Here's an excerpt from a story I'm working on writing. A little background before:
This Enclave is seperate from the other factions (underneath Manhattan Island), and does not believe in the mass extermination of all life. Instead, they made a "cure" for the FEV, that can cure mild FEV exposure, i.e. non super mutants (or Ghouls). They attempted to make contact with the BOS, but were attacked. Here is one of their retalitory strike to a Brotherhood camp in New Jersey:

The Vertibird Helicopter is capable of lifting over a hundred tons to over thirty thousand feet elevation. It can travel at a ground speed of over three hundred miles per hour, and can be fitted with any assortment of weapons imaginable. One helicopter would have no problem taking three squads to ten thousand feet and dropping them off.

Fury Squad jumped out of the stationary helicopter first. It was a ten thousand foot freefall to the middle of the Brotherhood base. The impact of a thousand plus pounds of armor crashing to the earth is enough of a shock to leave any enemy stunned for a while. There is nothing more exhilarating than that.

The shock-absorbers built into the suit would prevent and damage coming to its occupant, but the suit itself would sustain minor structural failure. Paradives were conducted rarely because of this. If the diver failed to land properly, feet first, the reactor pack on the suit could be damaged. As a fail safe, if the power plant on the suit is compromised, it detonates. The occupant is unharmed, but inoperable until a Power Armor Rescue Team, or PART, can be dispatched. There was always one on stand-by when a unit did a paradive.

Wrath could see the Brotherhood's camp as he soared through the sky. They had chosen an easily defended location surrounded by water. There was only one slit of land that could serve as an escape route.

Thunder Squad's landing area was right on that piece of land. Wrath had the honor of dropping in on the command tent, by far the largest tent in the camp. Reaper Squad had charge of taking out what Intel suggested was the sleeping tents.



As was planned, no one knew of the approaching enemy from above. When they touched ground, the force that each suit landed with knocked down every tent standing. A few soldiers landed directly on top of vehicles, rendering any chance of them being salvaged beyond hope. Explosions were set off around the camp as pressure sensitive weapons went off and fuel tanks were ruptured. Not one of the Enclave soldiers failed to land properly.

The defenders on the other hand were caught completely off guard. Tents collapsed on top of unprepared soldiers who were busy getting their equipment ready to move out. When the Enclave soldiers landed, the impact shook the ground enough to knock everyone in the camp to the ground. They were without weapons, and already in a position to die. The Enclave soldiers took complete advantage of it.

There were a few sentries that had been far enough away from the camp not to be affected by the paradivers. They stormed the entrance of the camp only to find six Enclave soldiers waiting for them with their self-made craters as cover. They had little hope of breaking through.

Valerie saw all of this from the mountain she had decided to explore. She was carrying more equipment than the last time she saw this happen to her brethren, but she knew the futility of trying to stop them. She was one against eighteen, and she still did not have her power armor. It took the enclave soldiers less than ten minutes to kill everyone in the camp.

Once the attackers were done with their slaughter, two squads detached themselves and began sweeping the area for survivors. Valerie felt safer than before, as she decided to wear a set of combat armor and a Stealth-Boy before heading out this morning. It made her feel safer for some reason, and now she knew why. When in the home of your enemy, one can never be too safe. She rubbed the laser rifle to calm her nerves.

She felt herself lucky. This was the second slaughter she had witnessed, but not been involved in. She now had a new mission. The Counsel needed the information that she had, and nothing would stop her from delivering it.



This is my favorite part in the story so far. I'm looking for feed back on what everyone thinks. The book is split between Staff Segeant Wrath and Knight Valerie, taking place between both their perspectives. This Enclave is vastly superior in technology compared to the Posseidon Oil group or the DC Detachment. The book provides an insite to the day to day life of an Enclave Soldier and Brotherhood of Steel Knight. If anyone is interested in more, feel free to let me know.

Some standard feedback:

GREAT WALL OF TXT! try to space out the paragraphs.

