First I want to open my report by saying that I was astounded by the number of excellent new FEF members we had with us on the surface this time. They made the bunker and the Ascendancy proud and I was happy to work alongside them. I am also happy to have had their fresh eyes looking at situations that have occurred and received a lot of good feedback, advice and questions that I plan to take forward in the upcoming year.
I also wish to formally ask for a vote to rename the forward outpost that was part of Vulcan facilities Fort NED in honour of his sacrifice but more of that later.
We started the surface mission at Fort Leon, consolidating our supplies needed for the long walk and the territory ahead. We were visited by the Shale who were interested in our PADDs and we traded some salvage for 2 PADDs, the salvage to go straight into repairing the new forward post.
Several sets of protestors appeared wanting to discuss many different issues but mainly issues surrounding Psions and the Choir of the Enlightened. They were peaceful and engaged with many members of the FEF.
One of the protestors allowed Vlad to show him what had happened with the Witch and he was so horrified he tried to kill himself. Vlad with no thought to his own skin immediately took on the wound himself and the protestor healed. The protester then left, vowing to explain what he had seen.
A mission to do something scientific with a potato and a radioactive tree went out to apparent great success. I’m sure a report will be made by someone who understood what they did!
We were invited to meet with Brother Phineas to discuss the issues surrounding Psions and the Choir and strikes and on heading out to the meet point, met with two sets of fighting protestors who were arguing for and against the choir. I’m pleased that we managed to defuse the situation and we sent them to Councillor Shannon at the Bunker for a drink and further discussion.
We also came across a person worshipping the ashes of the Choir’s Holy Mother who I killed, and Vlad got psychically entangled by the worshipper.
On meeting Brother Phineas he was very demanding and wanted to know exactly what we were going to do for him. Councillor Vlad and others made some excellent points but it wasn’t until we played the recording of the attack by the Witch upon the FEF forced and showed him the files on the issues with what has become to be known colloquially as ‘jumping over the edge’ in Psionic terms and moving up in power level that he began to at least understand a little why I did what I did. We need to have more discussion and he wants an answer as to why we don’t release more information to the whole bunker, but as I have said before, I don’t want the whole bunker to turn on Psions.
Unfortunately we had to leave Brother Phineas rapidly as there was an attack on Fort Leon by the specialists. The fighting was fierce. The specialists were heavily armed and well prepared but we managed to get to Fort Leon to help out and we had no losses in the attack. We didn’t manage to get any information from the specialist we captured alive before they killed themselves unfortunately.
We were just about to head to bed when we received a faint panicked radio call from a Fortitude Soldier on patrol. He had found a member of the Stricken who was dying and he needed assistance. We went out to collect them, but he needed surgery immediately. Indy managed to stabilise him for transport and then we marched back to Fort Leon.
I woke Dr Shannon up and set him to work (where do Dr’s go to sleep, I usually can only ever find Shannon late at night). Shannon completed a complicated surgical procedure that involved removing bits of landmine from the Stricken’s heart. Happily the procedure was successful and the Stricken, one Thirus Gorman made a complete recovery.
I discovered he was a leading member of the black hill boys settlement and that he came from a place called the Borderlands near The Vulcan Depot. I have to say I was very excited by this news and immediately started to plot this on the maps I had brought with me.
Unfortunately he carried with him grave news. The super mutants that had attacked us and we had driven from the depot were spreading out, moving through villages and settlements and killing or taking prisoner the villagers (so that they could send them to something called The Jab). Gorman came through the area behind Fortitude that the Children of Eden held, looking for help but the rest of his friends were slaughtered by the Children. There was a brief discussion and those of the FEF present agreed that we need to help the Black Hill Boys.
The FEF the next day moved en masse to the Vulcan facility we had taken on the last surface mission. Although the team left looking after it had done a great Job the engineers did think that any number of the circuits and systems were likely to blow up at any given time. And how right they were!
When the first mission went out to discuss provisions and supplies with the Pact (which bunker Victoria also appeared to want and there was a competition for) the Depot worked for a while but then numerous parts of it started to go wrong. The engineers on duty were fantastic; Ned, Scar and Roary pulled the facility back from the brink of failure at risk to their own lives.
Vlad, Darya and everyone on the Pact mission did a great job of working together to impress the Pact although the situation remains unresolved. We do have a new contact at Victoria though, Ambassador Adalaid Armitage Smithe. Shannon also discovered that a lot of the Pact have lung rot and that we have no cure for it yet.
I went out with the second mission to see if I could film any conversation between the mutants and to see if I could work out their command structure. Discussion of ‘The Jab’ means there has to be a level of communication and scientific knowledge which means they or some of them could be reasoned with. Bloom, a member of the Lost tribe, thinks that this is impossible but I feel it’s important to try.
Cromwell
We met hard and consistent attacks from the mutants, but one bright point was running into Cromwell, who wanted one of our drones so that he could better protect a Stricken village from Mutant attacks. I felt that this was sensible and so we released a Drone to him, although this annoyed the Drone ops and Dahl greatly. He then joined us as we tried to take down a Mutant Warlord. (We are starting to learn their command structures!) The fighting was swift, brutal and ugly. But the FEF with Cromwell’s help prevailed and we took down most of the fighting forces. The Warlord unfortunately escaped. Gorman met us at the end and thanked us for our help. There may be a chance that we can become friends with this tribe and it’s something I would like to pursue.
Mr Gorman
The next mission to go out was to investigate the radioactive crater to the north of Pact lands. The area is highly radioactive and they ran into a Victoria science base that had been killed by a large Mutant beast. The situation was made worse by a Victoria patrol running into the team and threatening them as they believed the FEF had killed the science team. Preposterous accusations and postering in the face of evidence showing a beast attack that nearly got them all killed.
