A:N/ Hey readers!
This has been a while coming, a complete remaster of a five year old Fallout Roleplay thread, made novelization. With the permission of the contributers involved, I have managed to recreate this great story in a digestable way.
This story was comprised by several people...
The Retroriffic Man: Project lead, concept designer. Wrote the characters of William Van De Poorter, Mother Chao-Xing, Ania Ray, Governor and numerous others. (Due to him heading the project, he wrote most of the background characters, such as town guards and shopkeeps and Raiders.)
SkyrimsShillelagh: Writer of Rook
Eilonwyn: Writer of Morgan
Psychomantis108 (me): Writer of Garry Sans, Heather Masse and Thomas Hamilton.
Crystalman1304: Writer of Gabriel and Whiskers
Characters who didn't contribute to the plot, didn't finish their plots or have authors that I'm not longer able to contact have had their contributions removed in this remaster.
Before we begin, I'd like to add a bit of a caviot to this part, it's important as it will save a few angry comments.
1. This story was written before Fallout 4 came out, in early 2015. The very last chapter was written after Fallout 4 came out but most of this was written between March of 2015 and October of 2015. This means that our understanding of The Commonwealth, Synths and most other elements from Fallout 4 were limited to what we were told in Fallout 3. Most of us tackled the gaps left behind with our own ideas, based on movies like Blade Runner, Terminator and Alien (among other things).
2. This project was written by English, Scottish, European and American writers. This means that there maybe some inconsistencies in spelling and grammar rules and, due to some authors having English as a second language, some things may not be very traditional in structure. This is a rare occurance and I've done my best to iron out mistakes but there's hundreds of thousands of words in this project, overall and even a professional proof reader would have a hard time rooting them all out. As I said, I've done my best with it but don't be too surprised if the odd one shows up... Please feel free to report errors, should you find them and I'll try to fix them.
3. All featured content has been agreed uppon, by all parties involved. I asked everyone in our discord, who worked on this and received unanimous agreement to this remaster project going ahead.
So please enjoy our months of work, new comers and I hope the original authors enjoy rereading this old gem. :)
For any of you, who dropped by, thanks to each and every one of you for making this great piece of work a reality. 3/
"Ah... New York City..., "The Big Apple", "The Empire Wasteland"...
This shining star on the East-Coast goes by many names. I am Maxwell Flower, your DJ and you are listening to Atomic Radio Central! That's your 'Ark' of Salvation in this dreary post apocalyptic shithole. hah, Excluding Broadway Of course...
The city in the city.
Anyways I'm just here to remind you I'll be discjocking 24 hours each day now! Ain't that swell, huh? And also to remind you to stay clear of Central Park and it's Flesh Eating Mega Plants... That is all for now, but please... Do stay tuned in."
War never changes, it almost goes without saying by now. Not much is left of the human race after it chose to eradicate itself with atomic fire on that fateful October day in 2077. The end, many thought, had come. But it appeared to be no more than a clean slate. For what that's worth... Out of the rubble A once mighty society rebuild, in many shapes and forms. Old and new ideas resurfaced,
But war... War never changes
This story is about a dozen Wanderers in the Empire Wasteland. A Northern frontier of these once mighty United States of America. And although you might think of it as cold, because of the certain "Hot Summer" from days past, the climate, even in winter is warm and sunny.
'Fresh Grove', a village on the outskirts of Central Park that enjoys clean water, and own-grown fresh food... Along with plenty of raids because of that.
'The People's Republic of Chinatown' on the southside is a communist fortress of Red Chinese sympathizers, convinced that one day, their comrades will liberate them.
'Broadway & Timesquare' are now the center of town, really. Enjoying working electricity, think of it as a smaller New Vegas, filled with theater and casino joints. If you're looking for vice and leisure, you've come to the right place.
'Governor' based on Governor Island is a settlement with a clinic, a research center owned by a mysterious doctor who rarely leaves the island... Then again, most people who go there never come back.
And finally 'Filburg' is a small settlement where Caravan Traders can store and trade wares.
"Goooooood Mornin' Empire Wasteland! Here's me Maxy Flower from A.R.C... Wishing you an especially good day:"
Maxwell Flower leaned back behind the giant dashboard of his broadcaster. He didn't know what most of the dials did because he had never bothered to figure out. And at this stage, he didn't even want to try anymore, lest he'd lose the signal again and enjoy one of those rare walks to Time Square where his big satellite dish and receiver are located for calibration. He still remembered his last escapade too well...
Flower had lived most of his life in one of them fancy Vaults that are dotted across the United States. Luckily for him it was one of the few that wasn't a front for human experimentation. The only "side-effect" the man suffered from his 'vault life' was that he was quite green when it came to surviving in a place like the Empire Wasteland. He was hygienic, polite and well educated in Law & order. The latter proved quite unnecessary later on...
Maxwell lit his morning cigarette, he found the package under one of the sinks at the old radio station. A small nicotine-flavoured victory, one of the little surprises that made life these days worthwhile. After the head of his fag started to glow faintly red, he dropped the package on the dashboard and took his first drag. After which he lowered down from his chair, leaning to the side to pick up a bottle of lukewarm purified water.