Also, it's very criss cross. try to make a good intro and try to merge the info in the story.
And look out for "and then, and then, and then...." try to think of it like a story, not something you tell in front of your friends.
Also, a lot of, she, she, she.

try to fix those and you get a good to read story
We'll talk more after that.

Excellent, thank you for the tip! I have another except, this being the aftermath back in Liberty Bunker. I'm looking for another eye on this one, because it contain the most dialog, which has always been one of my weak points. I'm using my 11 years of Army experience to make this seem as "realistic" as possible: (One note, the 10th Mountain Division is mentioned below, but they are explained a little earlier in the story. Essentially a patrol from Fort Drum ventures down to NYC to link up and consolidate forces, I'll post that part once I'm done fixing it)

Once the routine of daily life returned for Gregory Wrath, time flew by. But even with everything going normally, there was still tension in the air.

Until the last encounter with the Brotherhood, no one knew they had Vertibirds. Flight technology had been very closely guarded, never leaving any base unless escorted. Not once had a Vertibird crashed and not been recovered. The Downed Aircraft Recovery Teams were efficient, and never left anything that could be used to make the helicopter flyable again, even with extensive repairs.

He hoped that was the limit of their flight technology. The A-10V's were still not flyable right now, only because of a lack of a runway. Everything on them worked, including the massive thirty millimeter gattling laser, dual focused plasma cannons and the multi-gripper bomb and missile holders. The twin ultra-turbo thrust engines could move a battleship, let alone a small one man aircraft.

The only other problem with the A-10V was the lack of a use. It was designed to eliminate armored formations before the war. It had been rather successful against the Chinese. Along with the Advanced Power Armored Troops, American Forces were able to push the Chinese out of Alaska and all the way back to Beijing.

But now that it was known the Brotherhood had some of their technology, it put everything in a whole new light. Everyone knew the Enclave was out numbered at the moment. With all the mutations on the surface and the Brotherhood just recruiting them, the Enclave could not match their strength in numbers. The only edge they had was better training and equipment.

Now it seemed they were losing the advantage of their technology. The improved Power Armor the brotherhood gave their Paladins was crude in comparison to the armor every combat trooper in the Enclave wore, but it was only a few modifications away from being equal.

The brotherhood also had the indulgence of the undestroyed factories. The New England States had been the industrial center of the United States until the war's end. Out of all the nuclear missiles to strike the country, over three quarters were in the north-east. Everything else was dispersed between military and civilian targets throughout the country.

Most of the wasteland was effectively in Brotherhood control because of this. They could explore most of the country freely, while the Enclave had to decontaminate paths out of Liberty Bunker.

Wrath had explored all the way to Washington D.C., and even ten years ago the Brotherhood of Steel had a budding presence there. He had even heard of the Brotherhood when he passed through Pittsburg on his way back. New Jersey was the next step in their approach towards New York, and the time of their arrival had finally come.

He sat relaxed in the briefing room with the rest of the non-commissioned officers of Slayer Platoon. Their Platoon Leader had some important brief for them. No one knew exactly what, but they all could guess. If the Brotherhood of Steel wanted a war, the Enclave would give them one to rival the last one.

"Hey Wrath, did you have fun on your little dive the other day?" Staff Segeant Blight and his squad had been left out of the Paradive due to taking some casualties, so no doubt he was a little jealous.

Wrath turned around in his chair to face him. "Just another day in this Man's Army. How's Stevens doing? Heard he took quite a thrashing."

Blight leaned back in his chair. "Kid's tough, I'll give him that. That Terror Bear's claws ripped right through his armor like it wasn't there." He shook his head. "I didn't think he was going to make it. Lost a good chunk of meat. But Mitch kept him going. Docs say he'll be out for a good while."

"You gettin a replacement, or you going to be on guard duty for the war?"

Blight just shrugged. Stevens had been his squad sniper, so it wasn't as bad as losing a heavy weapons gunner, but Snipers were hard to come by. The platoon only had two, Stevens in Falcon Squad and Roberts in Fury.

