Hello! I'd just like to ask, because I'm wondering, whether any readers prefer the Courier and the NVM, who seem to be a grittier, crueller army, though they fight for equality and have realistic goals, or the Lone Wanderer and the Brotherhood of Steel, who are kind to the point of naivety, and have slightly supremacist attitudes. Also, thanks for reading.

The Courier sat in his command chair in the World Eater. Two Chinese Technicians worked in front of him, on the large console where the aiming of the missiles was done. They were attempting to jury-rig a hard-drive like the one the Lone Wanderer had taken. The Courier had been sitting there for hours, helping whenever he could. The Courier finished off his drink, a Nuka and Rum, and sighed. Suddenly, the console lit up momentarily, before shutting down, leaving only a small part of the console lit. The Courier jumped up, smiling.

"Did we do it?"

"We fixed the aiming mechanism for one of the missiles, but only one, thanks to the research the brains you talked about sent from the Big Mountain. It's a smaller missile, sadly, but it should be enough."

"Really? That's perfect. Call a war council, we need to pick a target to fire it at."

OOO

The Courier, Boone, Arcade Gannon, the Gary Leader, Captain Peterson, Romero, Captain Russo, Mr House in a Securitron and Anna sat around a large table with a map of New York sprawled across it.

"We should hit Vault 101." Mr House said. "We'll demoralize the Brotherhood, and anyone with friends or family in Vault 101 will leave to provide aid. We'll have a great moral victory, and they'll retreat."

"Vault 101's full of kids and non-combatants. I'm not going to send a missile in there. Plus, it'll destroy any chance of negotiations, which can still end the war if we force the paladins back." The Courier said.

"We should hit the Brotherhood headquarters. Kill all their leaders, and they'll lose the advantage. Without leaders, any army falls." Captain Russo said.

"The majority of the paladins are at their forward base in the forward subway. If we hit the main headquarters, we lose the chance to negotiate like before, and they'll still have an army of fanatics, who'll fight." Boone said. "If we hit the forward base we'll get the advantage in battle, and the chance to negotiate."

The Courier smiled.

"That's a good point. We'll hit the forward base. Winter's just starting, so we'll kill a bunch of soldiers and leave the rest to freeze to death. It's a cruel tactic, but I'd rather have a thousand paladins die than lose one of my men."

"Then that's what we'll do, commander. I will fire the missile as soon as possible."

"Perfect. With winter coming in, and the radiation that will spread through because of the strike, we should end our war-mongering and go on the defensive. The radiation shouldn't come near any of the towns and there's little enough so that most will be gone by spring, except at the remains of the forward base. We'll manage our own territories, and when spring comes around we'll be ready to continue fighting, while the Brotherhood will have frozen, starved or killed each other. We'll come out in the spring ready to kill, they'll come out in the spring ready to die."

OOO

A pair of paladins crouched in cover in the deep snow during the first snowfall, avoiding grenade fire a Securitron on a barricaded apartment balcony. One of the paladins was Tex Hunter, a robotics mechanic fort the Brotherhood, who repaired equipment, while the other was Terry O'Donnell, a dealer in the Brotherhood who smuggled in anything from chems to cigarettes to booze to gum to sugar bombs. Still, Sarah Lyons didn't stop him because he was a massive boost to morale. A grenade landed next to Terry, who rolled to the side. The grenade shrapnel tore through his armour and cut into his flesh. Terry fell into a small crater from another grenade, and hurriedly went through his pack and found a syringe of Med-X, which he stabbed into a patch of flesh where his armour was gone. Tex aimed his laser minigun and fired, smashing through the barricade, revealing the Securitron as it fired a missile. Terry was knocked into a concrete wall, cracking open his helmet. Terry coughed blood into his helmet. Tex drew a satchel of plasma grenades and chucked them onto the balcony after pulling all the pins. The balcony exploded and fell, engulfing the floor below them with wreckage and the twisted hull of a broken Securitron. Tex went over to Terry, who pointed weakly to the sky.

"I'll be find. What the hell is that?"

Tex turned and looked up, and saw a large object moving through the sky, like a meteor.

"It's heading towards the forward base. What the hell is…"

The object fell quickly, crashing into the forward base. There was a massive explosion as a mushroom cloud appeared.

"Jesus! We need to get back to base. That was a NVM Nuclear Strike from the submarine. I thought that couldn't fire. I thought…"

"Just help me up. We'll find out what happened. Let's get back to base."

He helped him get up, and they started trudging through the snow to get back to base.

OOO

The Lone Wanderer sat in the back of a Vertibird, looking over the wreckage.

