In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: Petroleum and Uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska, the US would annex Canada, and the European Commonwealth would dissolve into quarreling, bickering nation-states, bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth.
In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. And from the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization would struggle to arise.

The earth was nearly wiped clean of life. A great cleansing, an atomic spark struck by human hands, quickly raged out of control. Spears of nuclear fire rained from the skies. Continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans. Humanity was almost extinguished, their spirits becoming part of the background radiation that blanketed the earth.

A quiet darkness fell across the planet, lasting many years. Few survived the devastation. Some had been fortunate enough to reach safety, taking shelter in great underground vaults. When the great darkness passed, these vaults opened, and their inhabitants emerged to begin their lives again.

One of the northern tribes claims they are descended from one such Vault. They hold that their founder and ancestor, one known as the “Vault Dweller,” once saved the world from a great evil. According to their legend, this evil arose in the far south. It corrupted all it touched, twisting men inside, turning them into beasts. Only through the bravery of this Vault Dweller was the evil destroyed. But in so doing, he lost many of his friends and suffered greatly, sacrificing much of himself to save the world.

When at last he returned to the home he had fought so hard to protect, he was cast out. Exiled. In confronting that which they feared, he had become something else in their eyes…and no longer their champion.

Forsaken by his people, he strode into the wasteland. He traveled far to the north, until he came to the great canyons. There, he founded a small village, Arroyo, where he lived out the rest of his years. And so, for a generation since its founding, Arroyo has lived in peace, its canyons sheltering it from the outside world. It is home. Your home.

The great Vaults were built to house the wealthy, the powerful, the influential and those deemed necessary to their survival. Inside resources and technology were stockpiled, a final defense against the coming holocaust. With the past behind them and the present destroyed. They looked to the future.

The sturdy Vault Zero was to be the nucleus of the vault network housing the greatest leaders, artists and scientists. The inhabitants of Vault Zero were to reunite the vaults and lead the people to a new life, a new world. But after the bombs, the world would be a harsh one. To ensure the creation of a post-nuclear utopia, the vault dwellers would need help. Machinery was constructed to tame a land hardened by the ravages of war, then tempered by nuclear winter. But plans were barely in place when the first missiles left the silos. During the destruction, communication between the vaults ceased. Entire vaults were lost; those that survived were on their own.

Not all vaults succumbed to the machinations of war. On North America`s west coast, one group of military vault dwellers emerged almost unscathed. They surveyed the wasteland and squared their shoulders for the task ahead. These dedicated survivors salvaged the technology from the vaults, technology that was studied, replicated and fiercely guarded. For they knew that while their power came from numbers, their future lay in scientific knowledge. In time, they formed the Brotherhood of Steel.

The brotherhood used their knowledge to drive back the atrocities of the wasteland. Proclaiming themselves “The Technological Saviors of Mankind”. They scoured the land in search of more technology, raiding mutant camps, bandit towns and the broken remains of other vaults. But even they could not keep pace with the high tolls demanded by life in the wasteland.

The Brotherhood found themselves at odds with their need for new blood versus their code of technological secrecy. The debate was lenghly. Finally, the elders ruled against sharing the technology with outsiders, convinced that they would endure as they had before. Further discussion was discouraged and the elders ordered the minority on a mission across the wastes. Super mutants, the foot soldiers of a conquered army had been forced into retreat across the mountainous barrier to the east. The Brotherhood constructed airships and dispatched the minority to track down and asses the extent of the remaining super mutant threat.

But disaster struck while crossing the great mountains. A great storm broke the main airship and flung it far from its course. The mighty ship was badly damaged. The smaller sections were torn from the main craft, never to be seen again. Many of the expedition`s leaders were lost to the winds. The fraction of the crew that still survived, struggled to keep their ship aloft before finally crashing on the outskirts of a once thriving metropolis. A city once called “Chicago”. Broken, scattered and scarred. They took stock of the situation and once again squared their shoulders to the task ahead. The Brotherhood had much to offer to the surrounding villages. They traded advanced medicines in exchange for food and labor. They traded protection from bandits in exchange for new recruits. In time, their ranks began to swell.

In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation. But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world.
Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. For man had succeeded in destroying the world – but war, war never changes.