Lieutenant Winters walked in the room with their Platoon Sergeant, Sergeant First Class Gomes.

Everyone jumped to their feet. Wrath, being the senior NCO in the room shouted out "Room, Atten-tion!".

"Take your seat men. I'm going to make this as quick as possible." Lieutenant Winters walked over to the holo-projector in the front and activated it.

A Map of the East Coast came up, from Washington D.C. to West Point to Chicago. Red dots appeared all over, followed by a blue dot right around New York City.

"Men, this is the current enemy situation. We're out numbered and out maneuvered." He paused to let that sink in.

"Division has decided it is time we went on the offensive." The map zoomed into Washington D.C. It looked all too familiar to Wrath.

"This is your Warning Order for Operation Fallen Angel. We are going to be part of the recapture of Washington. A lot of intelligence has been gathered about this area over the past few days from various sources. Most recently we detected the radio transmissions of someone calling them self President John Henry Eden of the Enclave. We have no record of any election happening, so we assume this detachment of our brethren has gone rouge. Transmissions have recently ceased however.

"There is also a large concentration of Brotherhood troops around the Jefferson Memorial and the Pentagon. The Jefferson Memorial seems to have been modified extensively, and a water distribution center is set up around it.

"Just north of the memorial sits a beached Aircraft Carrier. That will be the primary landing zone for the Division Main Effort, which we will be supporting. Our mission is to go ahead of the main effort and secure the Aircraft Carrier. Once secure, they will begin landing the light boys and engineers to fortify and secure."

The "Light Boys" were the Light Infantry Brigade of the 36th Urban Combat Infantry Division. While they were equipped essentially the same as the 10th Mountain Troops, they didn't need to be mobile, so they had many more heavy weapons and energy weapons as well. They packed more of a punch than the Shock Troops in Power Armor, but were almost completely stationary, and had to be transported to the battlefield.

The map zoomed out to show the area just North of DC. "Our primary insertion point is DZ Lucifer. We will Paradive in along with the rest of the Battalion."

There was dead silence across the room. Not once in the history of Paradiving had such a large scale operation been attempted. It was hard enough with only a platoon, let alone a company. An entire battalion would be a nightmare to accomplish, but if it succeeded, there would be enough troops on the ground take DC by themselves.

The Lieutenant continued. "Apache Company is going to push into the Metro Tunnels. Slayer Platoon is going to be point for the push south. Blackhawk Company will be behind us. Cherokee will push West towards another radio station we're heard in the area. Delaware will secure the LZ and gather any disabled troops for evacuation. Once complete, they will follow Cherokee.

"Men, we are going near blind into enemy territory. There are even elements that may be in Advanced Power Armor pretending to be our allies. If it doesn't have an active IFF, detain. If it resists, kill. Now, for the real bad news."

The LT changed out holodisks. The map faded away and was replaced by a mutant. It looked similar to the so called "Super Mutants" that had come from out west, but slightly different. There was more muscle mass on this variant, and its size was immense. In one hand it carried a huge club with a fire hydrant on the end. Judging by the scale, this mutant stood two to three stories tall.

"This is a Super Mutant Behemoth. It seems that Vault 87 located nearby was VAULTEC's development center for their strain of the FEV. From what recon we have, their variant of mutant has much less intelligence than the other two strains, but ten times the muscle mass. And, they never stop growing. So far, we have seen four stages of growth, the last being the Behemoth.

"For this reason, we are being refitted. Complete equipment overhaul. No laser weapons, only plasma, tesla and ultra velocity weapons. And before you ask Wraith, yes, you can leave your EMP grenades behind."

Everyone chuckled at that. Wraith truly hated carrying his EMP grenades. He felt much safer with something with more punch. "Understood Sir. Since we're getting a refit, can I get some singularity grenades?"

Surprisingly the LT nodded, Wrath had meant it as a joke. Singularity Grenades essentially created a microscopic black hole upon detonation. Instead of exploding, they imploded in an instant. One grenade could take out a building easily. The Behemoth should be little challenge with one of those on your hip. The only problem was they were extremely costly in resources to manufacture, and thus very limited in number.

