- You Have Selected [KNIGHT DAVID JAMES]
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Member: Knight David James
Service Number: 100383464
Date of Birth: 02-11-2162
Date of Death: 10-18-2240
Place of Death: Lost Hills
Chapter: West Coast
Duty Stations: Lost Hills, LA Watchpost 002, Hub Watchpost 001
Noted Engagements: NA
Tech Recovered: NA
Archive Submission: Journal Entry
I'm an old man now, and I know I don't have much time left. Doc says the cancer will take me in a few days, but I need to let people know why I did what I did. So, I'm having my daughter write down my words since moving hurts so much. The Med-X dulls some of the pain and keeps me conscious enough to speak, but I know I am almost gone. Here's why I'm writing this.
Eleven years ago, I was an Elder of the Brotherhood. I had been an Elder for the last ten years before that event and happily served our cause in every way I could. Most of our attention was focused on the north during that period, but I was in charge of focusing our southern forces on places left behind in the NCR's expansion. Although most of southern California had been charted and picked clean, the radioactive lands between The Glow and Dayglow were largely left alone by the emerging California nation and scavengers. I had our southern forces focused on this region.
Since the Vault Dweller survived their trip to the Glow and defeated the Master, we had been too busy as an organization to investigate the area. Between the fall of the Master, the subsequent war against the remnants, and the eventual shift in our attention up north, I found records of more research installations worth looking into. That region was saturated with bombs largely due to the Chinese intel on the West-Tek facility, but that part of the old world held more than we knew.
I directly oversaw the scav team myself, which was unusual for an Elder to do, but I convinced the council to let me proceed. After heading south with my team for two weeks, we reached the zone that made the idea of getting out of our suits impossible. Three more days beyond that point and we found the Glow crater, but our mission was the sea of leveled factories and enormous research installations around it. There, the objective began.
The amount of tech we found in the depths and shelters beneath the leveled facilities was what equipped most of the Watchposts in the north. Over the course of eight weeks, we hauled up countless terminals, consoles, blueprints for everything under the sun, software chips, robotic units, power armor, and even prototype plasma and pulse weapons. The records I used didn't have facility names, and time had removed almost all trace of them, but I finally understood the reason for the bombs that leveled that part of southern California.
The whole operation would've made me "King" of the Brotherhood based on all the preserved tech we excavated if I hadn't found the one device under the remains of a collapsed skyscraper. After digging through the rubble, we pulled away enough to reveal a sealed door that I had Paladin Olin open with his decryptor key. Inside we found a sprawling research facility untouched by the bombs like all the others we'd excavated over the weeks. I immediately had the team get to work while I explored the place for historical documents.
As they got to work, I found myself opening a series of ancient hydraulic doors with signage saying, "MolDis Research." Unsure of what that meant, I investigated only to find myself in the heart of something sinister. I then followed the signage to an administrator office next to an open room labeled "Testing range" that appeared to have experienced a cave in. Atop the administrator's desk were folders and papers scattered about, and behind the desk was a skeleton with no skull and a laser pistol on the floor beside it. As I looked at the documents, I realized what I had found.
I don't remember everything that the documents said, I actually made a point to try and forget. But, I do remember the words that made me do what I did. The documents detailed an experimental device called a "Molecular Disintegrator." I can't remember if the name was for the project or the device itself, but the point was clear. The people who worked in this place had discovered a way to somehow subvert the "Law of conservation of mass." The device they created was able to completely destroy matter or move it... elsewhere? The documents showed that the device was tested, but the parameters were uncontrollable. The cave in at the range wasn't that, the researchers here disintegrated the wall into nothing; as in, removed from the planet.
When the war came, the team was sealed underground with no way out, and the team updated the device to have a chain reaction with the thing's target. When the administrator learned of the improvement, He sealed himself away with the device. After he did that, the team wanted to use it to try and escape from the facility. As they pounded on the door, the administrator engaged the turret security to kill everyone. When everyone was dead, he shut off the turrets, locked the external doors, and killed himself. Curious as to why the update made the thing so dangerous, I read the man's suicide note. I again don't remember all it said, but I do remember the point. Whatever was hit when the device was turned on would be removed from existence entirely. It wouldn't be turned into gas, solids, or liquids; it would be removed from the universe, or disfigure the molecular structure of the target to teleport somewhere else in an event similar to what a black hole does with light. Whatever was affected would give the same fate to everything around it no matter the elemental state, leading to the total dispersal of the planet.
The documents fascinated and horrified me in a way I wouldn't have expected. It was then that I looked up and saw the thing beside the door I entered and opposite the desk. I collected the documents, and approached the thing sitting on and plugged into a console. Though it looked something like one of those old pre-war projectors; if the documents and schematics were true, this was a real doomsday weapon to surpass the atom bomb. After unplugging it from the console, the team found me. They asked what it was that I had and I didn't answer, I simply left the bunker with the thing in hand. As I walked the halls out of the facility, and saw the team cataloging their prospective finds, I thought.
All I could think about was the thing in my hands and the documents in my pouch with utter shock. In those moments, I felt like I had a live atomic warhead strapped to my back despite its un-powered state, and every thought of handing it over to Lost Hills made me more and more scared for humanity. As the team went about their business, I don't know what came over me. I set the thing down, shot it with my laser rifle, stomped on it in my power armor, removed the documents, and burned them right then and there. The Paladins didn't say a word when they saw what I was doing, nor did they say anything when I ordered them to place demo charges in the entrance to the place. After sealing the facility from the world, we headed back to Lost Hills and I gave my report.
Since the Elders were reluctant to let me go on the mission, they personally interviewed all the Paladins involved in the Op. The scene came up, and I was questioned as to what I destroyed. I refused to answer them, or give the location of the place we leveled. I was ready to live with the consequences of abandoning my oath to preserve technology. I whole heartedly agree with our oaths even as I lay here dying, but since my Eldership was taken from me, I learned one thing that I pray the Brotherhood will understand in the future: Some technology should be destroyed, not preserved.
Legacy: Knight David James died on 10-18-2240, having suffered from radiation induced cancer. The entry submitted was given to the Lost Hills Legacy Archive on 03-07-2282 after a Mojave Chapter leadership struggle. David James had his Elder title removed after the events transcribed for destroying unknown technology. Though the event was looked on in shame for over 40 years afterwards, the release of this testimony created a change in the Brotherhood Codex. That change authorizes the destruction of any technology deemed too dangerous for humanity only if unanimously approved by the Lost Hills Elders. This Codex alteration has since allowed the East Coast Chapter's Elder Arthur Maxson to carry out his mission of annihilating "Synths" and "The Institute" [Considerations for posthumously reinstating Knight David James' Eldership currently underway – Head Scribe Wisner (LH)]
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*Based on the Elder Dismissal Incidents in Fallout New Vegas, and a way to tie in the Brotherhood's destruction of the Institute with the traditional values of the West Coast Brotherhood. Hope you all have enjoyed so far!*
