I had this idea of a faction in Maine, that would have a pretty good navy, but I'm in Columbus right now so it will have to wait.

The only problem I have with factions like this, is it has not only been 500 years, but a nuclear war, so the illiteracy rate would be huge. No schools, so no history classes.

The best educated people, would be Vault dwellers, Enclave, and BoS. NCR caught up to them, and some minor factions like FoTA for instance as well.

This is one thing I didn't like about Legion. Guy finds a book and makes a faction. Well, ok..but if he can read, well, there are a lot of books. It isn't awful, but just something I was kind of meh about.

With your idea, guy also finds book. Well, most books about the revolutionaries, founding fathers, etc, will be about freedom, Republic, and anti-tyranny/dictatorship. Yet, he forms a dictatorship, solely out of a lust for power, therefore missing the entire point. Basically, it is the legion, just with different uniforms.

I think it may be better if he did form a republic, with a "congress", and maybe even draft their own constitution. If all these factions pop up from books, well the most common book, is...the Bible. But I think that is something games try to stay away from. Anyway I'm rambling so end.

To be honest, I may have made the dictatorship thing up, I had a long description of the faction, but lost it, so I tried to remember as much as I could making it much shorter. I do remember that the leader was in DC, so I imagine some piece of American revolution history would survive, he then moved to Baltimore, then Philadelphia lost a battle there, and then he plots his revenge across the Delaware.

And you never know it could be something foolish like he wad reading a burnt elementary history book, and the words were something like George Washington lead the colonists against the tyranny of the British Empire. And when he found it, it read George Washington lead the colonists.........the tyranny.........

Faded text can always make a faction very different from the people they're mimicing.

Here some pointers, which you may know, so not trying to be a knob. But this is what I did when GMing back in the days of pen and paper gurps.

Immerse yourself into the character and setting, which is not easy as it sounds when you look at the setting. Because we are literate, and not scraping to survive a post-apocalypse.

You won't think of everything, but the more detail and background you give the character, the more interesting the NPC will become, and thus the more a player will enjoy interacting with them.

So, start at basics. Where is he from? What happened to his family, parents, siblings? How did he get educated? Vault dweller, ex BoS, defected Enclave? Got lucky and met a wise Ben Kenobi/mentor?

In regards to book. So he finds a book, reads, gains interest. What do you do when something interests you? You find more of same thing, to learn more. So, imo, he would look for more books about this time period. If he from DC, he probably knows of Rivet City and Abraham Washingtons museum. So, he would probably go there, and boom another mentor, more knowledge.

He may have even worked recovering stuff for the museum, like Sydney.

Now, how does he learn military strategy and tactics? He could of joined Lyons BoS, Reileys Rangers, Talon Company.

Get those things down, and you will flesh out the character into the leader of the faction he is to become.

I actually had a lot of that stuff, but I believe I moved it to my laptop some time ago, so I will look later in the day.

Well surprise, surprise, the only faction I ever bothered to think up was from my speculation Enclave timeline.

Basically a Poseidon corp Vault with weapon and armor research, with the main research on cyrostasis. Enclave involvement was mainly security of the facility, headed by a war hero who was recruited into the Enclave. The vault was similar to a Vault-Tech vault, with an additional and secret level devoted to the cyro research. The vast majority of the residents in the vault are Poseidon and Enclave scientists.

After the bombs dropped the decision was made to enter cyro for 10 years, but a disaster that I felt worked best as a discovered mystery, keeps them in Stasis for 200 years. When they emerge from the sleep, this Enclave faction is completely different than what has been seen to date, and their ideology is more in tune to pre-war, and their tech, is likewise different, based upon the research in the vault.

Do share when you can!

A small branch of the East Coast BoS, but not as a main faction. A type of ghoul army would be soooo badass

Forgot to add this one earlier.

A telepathic bacteria colony that exists in an abandoned FEV Facility (almost like tons of yogurt in the old vats). The colony can mentally take over any creature that eats some of it.