"I'm not going to lie to you men. We have a hard task ahead of us. Division wants a foothold in DC, and we are there to ensure it. Wrath, I want your men on point with the Ultra Velocity Weapons. Blight, you'll be plus'd up with an Intel Chick from division. She managed to get Sniper Qualified a while back. She is also a very good interrogator from what I understand."

The disappointment in Blight's face was reflected in everyone. No true Infantryman liked going to battle with a female, even if she was a better shot (Which no one would admit). Females brought a whole new level of complexity to combat then there should be. Best to save them for when the fighting was done.

"You'll be right behind Fury. Reaper and Thunder Squads will be after me, with plasmas and Teslas. McOwer will be close to my hip the entire mission. He has been clearance for a single Kinetic Strike, only to be used if we are being overrun."

If the rest of the brief was not enough of a shock, the word of the Kinetic Strike nailed it to the wall. There was only one functional weapons satellite that the Enclave had control of. The Tungsten ? Titanium Rods launched from that satellite had no explosives, but the speed at which they traveled combined with the weight of the rod itself made an impact that was bigger than most tactical nuclear weapons. There were only a dozen or so on the platform and they couldn't be replaced.

Wrath was the first to chime in. "Ok Sir, what I'm tracking so far is we've got Second Brigade securing the carrier once we've taken it, there are some bad ass muties in the way, and we've been given some unbelievable firepower to support this with. Why such overkill for us if we still have the rest of our Brigade, Third Brigade and the Tank Battalion? Why not just send them down with us?"

The LT walked around to the front of the desk and sat down on it. "They won't be supporting us. Third Brigade and all of the Tanks are leaving in a week to Chicago. One battalion from our brigade will be supporting them with another Paradive south of Chicago. The last battalion will remain here as a Quick Reaction Force for whatever comes up. All of our Special Operations guys are currently out doing recon on both objectives."

The whole division was mobilizing. This was the largest operation ever conducted by the 36th UCID's two hundred and fifty year history. They missed the great war by a few months, but now they were making up for it. If this whole operation was successful, the Enclave would control every important major city on the East Coast. If they failed, no one would be left to rebuild anything. But if they did pull it off?

The LT stood. "If there are no more questions, I have a few more details to elaborate on before we begin preparations." No one spoke. "Ok, once the Light Boys have established initial security, we are pushing south to the Jefferson Memorial. Our secondary objective is the water distribution site. After securing that, the second battalion of Light Boys is going to land and take over security."

The LT changed back holodisks to the map of DC. After a few seconds of adjustments, the map image was back on the Jefferson Memorial.

"Our Engineers will be coming with second wave and build a pontoon bridge over the Potomac. We will provide overwatch for them until complete. We're then moving onto our final objective." The map moved North West and stopped on an all too familiar structure.

"The Pentagon is heavily guarded by the Brotherhood. Located in the basemant is Liberty Prime, a war machine like no other designed to singlehandedly push the Chinese out of Anchorage. We do not know its current status, but it is entirely possible it is active.

"Around the Jefferson Memorial are the remains of a Photonic Resonance Net, possibly from the Rouge Enclave detachment. Liberty Prime was designed to remove those. We have no other evidence of its activation, but we believe it is active and supporting the Brotherhood.

"We do have a small measure of hope. The engineers here say the La Guardia Airstrip should be cleared and ready for operations in a few days. Meaning, we might have Air Support for this mission.

"The A-10V's will be primarily in support of the Chicago Operation, but if Liberty Prime is spotted, priority shifts to us. All we have to do is survive until they arrive on station. In the meantime, we will have armed drones overhead. Not much a plasma missile will do to that machine, but they could be used as a distracter. We do not know how advanced this machine's AI is, but believe it to be state of the art."

The LT walked over and shut off the Holo-projector. "Men, we leave in two weeks. I'll broadcast the full Operations Order to each of you in three days time. Until then, begin refit operations and get your men ready. Make these two weeks count, because they could be our last. The bright side is, at least we'll be able to get a decent burial in Arlington. Dismissed."

