One 1.1[1]

Tommy felt the blast of the nuclear explosion more than he saw it though there was some view seen through the corner of his polarized goggles. The goggles saved his eye sight from being damaged. He did not know it, at least not then, but it was the very last nuclear explosion to take place in the terrible nuclear war of 1977AD. The dream had ended of the Age of Atomic Wonders that had arisen through out the 1950s, had gone smoothly in the 1960s, and which had gone bad in the 1970s.

Tommy hunkered down in the ditch, in his United States Army body-armor, helmet and fatigues. He held an AKM16A2 autorifle, a type of weapon adopted by both the Soviets and Capits for reasons never made clear to most. The gun was sturdy, reliable, compact and hard hitting; it could also take a wide range of attachments on top and below the barrel; best of all it had a built in can opener and a bottle opener.

Tommy waited until the tremors passed. The new type nuclear weapons did not spread much fallout compared to older kinds but they did enough to worry about. When the noise, of the blast, was gone it was replaced by an awful silence that covered a once great city that never rested, that always had at least some noise to be heard. He did not try to fool himself; he was frightened, lonely and desperate. He needed to calm himself and think clearly about getting back to his unit, if any of them had survived. For the moment he did not think of other options.

There was the terrible booming crash of a large building crashing down but this was also followed by an awful silence.

He began to move, following the bottom of the ditch that had been part of urban fighting between Capit and Soviet forces but later matters had changed, alliances had shifted, as new threats arose. He paused to loot a long dead US Marine of anything useful, taking the dog-tags so as to hopefully pass them onto somebody who could honor them properly. There were some canned rations, a single MRE, loose bullets, a combat knife and other items he added to his webbing, of pouch dotted belts, and backpack.

He came to the end of the ditch and set out through an area of rubble, an unplanned maze of heaps of debris and clear areas. In the 1970s the Wastelands first appeared and began to expand. In that year, despite all efforts to stop it, efforts that had only slowed it, the Wastelands covered quite large areas of the world. Now the nuclear war had added to the decimation of the world as survivors had fought over the dwindlig fertile zones. That is apart from those that had fled into space or deep beneath the ground or who had saught a better future in other ways.

Tommy found a metal utility hatch, horizontal and inset into a concrete slab, and was soon going underground. Washington DC had the Overcity, now much destroyed, the Midcity of Subways and other networks, and the dark infamous Undercity. Tommy did not use a torch, fearing such would attract dangerous attention, but instead relied upon his goggles to give him night-vision.

One 1.2[2]

Dull, solid-state, emergency lights dimly lit the tunnel he followed after carefully closing the hatch behind himself. The tunnel was a utility way for typical maintenance tasks but was later used by civil defense also. There was the humming noise of semiactive network-systems, network meaning hardware, system meaning software and both together meaning firmware. The area had been neglected for some time as the Wastelands encroached upon the city and then the war had come to it. Now the city was engulfed by the Wastelands but in a patchwork fashion with some areas being better than others.

Wastelands Color Codes were black for ultra dangerous, red for extremely dangerous, amber for quite dangerous and yellow for fairly dangerous. Green, and White, Color Codes were not used with the Wastelands.

Tommy had spent time alone, after being separated from his special unit, but he had also spent time with military, survivalist, refugee groups. He had helped as much as he could with his enhanced medical, technical and other skills. The trouble had been doing so with out having folks ask too many awkward questions. He had tried to avoid using his psyker abilities at all.

He got some water from a leaky pipe, cleansed it with a small portable unit, and drank it. He sealed the leak in such a way that survivors could easily find the spot and access some water. He doubted that all survivors would have the same attitude, of mutal support, as he did. Brutal selfishness was easy enough to find in so called civilized times let alone in dark times such as those.

He paused to eat the MRE, as taken from the long dead marine, and wondered if the US Federal Government had something against their soldiers. He drank it down with purified water and a self heating cupcan of coffee that was surprisingly tasty for military rations. It did a lot to make up for the tastes of the MRE.

Then Tommy rested for a while.

Zero 1.1[3]

The great vault wheel-doors closed on the last of the TekVaults as designed, and built, by the VaultTek Corporation. As the last wheel-doors locked firmly into place, part of the tunnel leading to them collapsed with the blast of a well placed plastic explosive package. TekVault0101 was sealed from the outside and the Isolation Research Program had begun with its 100,000 people.

Skynet had launched its nuclear weapons, from orbital weapons platforms, but it had been damaged by Surface to Orbit Missiles (SOMs) and attacks by atomic rocketships and even one way suicide vessels launched in desperation to stop Skynet. Skynet had managed to launch only about half of its nuclear missiles, which had been in relatively small numbers. It was now forced to begin the long, complicated, process of repairing itself.