It just wants to be left alone, but an evil group of merchants that discovered some of it on the ground, want to sell it as a tasty food product.

Pod people! The Body Snatchers are among us!!!!!!!

I found it deep within the depths of the fallout forums:

General Washington

A boy, named Thomas and his parents who were poor and starving wondered the ruins of D.C. in the years around 2252 endlessly each and every day. When the three of them were in the area of the national mall they were attacked by a group of super mutants who had plans to capture them. The mutants unable to capture them quickly made the decision to kill them. Thomas ran to the Washington Monument and climbed all the stairs to the very top. There he made a small camp and would scavenge for food and water each day during the safety of the night, slowly gaining skills that would inevitablly help him in the future. Eventually Thomas' scavenging trips became longer and longer until one trip he got caught at the Arlington Library. Interested that day he looked up the history of America. His favorite subject was the Revolution which inspired his name Washington. His dream then became to re-establish the 13 original colonies to their former glory. At the beginning of 2272 (wiki's date) he set forth to the North. When he arrived at his home he saw men in huge suits of armor setting up a huge barrier around the monument. There he met a crazy man who told him about the good fight. Thomas took this personally as restoring America, to do this he would destroy everything "evil" that in his eyes was anti-american. Knowing how D.C. was in ruins he set his sights on Baltimore one of the nations old capitals. In 2273 when he arrived in Baltimore he found it in ruins also, he also found hundreds of people suffering from radiation poisoning and the countless raiders around. For five years he taught them what he learned how to scavenge and hide. During these years he also learned much more skills in combat and trained the wastelanders as much as he knew. In 2278 he left Baltimore on his own. Within days the wastelanders he had trained followed began to follow him as their leader, thus he named his tribe/group the Patriots of America. After discovering that Philadelphia was overrun with ghouls he decided he needed to wipe them out as they were "evil" and keeping America from being a great country again. He lead the group to New Jersey to an Air Force base. He had the group spend hours building thorough defenses. At the same time he set up a government/leadership in the visions of the Constitution. The people unanimously voted him into office as the president where he would enact a Marshall Law and control everything as a dictator. In 2296 he finally sets his sights on the his capital of America, Philadelphia.

So re-reading that, I thought a lot of it was pretty bad. And the part where he is a dictator was my idea originally, but I think my train of thought was that he would be a dictator to keep things under control until they were stable enough to try a democracy. Probably going to fix it up soon, so some of it sounds better.

Edit:

Early Life

General George Washington was born to a unhappy couple, but in the wastes you took what you could get. Both his parents grew up as one of the many raiders of the Capital Wasteland. They gave it all up when his mother turned out to be pregnant. They escaped from the ruthless life style, and stayed in Greyditch until the baby was born on 2244. They just named him Tom, and that was it. The three of them left Greyditch soon after and lived through scavenging for fifteen years. When Tom's parents were scavenging the wastes of DC in 2259 they were caught inbetween a skirmish of Super Mutants, and Brotherhood of Steel Knights (Not sure what year the Brotherhood actually arrived). They rand towards the knights, but the super mutants were relentless killing everything that stood in front of them. During the bloodbath, Tom got scared and fell to the ground, and several dead bodies including his parents fell on top of him, the shock and the gore knocked him out, and the mutants left him there, as he was not big enough to be a good meal for them. A group a paladins arrived a few hours later and found the boy crawling away, they took him in and gave him somewhat of an education. They cared for him until 2260, when he refused the offer to become an initiate and left back into the wastes. He did all he knew how to and just kept scowering the wastes for his own survival. Eventually he discovered an old school on the outskirts of the city, with many burnt books. He set up a camp within the building and lived there until 2265, he used the basic knowledge the BoS gave him to try and read the many burnt books found in the school. For five years he learned many things like basic mathematics and basic skills of the English language. But his favorite thing to read was history, particularly the revolution. The patchwork of books gave him basic knowledge of the events, but nothing in depth. He knew of some of the people, the enemies, some of the reasons for the fighting, and the drafting of the government. But his learning was interrupted by a band of Raiders. They had chased a person into the school building, it was a young man by the name of Charles. Tom showed him a small basemant that was built before the war, and they hid there until the raiders gave up the search and just set the school on fire. But the basemant they hid in was set up as a fallout shelter, and was not destoyed, so they climbed out and decided that that needed to leave the dangers of DC.

