyebots to Spokania slavers and another to the Enclave this month alone. Although it's true that I had a large amount of them, and I've been able to hack a few more from the Enclave, there's not an infinite amount.

I looked back on my childhood then. I had originally been from the Capital Wasteland, where I was living a happy life 'well, as happy as life could get in a hostile, radioactive wasteland' I thought. I and my two friends, James and Jessica Porce, were planning to become radio broadcasters like DJ Three Dog. I had also taken an interest in technology, learning about it from a former brotherhood scribe who lived in Rivet City and a lady named Moira in Megaton.

However, when the Enclave arrived, we were one of the first settlements they attacked. Out of the couple hundred or so of settlers that live there, only about 38 escaped, including me and my friends. We had hidden out in Rivet until the Enclave war ended, and from there split up. Some people stayed in Rivet or other Capital settlements, while others went north to the Commonwealth. I was in a group of seven with my friends and a couple of others, including my scribe friend, Oreon, travelled toward the west coast, looking for a whole new start. As a thanks to Moira for her teaching me, I had brought with several of her 'Survival Wasteland Guides' to give to people.

We had encountered few people or problems for most of the journey, managing to stay clear of raiders as well as scattered tribes from what people called Caesar's remnants. The real problem was deciding on the final destination. In the end we had split up, with Oregon, James, Jessica, and I heading to the Washington wasteland while the other three went to New Vegas.

After another month or so we finally reached Washington. We had settled down in an old house while we talked about what we wanted to do. We had discovered that besides a few very local radio stations, there were none in Washington. In the end, we decided that Jessica's radio station would cover western Washington while James's would cover eastern Washington. I decided to do a national news station, covering major events and developments in both regions. Oreon would help me maintain this large station.

A few months later, we had found an old military bunker. After a bit of repairing and searching, we had repaired it's radio broadcaster and brought the bunker's numerous eyebots and camera feeds online. We decided that this would be my station, since it's broadcast could reach the entire Washington wasteland and it was close to the border between the two separate areas of Washington. We soon split up, with James and Jessica each taking some of the eyebots to help with there own information gathering.

By the end of the year, all of us had set up our own stations and were broadcasting, already gaining popularity. We occasionally work on a shared report or I help exchange messages between the two siblings, but for the most part, we work alone. Of course, I had Oreon to help me for the first couple years before he died to cancer, but now the only help I have are the A.I and robotic systems in the bunker.

I was just preparing to go to the studio room when I took a look at one of the screens. It showed the recent vault dwellers, and apparently they were heading to Republic. Once I had sawn that slavers had been near vault 24, I had sent a couple of eyebots to keep an eye on them. I was glad I did, because the Vault dwellers escaping from them and hostile vault guards really surprised me. Since then I had been watching them make their journey. I didn't know why, but I felt like this group was special and could make a huge impact on the wasteland. The fact that they were well organized, did things very well, and were vault dwellers added to this feeling.

"Well either way, I'm definitely keeping an eye on them, and maybe out for them too." I said to myself, leaving the surveillance room, walking toward the radio studio.

I would like to say thank you for 100 views and for supporting the story! I can't believe I made it this far already, so once again, thank you. I would had done discussions from other groups like the brotherhood of steel, the Tri-cities and the slavers in Spokania, but it was getting late, and I had to cut them. I also have some good and bad news. The good news is that the next special, which will be at 500 views, will be a Q&A. How it will work is that you can send a review to me, labelled clearly for the Q&A. I will be answering questions about me, the story, and any future in my time in fanfiction. Note that I will not answer questions that are too personal, involve serious spoilers for the story, or anything else that is inapropriate or that I say is not worthy of being answered. Now the bad news is that I'm going to be limiting the number of chapters I post. It will be likely down to one or two chapters per week until summer. Also expect there to be times where there are no chapters due to finals testing in school or something else equally occupying. Thank you, and remember! Stay Determined! (yes, that's going to be my new ending quote :D)