The Mysterious Stranger

Mysterious Stranger is a perk in Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4.

The Mysterious Stranger may appear in V.A.T.S.; he will then fire a single shot from his .44 Magnum to instantly deal a massive (but not always instant killing) amount of damage.

The jingle for the Mysterious Stranger is a similar version of the one heard in Fallout 3 although more high pitched. There are several variations of the Mysterious Stranger's appearance jingle and disappearance chime, which are randomized when he appears to assist the player character.

The Mysterious Stranger will have vanished from the map by the time your character exits V.A.T.S., meaning that it is impossible to interact with him, though some companions will comment on his brief appearance. Nick Valentine especially will react to an appearance of the Mysterious Stranger if he is the Sole Survivor's companion at the time, and has the Mysterious Stranger marked as an open case. A briefing of the case can be found under Nick's bed in his office.

Unlike the previous games, the Mysterious Stranger's face is mostly obscured by his worn fedora.

• The appearance rate is 10% for the first rank, 12% for the second rank, and 14% for the third rank. This does not change with higher Luck.
• Though the Mysterious Stranger is always depicted with a revolver, the death animation for the target will be based on the weapon the Sole Survivor is wielding, so they may be disintegrated if you have an equipped laser weapon or gooified if you have an equipped plasma weapon.
• Enemies will sometimes attempt (futilely) to attack the Mysterious Stranger during his brief appearances. This is most noticeable with feral ghouls, who will attempt to perform their flying tackle on him, only to end up passing through thin air and sprawling onto the ground.

THE NCR

The NCR aka New California Republic. This little group was started with the help of a Dweller from Vault 13.

New California^[1] (officially the New California Republic, often abbreviated to NCR) is a large, democratic federation of well over 700,000^[2] based in California, with holdings in Nevada, Oregon, Mexico (Baja California) and along the Colorado River. The NCR emphasizes and claims to support a myriad of old-world values, such as democracy, personal liberty, and the rule of law. It also strives to restore general order to the wasteland, the improvement and development of infrastructure and economic systems, and a basic common peace between the people. Though appearing to be a benevolent entity of governance, the ability to control the land it claims to protect, the fidelity of those who live under their rule, and the widespread corruption within their political system has been questioned by many, without a clear response by the NCR themselves. 

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Now here are some background info about them:

The New California Republic was born from the remnants of the survivors of Vault 15 and the small walled community they founded, Shady Sands. Under the leadership of Aradesh, and with the assistance of the Vault Dweller (who saved Tandi, Aradesh's daughter and a future president of the NCR), the community prospered. Trade routes with other settlements allowed cultural exchange, and a movement to form a national entity gradually took root and won popular acceptance.

In 2186, the town of Shady Sands changed its name to "New California Republic" and formed a trial council government to draft a constitution. Four more settlements joined the council, and in 2189, the NCR was voted into existence as a sprawling federation of five states: Shady Sands, Los Angeles, Maxson, the Hub, and Dayglow.

By post-apocalyptic standards, the NCR is a paragon of economic success and good ethical character: political enfranchisement, rule of law, a reasonable degree of physical security and a standard of living better than mere subsistence are daily realities for its impressive population of citizens.^[3]

Currently, the NCR is in a state of transition, with rapid economic growth and a series of changes in political leadership endangering its grand humanitarian ideals. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Mojave, where the occupation of Hoover Dam has improved access to electricity and water, but at the cost of straining its budget and embroiling its armed forces in a morally corrosive imperialist project.

The NCR government's aim is to annex New Vegas as the republic's newest state. While it already controls Hoover Dam, its treaty with Mr. House and the three families compel it to allocate 5% of the dam’s electrical and water production to local use free of charge. Adding insult to injury, the NCR is locked into protecting New Vegas from invasion by Caesar's Legion even as it receives not one cap in tax revenue from the Strip's highly lucrative resort operations. NCR citizens in the Mojave have largely come here for economic reasons, whether as paid citizen soldiers or as prospectors and fortune-seekers.

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Well that's all I have to say about that.

The Brotherhood of Steel

The So Called Brotherhood of Steel. Here's what I have to stay about that:

The Brotherhood of Steel is a quasi-religious technological military order operating across the ruins of post-War North America, with its roots stemming from the United States Armed Forces and the government-sponsored scientific community from before the Great War. 
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See also: History of the Mojave Brotherhood of Steel, History of the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel, History of the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel

OriginsEdit

The Brotherhood of Steel was founded by Roger Maxson, a captain in the United States Army. Led by Colonel Robert Spindel, Maxson was part of a team sent on January 3, 2076 to monitor progress at a West-Tek facility in California, which was conducting research on behalf of the American government. On January 7, 2077, all West-Tek research and personnel – Maxson and his team included – were relocated to the newly constructed Mariposa Military Base in an effort to enhance security.