Radbeasts, and smaller radcritters, were spreading through the Wastelands and entered newly nuked areas where they were much at home. Most were harmless or fairly harmless.

In places around the world people began to transform into ghouls, of different kinds, but people also transformed in other ways and not all were obvious. The Forced Evolutionary Virus, FEV, once more spread across the world as it was once more out of control.

There were still fairly large areas of green fertile zones around the world that became known as the Green Color Coded Havenlands. There were also the exotic Clavelands that were White Color Coded. Wastelands Color Codes were black for ultra dangerous, red for extremely dangerous, amber for quite dangerous and yellow for fairly dangerous. Green, and White, Color Codes were not used with the Wastelands.

Scattered groups of people attempted to survive in the Wastelands while others hunkered down in Prewar fortified settlements.

One 2.1[4]

Tommy entered the big chamber with much caution. The Rogue Robot Virus had been sent by the Skynet as an attack against the home world beneath it, being part of a package of such computer viruses. Along with other attacks, by the Skynet, its moderate success had been due to a few factors, some of them mysterious.

A slightly damaged protectron stood there, next to a dead woman citizen in a 1970s style minidress, as if standing guard over her. Evidence was that she had died of one of the fast acting viruses launched by Skynet. Tommy was immune to such threats. He made his way towards the Protectron, working out if it was 'rogue' or not. It turned to face him but did not attack. It spoke. "Citizen, please present your authorized IDcard for scanning. Failure to carry out Security Protocol 117B1C will result in your immediate stunning."

Tommy took out a card that was special in that it could fool almost any security network-system, including such as protectrons. It gave him not only authentic authorised identification but authority over the protectron.

Tommy spoke in a basic fashion best understood by a protectron. "You are linked to a supersmart computer network-system. Is it fully operational?"

The robot was a kind that operated more efficiently, more safely, when guided by a smartcomputer supercomputer network-system. Smartcomputers, and supercomputers, were quite different from each other but could function well together. The protectron responded. "The mother network-system is partly damaged but continues to guide my actions. The woman died here approximately five hours ago. Will you assist in placing her body in an emergency status capsule; it is computed that she had about a 89% chance of being quasiressurected and rejuvenated."

Tommy effortlessly took the woman, her small backpack, a big shoulderbag, and put them all in an emergency status capsule that was functioning at 100%. He examined the dead woman, in suspended animation in the capsule, and wondered if it had been just a futile gesture to put her there. Yet, somehow, it had felt good to do so though he was unsure why he should have such feelings about a 'standard human'.

He began an attempt to repair the supersmart computer network-system (SSCNS). He used his 'special abilities' to regenerate repair some damaged modules. Such abilities were limited in scope and used valuable psychic-spiritual energy. In truth he had some idea of what 'psychic' meant but no real idea what 'spiritual' meant and he was far from the only one despite his unusually high intelligence.

After he had checked the protectron, and fussed over it for a short time which pleased it greatly, he had the robot go into an enclosed armored rest-recharge bay.

He was just finished doing what repairs he could, to the SSCNS, when there was a great flash of rainbow energies and he fell into a peaceful darkness of unconsciousness. Something lowered him gently to the floor to have him lie beside his backpack.

Zero 2.1[5]

The zetan Mothership ZetaVa222 is in geostationary low orbit above Washington DC. Because of its active deflection reflection bubbles, and special layers of energy armor, it is easily safe from the Skynet. Skynet does not even send its units close to the mothership.

The Mysterious Stranger appears in Central Australia to save a group of human, and animan, survivors from a berserker attack. Beserkers are created from radiation, FEV and other influences that are not all anolyzed. Beserkers are stronger, faster, faster healing than standard humans but are over confident, lack common sense wisdom and are shorter lived. The Mysterious Stranger assists the survivors, in many ways, before he vanishes with the knocked out bodies of the beserkers.

Zetans had been active on the Earth (Terra) before the nukes struck but they seemed to have gone away.

People gather in a larger crater, fairly close to TekVault0101, and find there a partly exposed bunker complex. They also find a nuclear smart-bomb, dropped from low orbit, that failed to explode. How the crater was created is actually a mystery for if the bomb had caused the crater, there would be no bomb. The new settlement was named Megaton, after the name of the military bunker complex with its few survivors. Soon efforts were being made to make the settlement safer. The Children of Atom arrive in Megaton with valuable resources, including a large number of skilled people, and gain much influence in the settlement.

The Enclaven starts to rise in the Havenlands, being a blending of surviving international government, corporate and other forces. It begans to spread out through the Havenlands, attempting to conquer them. It has mixed success from the start.