A firefight ensued and then the FEF patrol healed the Victoria soldiers and brought them to the Depot. Darya, Vlad and I interviewed the Victoria soldiers while several of the FEF called for their lives. Luckily cooler heads prevailed and we released them after getting a lot of information from them.
In summary I managed to get:
The location of Bunker Victoria
A list of the ruling families Bartholomew, Morterson, Watling, Pickman, Armitage
A rough idea of numbers and attitudes: there’s 10 divisions of soldiers, the soldiers are not invited to events with their officers, the soldiers have radiation damage and are malnourished, medical and logistics people don’t seem to be held in high regard, a lot of bunker Victoria are classified as farmers and even the ordinary privates believe that Victoria should be ruling an empire.
After this I have to say I wanted a quiet night but we were attacked by Super Mutants. The attack was again vicious and sustained. We fought well and as a coordinated unit with everyone playing major roles in successfully defending the depot. The skills and courage displayed on that night show why I am so proud to be a member of FEF.
Dead Mutant
Unfortunately after this high came another major situation. Elwood, Jacob and Anthony burst into the depot and restrained Nero claiming he had committed crimes against the Ascendancy.
Jacob explained that there was reason to believe that our communications systems had been compromised. As a precaution, council PADDs were scanned for hacks or bugs with full permission of councillors.
Major Elwood’s padd contained a bug that was inactive. The situation was monitored until the bug went active and the data transmission was tracked to Nero’s position after the Mutant attack.
A search of Nero was then performed and witnessed by members of the FEF including councillors Vlad, Jacob and Fields. The search was done in full view of all present. Upon Nero in a pouch was found a high quality shielded padd Fortitude in origin and some patches. He professed he had never seen them before.
To de-escalate the situation Councillor Vlad asked if he could search Nero’s mind for the truth of the matter and receiving permission from Nero received a blast of emotion when he opened himself to thoughts so crippling that he believed Nero to be guilty. (he later rescinded this and now believes him to be innocent) Studying his body language I believe Nero to be innocent but it was a very complex situation with very high emotions. Nero tried to escape, and so the decision was made to Stun him and hold him until the truth of the matter could be ascertained. The items recovered were given to Dr Shannon for DNA testing. This situation is ongoing at the time of this report’s submission and investigations into the bug, padd and patches are still happening.
After the arrest, the FEF met with Raze who issued several statements about the free peoples and their path moving forward.
He abolished the post of Soul
He created the post of Voice
He said that the Risen, would be forgiven their transgressions with a new leader and a vow of fealty
The dead stars would be investigated and may be forgiven with a new chief and a vow of fealty
He said that there would be a council of tribal chiefs he would discuss everything with
The Tithe in excess that had been instituted at the prompting of the old Soul would be returned.
Rav was promoted to Chief of the Pack and he would be trying to get them to settle into the Crows’ old lands.
He doesn’t trust the Ancestors after the issues with the Soul and wishes to ban their worship although this is still being discussed.
If that wasn’t enough we also had a visit from Eli as a hologram using Dahl’s interface. He said this was the last time he would try to convince us. He confirmed that Aegis was a dictatorship and that the AI selected the 5 people best suited each year to help Aegis to run the bunker for the year. He also said that we would have to stop using C7 immediately if we joined and all people would need to follow what they were told to do for the good of the bunker. I asked about threats and attacks as our weapons use C7 and he said we need not worry as we wouldn’t need them as Aegis soldiers would protect us.
I understand the need to move from C7 and we have engineers and medics and chemists working on this right now. I however, will never live under the dictatorship that Eli and Aegis proposes even for their clean energy technologies.
The next day the FEF made their way to the old Vulcan Research facility. We were fighting Mutants all the way, and rescuing Stricken they had captured. One survivor called Julie identified herself as a member of the Smiths clan who had all been killed or captured and I sent her to Cromwell for protection. I hope she made it.
There was also a meeting of mutants/tribals from different clans and an argument about being just like the Cutlery users.
In the final push to the facility we again met heavy resistance but prevailed. Unfortunately a large part of the facility was destroyed. We still found some interesting salvage and then a choice. There were mutants fleeing and we could choose to go only after 1 or 2 of them, all which carried engineering data and all moving at speed. One was for a laser gun, one for satellite launch plans and one was for a personal defence system. It was a bit of a scrabble and I wasn’t sure who had gone for what but I legged after one team leaving Jacob and Elwood behind to study a communication system. I did not like leaving him behind. The other group went after the satellite information, I found later.
After a running foot chase under fire, we found the mutant and got the Fusion-Laser Tactical Weapon System (FLTWS). It was a hard and difficult chase. I wasn’t sure who was on the mission and many of us went down. I was desperately trying to get to Agro who had gone down in front, fighting hand to hand and then I was down. My vision leaving me I saw the face of my armoured savour. Elwood. Thank the maps he came after us, otherwise I think we all would have died. We returned to the Depot and it was only then we realised the full cost of our mission. NED didn’t return and had been killed. This is why the depot should be named Fort Ned in honour of his sacrifice. He spent much of the Mission fixing the Fort and its fitting it should be named after him.
It was a sombre group that made our way back to Ascendancy territory.
NED next to the comms uplink the engineers Scar and Ned worked on for hours to fix.
We have discovered a number of very interesting things about the area around Pact land. We have discovered that the Mutants are cannibals but also have some level of organisation and scientific knowledge. They can read and write.
We have knowledge of many more villages we can visit and the medics have a lot of scans of Mutant physiology.
It was a successful surface mission during which the FEF pulled together and we made large leaps forward in our understanding and knowledge.
Sally Fields
Senior Minister.