John Samuel Smith

Sam / Old Man / ‘The Marshal’

239

Male

Pre-War, he was a decidedly average looking man. Brown hair, brown eyes, average height, and while not fat he was certainly a bit soft around the middle. Now while his hair is mostly gone and eyes have turned black, he has lost that ‘spare tire’ around his mid-section. Like any other ghoul his skin is a pale yellow-ish green and looks like he’s a full body burn victim, with really bad dry skin. Along with the loss of most of his nose and ears, in places the skin has completely fallen way and exposed the muscle and bone underneath; yet despite the rather gruesome look it causes him no pain.

Thanks to his new physiology, what wounds he does get rarely leave scars unless they are fairly traumatic injuries like a gunshot or serious stabbing. He does have a few of those, but they tend to get lost in the general mess that his body is in now.

He plays the part of the gruff and sometimes acerbic lawman, who most folks assume has just seen and done too much; and while that is somewhat true, it hides a much simpler truth…he’s just not very good with people mostly. Even before the war ‘inter-personal’ interactions were something he avoided if he could, and now he uses his gruff persona to stop anyone from getting too close. The truth is though, he’s a deeply lonely man.

Like any ghoul, and especially one as old as he is, Sam’s greatest and least talked about fear is that of going feral; of loosing his sense of ‘self’ and ending up as just another mad beast suitable only to be put down before he causes harm.

As he gets older, the rads seem to revitalize him a bit less with every passing decade. His joints hurt more, he finds himself stiffening up and his eyesight is not what it once was, especially at night.

His, at best mediocre, inter-personal skill can make him difficult to deal with, leaving the High Marshal to usually send pretty much any other Marshal on missions that require things like tact or diplomacy, if at all possible.

Richmond, Virginia in 2042. It’s been a long road from the pleasant little suburban home he knew as a child, involving more hardship, death and radiation than he cares to think about. Sam has never been back since the day the world burned; nothing likely survived, and even if it did…it’s best to let old ghosts rest.

To call Sam’s early life ‘average’ would be an understatement. The only child of only children, he cruised through life with barely a ripple, the sort of person you could sort of forget about while you were talking to him; the only stand out thing being a deep seated love of a largely ignored genre of music called ‘hard rock’. It seemed like he’d risen to the height of his mediocrity working as a mail clerk in the Pentagon, pushing carts of featureless manila envelopes sent from one side of the building to cubicles on the other.

Day in, day out, eight hours a day, five days a week for five years, that was his life; the closest he ever got to a ‘relationship’ was a couple of awkward double dates with a co-worker friend of his that never went anywhere. All that said though, he was content with his lot in life. In July 2077 his life was completely upended when his parents were killed in an auto accident; an eighteen wheeler lost control and ran a red light, T-boning the brand new Chryslus Cherry Bomb they were in and killing them instantly.

With his whole world now upended, his boss told him to (for once) use his banked vacation and sick time to go and get his head together. Taking the advice, Sam headed into the Appalachians to a secluded cabin his dad’s family had owned since the 1780s. Stocking up his Highwayman, he headed out and lost himself in the wilderness while he grieved. The cabin had always been one of his favorite places, spending time with his dad while he was taught to hunt and fish and to live off the land. He was still there on October 23rd when the bombs fell and the world he knew died.

He’d been out for a morning hike when he was the flashes behind the trees, and by the time he got to a good vantage point, mushroom clouds dotted the horizon everywhere he looked. Returning to the cabin, he thought about ending himself with his dad’s old rifle, to spare the slow death by radiation, but he couldn’t, so he waited. Days turned into weeks, into months and he kept going. A few heated altercations with survivors fleeing the urban areas convinced him to hide the gravel track that led to the cabin and so he shut himself off from the world, and largely it passed him by.
--
For the next one hundred and ten years he never left, though thinking back now he’s amazed he never went feral. He noticed the radiation changing him, but since there was nothing he could do, he simply went on with his life as best he could. He sustained himself by trapping, fishing or foraging, saving what little ammunition he had for threats both animal and human.

He probably would have stayed there in his new little rut if not for random chance. During a storm on of the, now dead, big trees came down and smashed into the cabin. Fortunately he’d been out checking trap lines, but when he saw the damage he realized all he could do was salvage what he could and move on. His Highwayman had been off when the bombs fell and over the decades he’d kept up maintenance as best he could, more as something to do than anything else, so when he had to abandon the cabin, it actually ran.

Over the next few years he roamed the remains of North Carolina, frequently coming and going from what used to be Charlotte Motor Speedway, now simply known as ‘Speedway’, trading salvage or skill in exchange for maintenance and modification of his car. About five years after nature evicted him, he found himself in South of the Border, somebody ’d paid good caps for him to courier some personal effects to a Tarheel stationed there, when it came under attack. Pitching in with marksman fire from a high point, he also started to direct ground level defenders to several incursions through the defences after he saw the commanding Marshal go down.