On October 10, 2077, Captain Maxson and his men discovered, to their horror, that the West-Tek scientists at Mariposa were using military prisoners as unwilling test subjects for their genetically engineered Forced Evolutionary Virus (F.E.V.). Morale in the base quickly collapsed and Colonel Spindel suffered a mental breakdown, eventually committing suicide five days later. In the midst of the crisis, Maxson's men turned to him for leadership. Captain Maxson proceeded to interrogate Robert Anderson, the chief scientist of the West-Tek research team stationed at Mariposa, learning the extent of their experiments. Anderson, along with most of his research team, were subsequently executed for their crimes.

Maxson, now in control of the base, declared his desertion from the United States Army via radio on October 20. To his confusion, he received no response from the chain-of-command, as the U.S. Army was currently focused on escalating conflicts with the Chinese. Three days later on October 23, both nations launched their entire nuclear arsenals. Within two hours, the Great War had ended and much of the Earth was reduced to a radioactive wasteland. On October 21 Maxson ordered that the families, including his, be brought inside the base to protect them.^[1] The Mariposa Military Base survived the onslaught, its numerous safety protocols protecting the soldiers within from the radiation and the F.E.V., which had been accidentally released and was now seeping into the newborn Wasteland. Two days after the attack, on October 25, Captain Maxson sent one of his men, Platner, outside in protective power armor to scout the area and gather readings on the atmosphere. Platner reported no significant amounts of radiation in the surrounding area.

After burying the bodies of Anderson and his executed staff members, Captain Maxson and his men raided the base for various supplies and weapons schematics before sealing Mariposa and venturing off into the desert. The following weeks of travel inflicted casualties on the party at the hands of various raider gangs and the harsh conditions of the Wasteland. In November 2077, Captain Maxson eventually led his band of survivors to the safety of Lost Hills, a government fallout shelter. This journey came to be immortalized in Brotherhood lore as “the Exodus”.

In time, Captain Maxson set the bunker as the headquarters for his new organization, the Brotherhood of Steel. As the Brotherhood's first High Elder, Maxson sought to use Lost Hills' resources to help rebuild civilization – no matter the cost.

Early YearsEdit

Relatively little is known about the early years of the Brotherhood of Steel. In 2134, an emerging faction of the Brotherhood, led by Sergeant Dennis Allen, petitioned the Council of Elders for permission to explore the remnants of the West-Tek research facility in search of technological artifacts. In the wake of the Great War, the facility was left a highly irradiated ruin referred to by locals as “the Glow”. The Elders thus denied Sergeant Allen's request, prompting him and his followers to splinter from the Brotherhood, taking some advanced weapons and technology with them. Despite this incident, the Brotherhood of Steel continued to grow in strength under the guidance of Elder Maxson, further refining their technology and gradually forming the orders of Knights, Scribes, and Paladins that are known today. That following year, Roger Maxson died of cancer. His son, Maxson II, succeeded him as High Elder.

In the 2150's, the Brotherhood began extending their influence out into the surrounding areas, quickly asserting their place as one of the major powers of New California of the post-War West Coast. The early 50's saw the emergence of a prominent raider group known as the Vipers, who quickly established a base of operations in the badlands to the south of Lost Hills. Driven by a near-religious frenzy, the Vipers' raids become bolder and more frequent over time, eventually attracting the attention of the Brotherhood of Steel.

Rhombus

In 2155, the Brotherhood sent a handful of squads out into the Wasteland to track the Vipers down. To the Elders, this seemed a glorified training exercise, as they were convinced that a small detachment of Brotherhood troops in power armor would be sufficient to deal with a band of raiders, no matter how large. One Brotherhood squad, led by High Elder Maxson II himself, located the Vipers. Expecting the raiders to break and run at the sight of such a heavily armed force, Maxson did not take into account the Vipers' zeal and ferocity... or their poisoned weapons. A single arrow nicked the High Elder while he had his helmet off, leading to his death a few hours later. John Maxson, grandson of Roger, took up the role of High Elder.

