The Maxsonian Empire

An overview of the Maxsonian Empire

In the east of the former United States the 2270s were a harrowing time for the Brotherhood of Steel. Shortly after rooting out the East Coast Enclave the Capital Brotherhood fell into factionalism and infighting following the assassination of Elder Sarah Lyons by the Unbroken Circle, at the time thought to have been a tragic death in combat. For the large part the Brotherhood was kept together only by the machinations of the Unbroken Circle and the ongoing conflict with Supermutant tribes, which the Brotherhood to its credit still scored many great victories against, namely in the defeat of the First Supermutant Confederation at Grey Lake in 2280. However, as the Brotherhood was kept along only by inertia this required the establishment of a new head, a head which was soon found in the then 16 year old Arthur Maxson. Initially elevated to the head of the Eastern Brotherhood to be used as a puppet, Maxson quickly proved himself to be an adept leader, tactician, and expansionist in such a vein that put even the Early Enclave to shame. Within 3 years of his ascension Maxson had defeated Shepard and the Second Supermutant Confederation and personally saw to the destruction of the Council of Ten, a coalition of ghoulified former industrialists along the banks of Virginia and the Carolinas.

Under Maxson’s rule the Brotherhood synthesized the ideas of the Lyon’s Brotherhood, which sought engagement with the outside world, and the Brotherhood’s tradition of scavenging and technological superiority. In practice this turned the Brotherhood into one part expansionist army, one part standing force, which exacted tribute from subservient homesteads and towns while also confiscating high technology for its own use, not dissimilar to the Legion/Empire of Mars under Lucius Augustus out West. With Maxson as the leader, elder, and de facto spiritual head of the Brotherhood, his epoch, known as the Maxsonian Empire, saw a period of unquestioned unity and force of will for the Brotherhood. With that unity came Maxson’s desire to use the Brotherhood as a tool to explore every stretch of the Wasteland and with that came an empire that at its height stretched from the Carolinas to Massachusetts.

In 2288 Maxson came into conflict with the Institute, a Pre-War technological civilization dedicated to scientific supremacy and the creation of a synthetic servitor race with which they intended to dominated mankind. The “Commonwealth Campaign” as it came to be known saw the complete destruction and scavenging of the Institute by the Maxsonian Empire and its Airfleet headed by the Capital Ship Prydwen. This campaign also saw the end of the Brotherhood’s expansion as Maxson began the transition to a more settled feudalistic society with the Brotherhood as the landed nobility and lords and himself as the King of Kings. However, the attempts to formalize the tribute system over their territory and the enforce it on the Commonwealth proved disastrous. In 2291 the north of the Maxsonian Empire broke out into revolt, organized by two Bostonian groups known as the Minutemen and the Railroad. The former were the remnants of the standing force of the provisional government that existed before the Maxsonian conquest and the other were a synth-rights militia that opposed the Brotherhood’s policy of exterminating all synths made by the former Institute. Soon the local homesteads, scavengers, ghouls fighting against the Brotherhood’s policy of ghoul genocide, and even raider packs joined the revolt.

Fighting in the north dragged on for two years until the Airfleet moved South towards Ithmoor to plan a land invasion of the Commonwealth through the “Long 95”. This would never come to pass, as after restocking at Eastford the Prydwen was destroyed by a cache of remotely detonated mini-nukes smuggled aboard. Maxson and the Brotherhood Council died with the Prydwen. Following Maxson’s death the cohesion of the Brotherhood ceased, and it soon fell to infighting, which only intensified after information of the conspiracy of the Unbroken Circle to purge the Lyon’s Family was uncovered. As the Brotherhood fell the former tributes rose up and overwhelmed Brotherhood garrisons, stealing Brotherhood caches and armor, and even lynching and burning alive Brotherhood members as they chased them across the countryside. The tumult eventually pushed the Brotherhood back to their territories as they were at the beginning of Maxson’s Campaigns. By 2302 a brief renaissance of the Brotherhood would occur under a grouping Brotherhood Clades known as the Steel Diadochi around the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. For a while it appeared that the Brotherhood might rise again and that one of Diadochi might forge a Second Maxsonian Empire, however in 2309 a roving army under Saint Bertrand the Confessor, with the support of the Abbeys of the Wasteland and many of the Brotherhood’s former tributes, smashed the Steel Diadochi once and for all. The former Capital of the Brotherhood, simply known as “Capital” or “The Capital Waste” became the City of St. Dominic which would later serve as the head of the Upright States and the Papacy of America.

Saint Bertrand would, admittedly, coopt many of the former Brotherhood, their institutions, and infrastructure (The Citadel for instance would become the courtyard of the Basilica of St. Monica), and so arguably a sense of continuity can be found between the Maxsonian Empire and the Upright States. Indeed, in the Upright States and much of the Eastern Seaboard, Maxson is today remembered as “The World Conqueror” with many lands and later settlements named after him. However, with Maxson’s death came the death of the dream of the Brotherhood, a society focused on the knowledge of the past and the pseudo-worship of technology. In that sense, the Brotherhood as it would have understood itself left the world, beginning with a Maxson and ending with one.