After the attack had been repulsed he was brought to see the Marshal, who’d only been minorly wounded, but knocked out cold for the rest of the battle. Marshal Walker thanked Sam, not only for his shooting, but for his quick thinking in taking over directing the defence and asked that Sam return to Speedway and sign on as a Marshal.

Though he’d thought he’d been content with his day to day life, Sam found himself invigorated by the idea. Returning to Speedway, he did as Marshal Walker asked and joined up. Nearly ninety years later, there is now only a very small number of Marshals who haven’t been mentored at least partially by Sam.

Anything not directly related to combat, work on their person regularly or considered essential gear.

• Garage/Suite is Speedway - Given to him in recognition of his long service as a Marshal, he mostly uses it as a place to store spare car parts, supplies and music. He does have a small cot to sleep on, but he’s rarely there.
• 2076 Chryslus Highwayman - Heavily Modified [+]

  - Raised suspension
  - Heavier duty front and rear axles
  - Solid rubber front tires, and rear wheels replaced by Robobrain tracks. At the cost of speed, it's greatly improved the cars rough ground ability.
  - Reinforced bumpers
  - Rear seat and trunk lid removed, cabin opened into trunk
  - Roof and sides extended to end of rear panels
  - Rear doors welded shut
  - Armoured against small arms fire.
  - Roof mounted defensive Laser Turret.
  
  - Contents of Highwayman -
  • Weapon cleaning and maintenance tools
  • Charging ports for M72 magazines x2
  • High capacity M72 magazines x 3
  • Bedroll
  • Spare 2mm EC ammunition
  • Spare 10mm ammunition
  • Spare RFID security badges x3
  • Spare MFCs and SECs for ‘fuel’
  • Several hard rock and/or heavy metal holotapes

Annabeth Elliot

Big Foot

31

Female

Annabeth, outside of her power armor, is still a rather impressively tall woman at six feet and five inches. Her general appearance, health, and complexion makes one thing clear: she is vault born. Compared to most wastelanders she lacks the irradiation almost innate to everyone, for better or for worse. But looking past the skin and you'll find that much any other person left in this world, she's got quite a few issues under the hood. Her body is very muscular, practically masculine, due to the hormones put into her during her life in the vault, and dotting her body are faint scars where tubes had been inserted for the purpose of her physical alteration. More noticeable are the other scars she's obtained via her training with the brother hood, namely a rather large scar going down her left thigh where she had an almost crippling bone injury that could've cut her career short. She has tannish skin and bronzish hair, and piercing blue eyes. She generally keeps her hair short, and would often time simply get a crew cut if she's been out in the field for a while. She notably has almost abnormally large feet, which combined with her size serves as her callsign.

Annabeth is if nothing else, looking on the brighter side of life. She makes no delusion that her life will be fraught with perils, she will go through man suffering, and there's a very high possibility that her death will be gruesome, violent, humiliating, or some combination of the three. Yet despite of this, she continues to trudge onward into darkness because ultimately, she'd rather die trying than curl up at home waiting for death to take her. A self-proclaimed nihilist on the idealist/cynic scale of things given that even if there is no material reward for self-sacrifice or generosity, she likes it well enough that she'll do so if the whim suits her. That being said, that does not mean she willingly helps anyone who asks of her; she makes the conscious decision to be nice and do good, and just as well can make the conscious decision to not be nice and do no good if it also suits her. She feels no obligation by either code or ethics to cooperate with anyone unless it suits her.

A woman who generally expects the worse of people so she doesn't disappoint herself if they turn out to be scumbags, and can be pleasantly surprised if they turn out relatively harmless and nice. Still she opens diplomacy with one arm outstretched in friendship and the other holding the trigger to her gun, so while she is willing to try any option to avoid violence, that is only because she appreciates the ability to have violence as a reliable backup. When it comes to outright combat Annabeth can be a bit cold and almost barbaric. She openly admits to taking no prisoners, even against those who are surrendering and begging for their lives. If they have not tried to kill her, she may allow them to leave with their lives and nothing else. But if they had so much as inconvenienced her in the midst of battle, the only mercy she will give them is a swift death.