Try to put spaces in between paragraphs. It makes it easier to read.

(Paragraph)

(Paragraph)

Like that.

Much better, thank you.

Hopefully I got all of them. Thanks for the advice there, I forget since I use Mircosoft Word.

Also, I use a lot of Military Terms, so here's a quick explanation for anyone, using the "old" army model {Brackets are troop estimates}:

Team - Half a Squad. Usually 4 soldiers {3-4}

Squad - Usually 9 soldiers, but the Power Armored Squads are no more than 6 {6-9}

Platoon - 4 Squads (1 Usually a Weapons Squad, but Powered Troops don't need one) and a Command Team (Medic, Platoon Leader and Sergeant, Radio Operator) {~35-40}

Company - 3 Platoons, and a Command Section (Commander, First Sergeant, Mortars, Anti-Armor Teams, Logistics, etc.) {~120-160}

Battalion - 3 "Line" Companies, 1 Command and Support Company (Called an HHC, which is where you lowest level of Intelligence, Administation and Operations Planning is. They also have a comminications platoon, medical platoon, heavy mortar platoon, scout platoon and logistics platoon) {~500}

Brigade - 2-3 "Line" Battalions and a Command/Support Company {~2000}

Regiment - 3-5 Battalions of the same type (Infantry, armor, artillery, etc.) Not used in the US Military other than unit assignmnet (Aside from the 75th Ranger Regiment, who don't have a Brigade) {~4000-6000}

Division - 2-4 Combat Brigades, and numerous support units (Aviation, Logistics, Hospital, Administation, Training) {~10,000-15,000}

Another part, this one dealing with the explanation of new equipment, and a lot of it. This comes after they receive their warning order (Above) and are going through TLPs (Troop Leading Procedures):

Fury Squad was assembled with full kit at the Main Armory. It was never a good day when a soldier had to turn in the weapon he had carried into battle, especially when they might not see it ever again. New weapons were always a hassle, because they had never been battle proven.

Wrath was the last to turn in his. That very same plasma rifle had been at his side for over seven years. Not once had it ever failed him in the field. It might have had a few mishaps at the range, but never in combat. Now their history together was over.

"Sergeant, I have been given Authorization to issue your Squad Ultra Velocity weapons, and I have them ready for drawing. Please state your requests."

Wrath had planned this out prior to coming. If he was getting the best type of weapons the Enclave had, he was going to make sure he got the best of that type.

"Specialist Roberts will take the M99 Rail Gun." The armorer wrote down each request as Wrath spoke it to him. "Corporal Markus will tell the Shredder and a Implosion Pack. Doc Brown will take the Gauss Pistol. Private Klein will take the M78 Gauss Rifle, and Specialist Williams will have the M250 MAC. I'll take a Needler and an M81 Slayer. We'll also take a full load of Singularity Grenades and Plasma Grenades"

The armorer finished writing and went back into the Arms Room to gather the equipment. No doubt it would be located in the back in the secondary safe room.

After a few minutes he came back with a cart full of weapons and began handing them out. Each soldier held their respective weapons with great care. Some of these had been maintained since the Great War, and others manufactured over the years.

Williams was the first to get his weapon. The M250 Magnetic Acceleration Cannon was the largest weapon ever to be made for soldiers. It could take any metallic object and accelerate it to 99.9% the speed of light. The standard ammunition weighed six pounds per round. Six pounds of any metal moving at that speed could take the largest tank and flip it end over end several times.

The Shedder was the nickname for the M140 Rail Gatling Gun. It had a rate of fire of over two thousand rounds per minute. Even though the ammunition was only the size of a small pencil, when moving at near the speed of light size really had no issue. One burst into a Super Mutant would spread its remains over a six mile area in less than a second.

Gauss weapons were similar to all the others, but they ran on pure energy and had no ammunition. Instead of accelerating metallic projectiles, they shot particles at the same speed. While they didn't penetrate metal in most cases, the particle would explode on impact, causing a microscopic nuclear explosion. Most unarmored soldiers would be thrown for yards.

