I've been itching to do a Fallout 4 Fanfic for a while. Not much to say about it except it revolves around the Male Sole Survivor, Nate. Using his skills learned from his time in the military, he'll set off into this vast wasteland of the Commonwealth
"War Never Changes"
January 1st 2076
Ranger Ray's Speakeasy, Seattle Washington
Second Lieutenant Nathan "Nate" Shaw
108th Fox Company Unit
U.S. Army
The sound of rain outside the bar brings a sense of peace after two shots of whiskey and a Nuka Cola is just what's needed for Nate right now. Especially with the upcoming news report on the television.
"Breaking news, our brave soldiers of the great red white and blue have finally annexed full control of Canada. All remaining forces of Canada's military will be folding into the US Army with full citizenship starting on January 3rd. Any and all civilians will be granted citizenship as well. So let's be sure to give our northern allies a great big apple pie welcome. And in other news, reports have been coming to us about the government deploying resources to the last operating Poseidon Energy oil rig-"
Eventually, Nate just tuned out the news and continued on with his drink. It's just more of the same he thought, and he was right. As he took another glimpse at the television he saw a couple of his power armored brothers executing another canadian rebel.
"Second Lieutenant Nate, the only soldier without one of these." Someone approaching Nate said with a couple of cigars.
"Captain Roger Maxson, the only soldier who doesn't carry his own lighter because everyone knows he'll constantly smoke all the good stuff." Nate laughed as he stood up to give Maxson a grisly man hug.
"Come here you drunk fucker!" Maxson laughed in response.
"These are my last two 'good' cigars." Roger handed Nate one of his stogies as they took their seats, "I figured if i'm going to smoke one of these I'd share the other with you."
"Oxhorn Cigars?" Nate was astonished while pulling out his good lighter.
"Premium blend, brother." Roger said as he reached for Nate's lighter.
Nate reached for his bottle of scotch and poured a couple of shots for him and Roger. Passing the lighter to its owner, Nate lit his own cigar.
"Fuck… that's the good shit." Nate said after blowing a smoke ring.
"Damn right, Nate… When in doubt, look to Oxhorn's cigar brand."
"Especially when Scotch is on the table." Nate chuckled between words, "So where you headin next?"
"Colonel Spindell and I are deploying to California. We'll be providing security-detail for some research facility by West-Tek."
"Sounds pretty vague, doesn't it?" Nate asked.
"Yeah, but i'm sure we'll get more information when we get there." Roger said before taking a sip of scotch.
"Here's hoping." Nate responded after taking a good inhale, "I have a five month leave starting tomorrow. After that I'm redeploying with my old unit to Anchorage… Me and the 108th, 2nd battalion are going straight to the front lines."
"Really? Well, give Nora a hug for me, will ya brother." Roger said while taking a swig of his scotch.
"Roger Maxson, you're all heart." Nate replied.
Suddenly the attention of the television jumped into their ears, regarding international news. "Moving onto our next news; more United States Marines are being deployed to reinforce Japanese strong points. If we want to win against these chinese communist enemies, we need to secure all the allies we can help."
Those last words, "We need to secure all the allies we can help"? To Nate and Roger they could actually taste the lies being fed to the US population. The taste had a sense of blood across their tongues. If copper had any form of edible taste, it would be human blood.
"Give'em hell, leathernecks." Roger held his glass in the air.
"Show'em why they call you 'Devildog's'!" Nate spoke up with his glass raised up in return, "Here's to the men who do the Navy's dirty work."
"The Navy's boots on the ground dirty work." Roger toasted his glass with a sharp clink to Nate's.
"This week's sponsor is brought to you by Vault-Tec, reserve a spot in one of our state of the art underground fallout shelters, and prepare for the future!"
Nate scrunched his eyes shut the moment that smiling vault-boy mascot showed up to seal the news-ad, and went back to looking at his swill.
"Captain, I gotta be honest with ya, brother to brother." Nate said after finishing his glass first, "All this technology, science. There's going to be a point in time where all this tech and progress will be meaningless. We're fooling ourselves here. I feel like the only people I can trust are you, the men I lead, and Nora. This whole war feels like a bad joke, and it's been building on a pile of more bad jokes. Eventually all of this is going to fire back on us, and I'm not talking about China. This whole world is on a knife edge, and all it takes now is just a little push."
"Nate… You're not wrong, but the truth is, you're finally waking up. Trust me, I've been in your shoes before, and I'll tell you now. This doesn't get easier. They say apple pies, baseball games, and amber waves of grain fields is the american dream. But like all dreams, sooner or later you have to wake up. Cause that's all the American dream is… A dream. The only mantra that keeps soldiers like us stable and alive is to focus on the objective. Especially when there are no orders. When you get home, just give your wife a hug. Show her how much you love her. If I have to call that an order, i'll do it, but I'm hoping I don't have to."
Those words from Roger Maxson released a lot of tension in Nate's bones "Thanks Captain."
From then on for the rest of the hour, Nate and Roger continued smoking and ordered their next round in silence. With the television muted out from their minds.
Personally if our characters ever had a more fleshed out backstory I can imagine Nate knowing Roger Maxson. I'm also trying to remain close to the canonical timeline of events in this fanfic, so wish me luck!
Originally I was gonna add more to the Commonwealth storyline in this chapter after this brief chat between the two officers. I had to chip all that out mainly because it's probably best to have that as it's own chapter. Also I can't really decide where to start Nate's journey in the Commonwealth. Do I proceed like the vanilla opening, or skip to the point where we head off to Concord? Hopefully you guys can help me on that. Do I skip all that or go through the whole opening game when the bombs dropped?
Please let me know, also please review, follow and favorite.
Here's to creativity!