Prologue

War...war never changes

In the century following the great war, humanity was at it's highest. But In 2057, few people would have imagined that this would end. Luckily, some saw it coming, and prepared for it. In 2059, a meeting was held by people that included Giles Wolstencroft, acting as representative for Vault-Tec, Robert House, CEO of RobCo and Others like city mayors, wealthy and influential people, smaller regional companies, and trusted U.S military and government members. These people saw that resources were starting to run out, and that war would likely happen soon. So, they started working together to build Vaults and to protect themselves. By the time that war broke out between China and America in 2066, many of these people were hard at work. Mr. House was building a securitron army and anti-nuclear defenses in the Mojave, and Vault-Tec, and the U.S Army were working on various projects.

Many of these projects were public, such as Vault cities, advances in construction and energy technology, and preservation devices. Other projects were known by only the government, like the building of the W.A.R.F bunker system and developments in computers. One of these projects was Project Phoenix, a series of bunkers, bases, and anti-missile defenses based in the Cascade mountains, stretching south through California and North into Canada. This project served a purpose in Defense of the rest of the United states against nuclear missiles coming from China, and a barricade against hostile invaders landing on the west coast. Unknown to the United States government however, House had repurposed the anti-nuclear system. House knew that if the system went after all nuclear missiles, some would get through. So instead, he reprogrammed the system to fire at any that were just heading for the Southern side of The commonwealth. That way, the land of New Vegas would be left relatively unscorched and he would pick up the pieces of what's left of the Untied States.

As the war drew on, House was becoming more and more prepared for the nuclear fallout. Multiple projects were ready, and the US didn't know anything about his intentions,

On October 23, 2077, nuclear missiles were launched across the globe. While project Phoenix worked and kept missiles from passing over the Sunrise mountains, it didn't do so well before them. Governor Faller was in Seattle at the time of the nuclear detonations, one of the few places that the anti-Nuclear couldn't protect.

The date is now January 19, 2278 War and conflict rage over the whole of what used to be the United States, as slavers and raiders prey on the innocent. Very little word from the lands of Sunrise mountains reach people, but it shows a mix of war and prosperity. To the west is an aggresivly expanding nation based on the old-war ideals. Meanwhile, something is brewing across the Canadian border, as settlements fall off the map and travelers go missing. But we'll get to that latter. For now, our story starts in Vault 43

"Hey Billy!" I look up to see one of my friends, Max, walk into the engineering room.

"Hey Max, how's it going?" I asked, wondering what he wanted this time. Max has had a history of always wanting something, sometimes it'll be something important or it'll be something unrelated to work.

"I need you to check my pip-boy, I think it's broken." He said, interrupting my thoughts, and I see him holding up his pip-boy. "I know that you're not the pip-boy technician, and no where near as good as Lisa, and I know if I was tell her about this, she'll probably report this, so…" he finished, giving me a completely unholy "innocent" look, of which I didn't believe one bit.

I grab the pip-boy and try to look at the damage. I couldn't see how bad it was, but due to the fact one of the dials was missing and a another was broken off with the radiation detector not working, even if I wasn't an expert on pipboys I was stunned at how damaged it was, after all, a pipboy were made to be durable and near impossible to destroy, of course, assuming that it wasn't blown up by a FatBoy.

I looked up at Max and bluntly said "This is beyond my skills,so you'll have to talk to Lisa, and how the hell did you damage it this bad?" At that Max looked anywhere but me and said "I-I aaa… sort of… um, might of-"

"Oh just tell me"I said, growing impatient by his stuttering answer.

"Alright-Alright I snuck into the armory, okay!" John said, looking at me with shameless pride, like it was something to brag about

"Th-the Armory!" I stammered out, with my mouth and eyes wide open, having a hard time believing what he just said. "How did you get in there?!" I was worried and amazed at how he was able to do this, and I couldn't help but think at what would happen if the overseer found out. After all, he's been getting more and more paranoid lately.

"Well, you know with me being a security guard, I'm able to get away with certain things, such as looking up the guard schedule and getting the armory keys, plus Lisa also owed me a favor, so since she had the skills to get into anything', I had create a distraction and made sure wasn't caught footage." He said, being smug about it.

"Wait a minute, are you saying that you had Lisa help you?" I said,

"Yep, I was kinda exhilarated about it too!"

"But how does this lead to you breaking your pip-boy?" I asked, deciding to leave the subject of Lisa actually helping Max out for now.