Since Roberts was the only Sniper Qualified soldier, he received the M99 Rail Gun. While it was essentially the same as the other weapons, it had a longer barrel and high powered scope. It also shot depleted uranium slugs and had an effective range of over three miles.

It was finally Wrath's turn. His selection of weapons was the hardest to come by in the entire armory. The Needler wasn't really an Ultra Velocity Weapon, but it did have its uses. The small syringes it shot didn't penetrate anything but flesh, but the toxins contained in each one were powerful enough to kill a Super Mutant in one shot.

Nothing was as fun as the M81 Slayer though. While similar to the Gauss Weapons, it fired a larger particle and was capable of Automatic and Burst Fire. Only one of these had been made before the coming of the bombs, and since then only a dozen had been made.

When he connected the Slayer to his Power Armor, he immediately noticed a spike in the reactor plant's efficiency level from 110% to 120%. Since the Slayer fired large particles, it was able to take the bleed off from the power plant as ammunition. The down side was he wouldn't be able to fire as much then he could with any other weapon. It drained the power plant much faster than any other energy weapon in the Arsenal. If the fighting became too intense, he would need a power plant exchange before they moved onto the Pentagon.

Once everyone had their weapons and completed their functions check, Wrath stood facing them. "Men, time to hit the ranges and see what our new toys are capable of. Assemble at Range Seven in twenty mikes. Fallout!"

The men dispersed. Now it was time to have sun real fun before their work began.

I can tell you are really into your story, so I'm going to try and help you out a little.

One thing that is that it needs to flow together a little more, though this is not much of a problem in your post just above this one. It just seemed a bit halting at times.

Your second post is a little big, (often the opposite happens a lot on this forum) just try not to over do it, try to keep it around the size of your post above this one.

I actually like military terms in writing and make sure you use your experiences to your advantage, use the emotions and feelings you have felt, and you'll find they enhance your writing a lot!

Keep it up, I'm going to keep an eye on this one.

Hehe, this isn't even half of what I got. I'm mostly using this forum to get some advice. So far I'm up to 40 pages, and growing more everyday. Soon as I get done with the big showdown, I'll post it all here.

Flowing is one of the big problems I'm having. Between these posts its actually jumping towards the Brotherhood side. I'm trying to go with a Dual point of view for the main story and at the same time eliminate some of the "boring" parts of day to day life for both sides. The biggest wall I'm running into is I'm trying to make it for someone who has never played any of the Fallouts, so there's a lot of explanation. The other problem I have is emotions in the Story. Being Infantry for 8 years teaches you how to repress emotions pretty well, so digging them up to put on paper is a little hard. So far, the Brotherhood seems to be the more "emotional" of the two. I'll post one of their sides here in a day or so.

When it is ready, look for the Topic called Fallout: Rebirth. It'll be there, at least a good portion of it.

Also, as a note I didn't mention earlier, this story takes the events of Fallout: Tactics as cannon, but not Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. Pretty much if Ron Perlman didn't narrate it, I don't count it as being true Fallout.

Im not trying to be nitpicky, but you copied the needler and Magenetic Accelerator Cannon (MAC) from Halo.

Needler came from Fallout 1 and 2. MAC came from Wasteland (The Book series). Both much older than Halo.

And if you really want to get technical, they are both commonly refered to weapon in SCI-FI. I'm pretty sure Logan's Run has a needler in it. And of course there's the Rail Gun in Eraser. Just because I use commonly refered to weapons, doesn't mean they came from another game.

Sorry, my mistake. Just that Halo was the only game I know that has those.

Excellent and I am looking forward to reading more.

Only question is have you made this new Enclave too powerful for the Brotherhood of Steel or are there some suprises on the other side? Just wonderig.

Expect an Interesting Twist in the Story, but yes, this Enclave is too much for the Brotherhood. I don't want to spoil anything else though, but its coming along.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1058539