Baltimore expedition

Tom decided that Baltimore was a good choice as it was one of the bigger cities near DC. It took Tom and Charles the better part of 2266 to finally reach Baltimore. They spent months preparing to leave the Capital Wasteland, and ran out of resources on the way, so they were post poned, but when they finally arrived they found the city to be under the control of some organized Raiders called the Ravens ( ). The two managed to get into the poorly fenced off part of the city to see what was going on. They discovered that the Ravens had captured and forced hundreds of people into their way of living over the past couple decades. Tom set up camp outside of the city, by was able to easily disguise it as a pre-war car crash so the ravens wouldn't become suspicious. Over the next couple of years Tom and Charles would sneak in and out if the city occasionally to learn and help the people there. They learned that the Ravens were actually few in numbers, maybe 100-200 men. They also learned that those men forced people they found into their culture and lives, but most people who weren't part of the "true" ravens was oppressed in some kind of way. Tom also sneaked out these people occasionally and turned an abondoned building into a refugee camp. They also gathered immense amount of supplies that the Ravens were too ingnorant to grab, even including weapons. Finally when Tom and Charles decided that the group was large enough they armed their followers and broke through the gates of the town. The ravens were completely taken by surprise and had a very hard time defending themselves. When the Tom found people willing to join them (which was most people) he armed them with some of their supplies, and within hours they had killed most of the ravens, the others begged for mercy and wished to become part of Tom's followers. Tom told the people they were free to live by themselves after the fighting had ended, but due to years of oppression the people of Baltimore were clueless about many many things. When Tom and Charles finally left the city in 2271, they didn't get far until they realized that the few hundreds of people they freed wanted to follow them. Tom felt inside that his accomplishments of setting these people free was similar to George Washington, his favorite man in history, freeing the colonists from British oppression. When he addressed all of his followers he told them that he was George Washington, the father of a new America.

Philadelphia

Tom, now George "officially" made his country in 2273 after his defeat at Philadelphia. When his people reached the outskirts of the pre-war city, they found it to be in a similar condition as Baltimore, but the northern area of the city seemed to be largley intact (due to anti-ICBM missle facilities in the area). They also found out that those within the gates of the city were hundreds, possibly thousands of ghouls. He immediately declared them the enemy, and his followers listened. Feeling a sense of invincibility due to the last few years of his travels being very safe, he rushed the front gates of the city. To his surprise they were very well enforced and it took many lives to break into the city. But he found out that the ghouls were a much tougher enemy and more numerous than he thought. Many of Washington's forces were gunned down right at the entrance, and it wasn't long until his good friend Charles called for a retreat. Washington was hesitant at first, but soon realized it was the best option once Charles was gunned down in front of him. He reteated across the Delaware River to New Jersey, he discovered McGuire air force base which was mostly destroyed and set up a temporary base, but it would turn into his headquarters in a few years. His only desire was to avenge his friends death, but he also knew how valuable the city would be. He prepared for four years, but after that time he knew his people were not ready, and that his small town of people wouldn't be enough to bring down the ghoul populance within the city. Washington would annouce to his followers, the patriots, that to win in their battle he would have to stray away from his republican views and control this land with an iron fist. Not knowing what any of what he said meant, his the patriots mindlessly agreed. For the next two decades Washington educated his men and women so they wouldn't be as helpless anymore. He also expanded his influence to most of the state of New Jersey, some bits of New York, and northern Philadelphia. He discovered the New City (New York), but it was not anywhere as close to Philly's value. His army was small, and to defeat it he would need a large powerful military. He discovered several fallout bunkers across the air base, most being intact. Each one was connected which made a massive underground network with many warehoused connected to the bunkers. All the inhabitants were dead though due to unknown causes. In the bunker he found crates of weapons, barrels of water, containers of food, and lockers full of armor. There were also schematics to weapons and armor, and hundreds of books for jobs and basic knowledge of things. He was able to create new jobs, and able to create things to help them survive (like water heaters, and ovens, but in very small supply due to low resources).