There are times where Annabeth's nihilism overcomes her optimistic view of things. It is during these moments of introspection she feels most vulnerable knowing that much of her accomplishments can only be achieved by virtue of blind luck and being born with opportunities and blessings she had no choice but to accept, and how even with those things she may be lesser than others who came from nothing and have accomplished greater things than her. She also often mulls upon the futility of her cause and how more often than not she feels as though she's only beholden to the Brotherhood because she is scared of what will become of her without them, and often regrets thinking outside their dogma and wanting to do justice by her own means, which still relies on the strength and technology of others to support her. Her greatest fear is to fail to meet expectations so harshly that she will be left alone. No fanfare or heroic sacrifice, simply abandoned because it was more important to leave her behind than to help her. This causes Annabeth to feel the need to overcompensate a lot, which in turn feeds her complex of being a heroic and upstanding member of the brotherhood who deliberately chooses to do good out of her own free will, when in truth she's really just desperate for approval and relevance.

At it's worse, it makes Annabeth abandon the ideals that she tells herself to uphold and simply becomes another human trying to survive in a cruel world, becoming a person who only seeks out to do good for the sake of taking what she can by force, and expecting other people's gratitude to both validate her actions and prevent them from interrupting her looting. Even her usual fearless view of death turns into a desire to die in a needlessly glorious mayhem just for the chance that somehow, her legacy would live on as legend, and a slow painful death where she gradually becomes weaker and more useless will just cause Annabeth to break down and lose her mental and probably physical faculties. She also forgets, or rather actively denies the assistance of others, in order to somehow prove to everyone and herself that she is more than powerful enough to take on any threat alone as long as she believes in herself and makes up a plan that may or may not actually be all that well-thought out. She'll desperately take any opportunity she can and make up the details of her victory later, so long as she's certain no one will contradict whatever tale she'll tell.

On the physical side of things, Annabeth is very attached to her power armor not for protection, but for mobility. This is due to an injury she had sustained during her training with the Brotherhood where she once again overlooks her limit and ended up with a bloody compound fracture to her left thigh, which would have likely resulted in her death by blood lost if there was not a highly capable autodoc nearby. But even after she was able to walk again, she always had a slight limp whenever she moves outside of her power armor, and it's much more noticeable when she is forced to run or do general feats of agility without the aid of armor. Thus, despite her generally above-average physical ability, she still feels a psychological and physical need to stay in armor, protecting herself from people who may know her weakness.

Annabeth came from a vault in what was Fresno, California. Vault 30 was designed to attempt and create a single indistinguishable race among the inhabitants, thus sought out those who were already multiracial and encouraged selective breeding, even incest, in order to create a singular homogeneous human race. There was a mix level of success, however the scientists inside began to stray off course of the vault's original intentions of a single race and even tried to create a single gender capable of both forms of reproduction, which resulted in a sharp decrease in actual birthrates and many deaths. This spurred a violent uprising in the year 2267. The insurgents were the winners and managed to send out a distress signal, which eventually lead the Brotherhood to discovering the vault. Relations were initially good with many vault members integrating into the brotherhood thanks to their conditioning enabling many to become highly capable paladins, however around the year 2272 many residents who stayed in the vault suffered from mysterious mutations born from the foreign bacteria found in the wasteland which killed many and drove the survivors into a ghoul-like state, and eventually only those who had joined the brotherhood initially and received extensive medical treatment survived. The vault was than converted into a Brotherhood Bunker until the year 2077, where a large contingent of NCR soldiers forced the Brotherhood onto a desperate march east as more chapters were wiped out by the growing NCR. By 2280, Vault 30 is firmly under NCR occupation, as was most of California.

Like nearly everyone in Vault 30, Annabeth had a rather large family. Her father was the vault's spiritual leader, basically a priest, but one who was dogmatically loyal to the Overseer and generally encouraged the other residence to follow their "Divine Purpose". Annabeth's mother was a much more logical-minded security guard who was but one of many women who had been chosen by the vault's spiritual leader to bare his child for the sake of the vault's "Divine Purpose". Growing up Annabeth showed much promise in terms of physical development, being functionally female enabling her to reach puberty at a rapid pace which in turn allowed the vault scientist to begin the experiments on her body as soon as she was ten years old. Like many other children she was put through rigorous physical and mental conditioning in order to try and promote the best genes from her bloodline, a goal that Annabeth was all too willing to pursue thanks to the indoctrination she grew up with.

it wasn't until she was around fifteen years old that she started to notice the cracks in the facade. And it all started when her mother mysteriously vanished. Though her father oversaw much of Annabeth's childhood education, she was much closer to her mother in terms of parental support. Her mother was a strongly independent woman who nonetheless recognized her own faults and limitations, and encouraged Annabeth to also question things that are taken as truth. At the time Annabeth was too young to truly understand, until a shocking revelation occurred when she was seventeen years old and learned just what happened to her mother. Annabeth's mother, as well as many other people in the vault, were taken to test out new twisted experiments trying to splice not just race but gender into a singular bring, creating horrific mutated abominations that the mad scientist demanded experimentation with. Annabeth's own father tried to use his authority to force the inhabitants to either undergo operation and allow themselves to breed with these twisted beings, which cascaded into a violent rebellion where Annabeth willingly became an insurgent.