"Well, I was testing some of the things I 'borrowed' from the armory, and I accidentally had a EMP grenade with me…"

I look at him, piecing the story together, "Let me guess, you accidentally activated it…" I say with a smirk on my face. Max let out a "yep!"

After a couple minutes of awkward silence, I broke it by asking "Hey Max, are we still having that party tomorrow?"

He immediately wore a smile and replied "Yep, besides you and me, I got Lisa, John, Roy, Sarah, Chris, and Beths to come."

This was our inner circle of friends. John and Sarah were both doctors respectively. Roy was another guard, except that instead of being average like Max, he was skilled with short range and melee fighting. He also showed me that he had some skills in lockpicking, which I took a few notes on. While she was a pip boy technician, Lisa was good at anything involving computer, like programing a robot. Heck, she could probably find some way to shutdown the reactor from a storeroom terminal. Chris was the guy who was always optimistic and came up with ideas. As a result, he is part of a small committee that came up with ideas for the vault. Finally, there was Beth, She is the brains of the group. Not only does she have two jobs, researcher and head librarian, but she's a major bookworm and loves to study new subjects whenever they arise.

"Well, I'll see you there." I said as max went to leave with his pip-boy to talk to Lisa. "Laters!" He replied as he closed the door.

After Max left, I decide to go ahead back to my room.My place was a standard Vault-Tec living quarters attached to a slightly larger room where I did my job. On one side of the room were a bunch of cabinets and storage lockers filled with spare parts and scrap. On the side of the room with the door leading to my quarters was a desk with a terminal on top of it, along with a couple of filing cabinets and a shelving unit filled with books. On the other two sides of the room were my various workbenches, items needing fixing, and some personal projects.

I looked over two of my most prized projects. One of them was a reinforced U.S army combat helmet I found in the Vault's junk room. After fixing it back up, I started adding personal touches to it, such as a radio set-up and attachable mini-flashlight. The addition I was currently working on was a glass overlay which would, in theory, connect up with my pip-boy. This would enable me to set certain things to pop up on screen, like my body's status. The feature which I hope to connect it up to is a V.A.T.S system that I found on a hard drive.

The other main project I'm focusing on is a deactivated Mister Gutsy. The mister Gutsy I found at the market area one day. I guy there called Rick said that the Mister Gutsy had been assigned to the vault, but due to programing issues it was deactivated. After I bought it I immediately brought it to the shop to fix it. After about two months, I had fixed the programing issue with help from Lisa, and I was now working on how it could be used. I figured that I would use it as an occasional assistant and to protect the shop. Unfortunately, the mister Gutsy had been stripped of its weaponry before being sold, so the only I could arm it was to steal from the Vault's armory, which I wasn't going to do.

I sighed as I left the workshop, ready to go to bed. I took a look around the living quarters I lived in as I walked through. I didn't have many personal possessions, just some vault suits, my pip-boy, a crossbow and bolts I got for my 10th birthday, a mini-terminal to take with me on the job, and a couple of photos. One showed me when I was just a baby, with my mom holding me and my dad standing next to her, looking proud. Another showed me as a toddler and my dad together after one of the vault's rare movie nights. My mom wasn't in the picture because she was dead. My Dad said it happened when my mom, who was also a mechanic, was fixing a gas line when something went wrong. Short story, that level of the vault wasn't open for two years due to explosive damage. My dad, who was an advisor of the overseer at the time, fell into a sort of depression. Shaking those heads from my thoughts, I went to my last few pictures. They included my 10th birthday, where I got my crossbow and pip-boy, me together with my friends just before the G.O.A.T test, and finally, an old one that showed my great ancestors back when they lived on the surface.

I looked away and went into my bedroom and happily moaned as I layed on the bed, feeling pops going through my back as I layed there. As I feel asleep, I was thinking about the party tomorrow, which was for the 5th anniversary of us passing the G.O.A.T tests…

-Inside the Vault Overseer's office-

"Dammit dammit dammit." The overseer said, pacing around his office.

After he got out of his room from the faulty door, a security guard reported that the armory was broken into and he immediately checked the list to see what was missing.

Missing items from Armory

X2 U.S Army combat rifle

X3 10mm pistols

X3 U.S Army fragmentation grenades

X2 Vault Security uniforms

X3 Security batons

X120 Rifle ammo

X140 10mm ammo

He immediately had the guards search the area of the armory, and one of the guards noticed a scorch a mark by a maintenance closet, that was likely caused by some kind of grenade. The overseer wasn't sure why it was there, but he knew he had to find these thieves to make them pay for stealing..