In 2296 he feels that his preparations are nearing completion and it will soon be time to capture the city. (I never expressed what makes it important, but it is )

That actually sounds interesting, it has that kind of realism that Fallout can portray in people, like with President John Henrey Eden and his hatred for ghouls and wanting America back and great, but just as with J.H.E, it seems a bit copy past. The only difference is less power armored bully's and more members. I don't wana drag the idea through the mud though, it actually sounds interesting, just a bit copy paste. Maybe mix him up a bit? I mean it has a good thing going for it, it just needs somethin to make it that extra bit more original.

IF INDEPENDENT VEGAS WONT BE IN THE NEXT ONE, WITH ROBOTS ALL OVER THE PLACE THEN IM GOING APE [censored] AND KILLING ALL THE FACTIONS IN THE GAME.

Wveryone is saying to make it become america again. It would be cool if there was a faction pro communism and tried to make america just that.

Seeing how I doubt the game will be in Vegas, have fun going Ape Poo.

A faction dressed as clowns.

Everyone else will act like http://www.xerxy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/scary_clown.jpg.

Doesnt mean they shouldnt be there. People have said Indy ending will be canon, and that might as well mean a Indy Vegas would expand under a new flag, and they might as well be there. Just cause they started in Vegas, and are maybe called Vegas something doesnt mean they should stay in Vegas. Like NCR, they kept putting their dike inside every state they could find, even though their name only consisted of new CALIFORNIAN republic. See where im getting at bro. Indy Vegas has been so interesting, so why bury it and leave it in the sand?

He didn't say they would never show it again but there are other games that have been waiting for sequels MUCH longer (Fallout: Tactics, its been eleven years!).

So I say wait about two games before showing us Vegas again.

Are Caesar's Legion and the NCR just going to move away so Vegas can expand. Vegas has no where to go, and they don't have any means of creating more securitrons. And from what we have seen securitrons just roll up to something and shoot at it, it isn't the best strategy to use trying to take stuff, especially if they have to clear out buildings and stuff.

And we also know that the NCR is still at a strong state, we are told in game that all there normal forces are sitting back in California protecting Brahmin Barons, even the corrupt officials would see the importance of moving them out to protect the land. The forces in New Vegas, except the rangers, do not represent the NCR's army. And I can't say anything about Caesar's Legion, but I imagine they still have a considerable chunk of forces left too.

And lastly, NCR doesn't have California in the name because that is all their territory. It's because they started there. Countries names change when they grow. (England, to Great Britain, to the United Kingdom)

Bring back the Family. I really miss that gang of cannibals.

I think there are already alot of merchant and militaryesque factions. Why not have a bioterrorist group. Have them trying to save the world from humans. Have them trying to create creature sanctuaries and stuff. They could be against human progress and trying to live with the animals.

Another one could be a crazy scientist group. They have crazy scientists in Fallout but why not put a faction of them. They could have all sorts of different experiments that could have no good outcomes. Not any purify water or heal ghouls experiments. The sheer amount and difference in quests that could be made for them would be quite large. Have one experimenting on surgically implanting weapons like machine guns on Yao Guai. Making it so mole rats can spit acid. Creating Robots for the sole purpose of harvesting human organs. Stuff like that. Why have one evil scientist when you can have a whole faction of them.