In the wake of this incident, the newly appointed Head Paladin Rhombus launched a full-scale campaign against the Vipers, hunting them down and driving them to near-extinction over the course of a month. The few remaining Vipers managed to scatter north and east to the Sierra Madre mountain range. It was towards the end of this campaign that the Brotherhood sent a handful of scouts and emissaries to the Hub in order to track down these runaway Vipers. It was from these beginnings that the Hub and the Brotherhood of Steel opened full trade relations. (Caravans had delivered to the Brotherhood in the past, but in the wake of the Vipers' destruction, caravan trains now ran directly from the Hub to the Brotherhood's headquarters at Lost Hills on a regular basis.)

The Super MutantsEdit

Scribe Vree

Several years after the Viper campaign, the Brotherhood of Steel encountered an enemy far more formidable than any band of raiders. In October of 2161, a Brotherhood patrol stumbled upon the corpse of a super mutant. The remains were transported back to Lost Hills for study by Head Scribe Vree.

In 2162, the Vault-Dweller arrived at the Lost Hills bunker, seeking entry into the Brotherhood. His request was not taken seriously and he was tasked with retrieving the records of Sergeant Dennis Allen's expedition from the hazardous ruins of the Glow, a fool's errand commonly used to deter would-be Brotherhood members. To the Brotherhood's surprise, not only did the Vault-Dweller return from the West-Tek facility alive, but he had also succeeded in his fool's errand and recovered a holodisk recording of Allen's doomed expedition. As a result, the Vault-Dweller became the first outsider in decades to be accepted into the Brotherhood of Steel, despite the protests of a few members.

It was from the Vault-Dweller that the Brotherhood subsequently learned of the Master's mutant army and its plans to forcibly convert the surviving human population into Super Mutants. With the support of High Elder John Maxson, the Vault-Dweller was able to convince the Council of Elders to deploy a squad of Paladins to Mariposa, where the Master's F.E.V. vats were located. With the assistance of the Brotherhood, the Vault-Dweller managed to defeat the Master and disrupt his mutant army. They also helped drive some mutants away from other human outposts.^[2] At this point in time, the Brotherhood of Steel stood as the most technologically advanced faction in New California. Although the remaining super mutants and the nascent Gun Runners had access to comparably advanced weaponry, the Brotherhood had a monopoly on power armor, supercomputers, and advanced medical technologies, such as cybernetics. With this technology slowly being introduced into New California, the Brotherhood of Steel became a major research and development house.^[2]

AftermathEdit

In the wake of the Master's defeat, the Brotherhood of Steel began arguing amongst itself over the need for new recruits versus their secrecy as an organization. In the end, most of the Elders ruled against the sharing of their technology with outsiders, confident that their organization could survive on their traditional principles. The minority who opposed this ruling were sent eastward to track down the last remnants of the Master's army via a small fleet of airships. When these airships crash-landed near the ruins of Chicago, the surviving individuals founded the Midwestern chapter of the Brotherhood. In the following years, the Brotherhood continued to expand somewhat, establishing small outposts throughout California, as well as launching expeditions to regions such as Washington, D.C., and the Mojave.

In addition, the end of the Master was accompanied by the birth of the New California Republic (NCR). What began in the small farming community of Shady Sands quickly blossomed into a spirited effort to reclaim what was lost in the Great War. As the young NCR expanded, the Lost Hills region was incorporated into the growing nation in the form of the newly founded state of Maxson. While the bunker itself still remained under the control of the Brotherhood, the NCR held jurisdiction over the lands outside. Though tensions simmered between the two factions, peaceful relations remained. 

The EnclaveEdit

At the San Francisco outpost, Matt assigns an important task to the Chosen One.

By 2242, the Brotherhood of Steel were but a fraction of the power they had been once before. With the emergence of the Enclave, the Brotherhood found that they were no longer the most advanced faction in the Wasteland. Intimidated and lacking the resources to deal with this new foe, the best the Brotherhood could manage was just to keep an eye on the newcomers. To this end, several previously-dormant bunkers and outposts in areas of Enclave activity were reactivated.

Eventually, the Brotherhood learned of the Enclave's Vertibird technology. Lacking any similar technology of their own, the Brotherhood saw itself as vulnerable to a possible Enclave invasion. In light of this possibility, Matthew, an operative stationed in the San Francisco outpost, was requested to enlist the aid of the Chosen One to steal a set of Vertibird schematics from a major Enclave outpost at Navarro.

Although the Chosen One was successful in his mission, it is unknown if the Vertibird plans ever reached the High Council, as Operative Matthew was killed by Agent Frank Horrigan a short time after the mission's completion. However, with the destruction of their oil rig base and NCR forces subsequently hunting down remaining members, the Enclave ceased to pose a threat on the West Coast.