"That's a badly irradiated zone. I want your power armour sealed and Rad-X taken. There's a modified spot in the helmet to keep spare Rad-X. We need to get out anyone that might have survived the assault. Paladin White and his men could still be alive." Sarah Lyons said.

"The NVM "could" surrender tomorrow, but it ain't happening." A Paladin whispered.

"Do you have something to say, McElroy?"

"No, Commander."

"Then let's move."

Two ropes dropped from the Vertibird, and the team of eight men, including Sarah and the Lone Wanderer grabbed the rope and slid down to the ground. The Lone Wanderer looked around. There nearby buildings had been reduced to rubble, but that was to be expected. The entire area was a crater, but the paladins were clearing away some rubble that led to the safer areas down in the metros, that weren't damaged to badly, though the wind sweeping through the tunnels insured there would be a lot of radiation down there, as well as dust blocking the view. The Forward Base had been located in the metros beneath. The Lone Wanderer walked slowly down the massive crater that led into the metro. He walked down the metro until he reached an area out of the reach of the nuclear strike's explosion. The radiation had spread through the tunnel quickly, and the air was badly clogged with dust. The Lone Wanderer walked up to a large metal gate with four large turrets next to it, but the missile strike had fired enough shrapnel through the tunnel to break the gate and smash the turrets to bits. Inside the fort, the group split up and began searching any survivors. The Lone Wanderer checked inside a subway train filled with beds, which were nearly all empty except two, which contained brothers of steel in their underwear. The Lone Wanderer went over to them, but they were both dead from radiation poisoning. The Lone Wanderer heard a loud bang, and turned. He found a large metal door, which he opened. Standing in front of him was a large paladin in full armour.

"We got a live one! Are you OK?"

Suddenly, the paladin ran straight at him. The Lone Wanderer rolled aside, and the paladin turned and kept running at him. The Lone Wanderer raised his rifle and yelled a warning.

"Stay back! I don't want to fire!"

The paladin continued sprinting, and the Lone Wanderer fired several shots, blowing a hole through the paladin's chest. The Paladin fell, and the Lone Wanderer pulled off his helmet to talk to him. He was met with the rotting face of a ghoul, with flesh and skin piled up around the bottom of the helmet.

"He… It's feral."

The Lone Wanderer pulled out his pistol and placed the barrel against the ghoul's head and pulled the trigger. He pulled off the tags, and turned to check out the rest of what was behind the metal door. He walked through, and down a hallway into a maintenance area that was pitch black. He passed three dead, ghoulified paladins, and briefly wondered how they died if they survived the radiation. He turned on his pip-boy light, illuminating the room.

"Raise your hands above your head, and turn around."

He looked up, and was faced with the barrel of an incinerator. He raised his line and vision, and was met with the smoking face of a ghoul, surrounded by three other ghouls, all in power armour..

"Who sent you?" The Smoking ghoul asked.

"I sent me. I'm the head of the Brotherhood here."

"I know you! You're the commander from Washington, the Lone Wanderer! Don't you recognize my handsome face? It's White. Paladin White. These are the only guys left from the boys stationed here."

The Ghoul gave a raspy laugh.

"So, are you our knight in rusty armour? Here to save our asses?"

"We need to go. I won't survive much longer in this environment. I can already feel the radiation poisoning."

"You get out. We can take our damn time. Then again, I'd rather not waste my time here. Let's go."

OOO

Sarah Lyons, the Lone Wanderer and Elder Lyons were back in the Brotherhood of Steel base, trying to figure out what to do. Elder Lyons had made the Vertibird trip down to discuss the recent attack.

"To be frank, we're screwed. We lost a hell of a lot of men in that strike, and we had a mutiny today. That girl from New Vegas, Santangelo, deserted with a squad. She headed off towards the NVM turf." Sarah said.

"I thought she hated the Courier. What the hell happened?" The Lone Wanderer asked.

"She does. She went off with the three ghoulified paladins and two other men who hate the Courier to try assassinate him. Only Paladin White stayed."

"So we have to deal with the NVM, mutinies and nuclear strikes." Elder Lyons said. "Maybe we need to pull out of New York."

"No. I'm not going to let us do that. The Courier can't be allowed to take over."

"Winter's coming in. Everyone outside is going to freeze to death, so we're going to have to withdraw as many men as possible from engagements and get underground, away from the cold. The radiation's going to spread through the desolate border between us, meaning the fight's going to be limited to the Uptown Height's Security Bots, Ghouls, Super-Mutants, Securitrons and the few paladins who we can equip with Rad-X without exhausting our supplies. If you want us to stay here we'll do it, but I need to know: Are you sure?"

"Yes. We can do this."

"OK. I'll trust you on this. Don't disappoint me."