When he wasn't talking, or screaming, into his microphone, Maxwell's life was pretty dull. He had been doing this Radio malarkey for so long now, he couldn't imagine anything else to do... The man was content with the purpose in life he had given himself. And lo and behold! people, over time, actually started to like it. A.R.C. had grown to be the most popular station in the NYC area. From Yonkers to Brooklyn.
Next to music, he also tries to bring news, but that has proven difficult since he doesn't want to go outside and rarely do people stop by to say hi and tell him what has been happening in the wastes. Consider it a vacant job.
As darkness fell upon the Empire Wasteland, a small flicker of orange light could be seen in the streets as the blood thirsty residence of a nearby community dragged the beaten body of a criminal through the streets.
He was hung by the arms, held bound by tight grip of several men as his feet were dragged along behind him, his boots trailed along and skipped the ground, scuffing the soles of them and the material around his toes.
The group was led by an African American man of a rather large build, he was quite fat compared to his followers, though he dressed no better. He had a scruffy grey combover resting on his head and a large bushy beard around his face, both of which were well lit by the light of the torch in his right hand.
The vision of the prisoner was obscured by a sack-cloth hood, which completely obscured his vision and his sense of hearing. Every site was darkness and every sound was a mumble in the background, the only thing that he was aware of was the fact that some people threw things at him, which bounced off of his head and made it shake from side to side, rather drowsily as he had no idea what was happening...
He couldn't remember anything, nothing but that gun butt that he had received to the face, though he couldn't remember when that was...
The crowd must have been the entire population of the town, judging from the size of it. Ten people? Twenty at most, though it was unlikely that it was any more than fifteen, due to the fact that the town was so insignificant that most didn't bother to put it on a map.
Either way, they took things very seriously, perhaps too seriously...
Their leader stopped as he reached his destination, quickly putting his hand up and stopping everyone as they caught up, signaling it as the end of their destination. The Prisoner couldn't tell what was going on, under the hood, the ground felt the same as it always had and that was his only way of identifying his surroundings. He remained silent, knowing that he couldn't pull his way out of this and that he'd have to wait until he was unhooded before he could make his attempts at escaping.
"Over there!" Their leader ordered, prompting the group members to erupt in various mutterings and several cheers, which slowly grew more and more quiet as he was dragged away from them. All that the prisoner could do was continue to wait as he was dragged over to whatever punishment awaited him.
The Prisoner was carried up several wooden steps before his feet were firmly placed on a hard wooden floor. One of his captors loosened the grip on his arm as he began to do something to the wooden platform and another villager reached up and pulled The Prisoner's wrist behind his back.
The Prisoner quickly saw opportunity in this and whipped his hand away before quickly turning around and thrusting his elbow back, straight at his captor's face. However, he quickly found it caught in some very large and strong hands, which held his arm, firmly in place as his wrist was snatched again and brought back down. His hands were quickly bound with zip tie bindings, which immediately dug into his flesh.
He felt something rather heavy land on his shoulders, which quickly fastened around his neck, greatly restricting his movements. Still, it didn't stop him from violently thrashing about as he felt several hands hold his shoulders and upper arms in place as he felt their leader clutch the top of his hood and unceremoniously whipped it off. The sack-cloth material chafed the Prisoner's ears and cheeks as his head jerked to the side as his face was quickly revealed to the community's leader as the two of them slowly met, face to face.
The African American man was dressed in a tattered white pre war shirt, wrapped up in a long brown coat, that had so many patches on it, that it was arguably no longer the same coat. He looked quite weathered, most old folks did as few people got to live to his ripe old age, though then again nothing was forever either...
The Prisoner just stared at him, his eyes fixed on this man's as they met, he saw the inhuman glint in them, the way that they were fixed on him. He'd never been stared at that way before, it made him shrink a little inside, not that he would ever show it to his captive.
As the Prisoner stared him down, the Town's leader quickly found himself surrounded by his people, who had gathered around the gallows, yelling and jeering several obscenities at the Monster as his life literally hung in the balance. It was clear that the jury had spoken, that his death was the only thing that would satisfy them...
In spite of the fact that the crowds were almost deafening as they spewed their hatred at the Prisoner, their leader didn't seem all that confident about doing this. He kept his sad eyes fixated on the Prisoner as several of his assistance got ready to send him on his way.
"Pray that God bestows forgiveness on you..." He began, his voice grew weaker as if it broke his heart to say it or perhaps it broke his heart to think of what got the Prisoner here. Either way, he found no sympathy from the Prisoner's eyes, in fact, he found nothing resembling a human emotion.
"For no man can..."
Leaving that as a farewell, the Prisoner felt the floor kick beneath his feet, which left the rope around his neck as his only support as he fell back down and felt it tighten around his throat, crushing his larynx and trachea as he slowly rocked from side to side.
The audience cheered and erupted into a mass cry of celebration as they watched the demonic man's life slowly fade away...
The Prisoner's eyes rolled back inside he his head as he slowly drifted away, his head rolled to the side as his eyes closed and his mouth hung open and everything faded to black.