The fighting lasted for almost a year. Due to the Overseer's mistake of using some of his own security team as test subjects, this enabled the insurgents to access weapons by security team members who betrayed the Overseer, including the Security Chief. It was here that Annabeth's abnormal physical growths and experiments allowed her to shine as one of the primer fighters, taking up a humble sledge hammer and doing far more damage with it than even advance laser weapons or the classic 10mm pistol. Despite their intellect when it came to science and technology, the Overseer and those who supported him were soon defeated and executed for their treason. Annabeth's father was even killed by Annabeth's own hammer, where she had struck him so such force that she had decapitated him with a blunt weapon. Soon a new overseer was picked and it was determined that it was time for the experiments to stop. However nervous about what may lie beyond the vault, the Overseer choose to release a distress signal that would only be picked up by anyone who had knowledge of the old American communication signals. Meanwhile, new security guards were trained, with Annabeth being a promising recruit for her valor in battle.

Barely a month would pass before the vault received a message from the outside world. A faction known as the Brotherhood of Steel, a remnant of the old United States military, was approaching and made clear intentions of what they intended to do and desired from the Vault. Their goals were reasonable: they wished to study the vault and it's original purpose, and wished to integrate members of Vault 30 into the Brotherhood, however they had a very strict expectation for those who wished to join their armed forces. They would otherwise offer to protect the Vault as long as the inhabitants continued to cooperate with the Brotherhood, and with the terms settled the vault would be opened for the first time since the original inhabitants entered.

Overseeing the operation between the vault residence and the Brotherhood was Paladin Alexander. It was him who selected who among the vault inhabitants were worthy of becoming Initiates and joining the armed division of the Brotherhood. Though many were promising by virtue of their physical abilities alone, many could not handle the cruelties of the wasteland firsthand, washing out before they could ever even be field tested. Annabeth however remained strong even in the face of such maligned existence. The memory of her mother, and the hatred of her father, was what drove her to face the injustice and chaos of the world above the vault and made her want to see it in all of it's horror and glory. She withstood harsh physical, mental, and even spiritual training that made her training as a vault security officer seem like a game of recess. Annabeth nearly failed when during endurance conditioning she had been bitten by a bloatfly on the leg. Instead of getting it treated she had simply dismissed it as she had quickly killed the creature, but a few days later when they had returned to base, the bite turned into a nasty infection that had severely weakened both the muscle and bones in that leg. It wasn't until she had dropped off her gear that she had finally allowed herself to break, literally, and was rushed to the infirmary.

There Annabeth had to receive extensive physical recovery for almost a year. Originally it would've taken three, however Annabeth was determined to recover as quickly as humanly possible. By 2270, Annabeth had largely recovered and was finally allowed to take the test to become a Brotherhood Initiates , which would allow her to formally take on specialized brotherhood training and access to their facilities. Thanks to a combination of prior combat experience thanks to the war of Vault 30, as well as the physical body granted to her thanks to the vault's experiments, she was able to master the basics of being an Initiate and would soon become a proper Knight. However things would not be the same in the Brotherhood.

Annabeth was always aware of the NCR existence, but she had simply dismissed it as a struggling nation trying to rebuilt America from the ruins, as oppose to the brotherhood which at least was built from the military remnant. That all changed when suddenly during a mission, Annabeth and the team she was in was given distress orders to move East instead of returning to Vault 30. She didn't question the orders at the time as the area they were in were ripe with dangers, and had simply thought they were going to deal with another nest of raiders or perhaps Super Mutants. It wasn't until they were sneaking through Arizona, avoiding Legionaries, that Annabeth learned of the true might of the NCR and how they had managed to oust the technologically superior Brotherhood. And during her trek through Arizona and New Mexico that she even heard of Caesar's Legion, and was absolutely baffled at how a faction that actively shunned technology could have evern survived the wastelands, let alone grow into a faction powerful enough that they actually threaten the Brotherhood themselves.

It was during this exodus east which she has come to call "The Long Road" that Annabeth started to have doubts about the Brotherhood. She started to realize that just like her childhood in Vault 30, she had allowed herself to be consumed by the dogma and fervor of the Brotherhood, blinded by their amazing technology and power to not realize their flaws and weaknesses. Indeed, it wasn't until it was already too late, when the NCR besieged Vault 30 and put many of the inhabitants down, that Annabeth realized that the Brotherhood was not in fact the saviors of the new world. They were hardly even a faction of considerable power in the west: the NCR had already developed technologies that even the Brotherhood haven't had. The seeds of doubt made Annabeth reflect much about what she truly wanted as a member of the Brotherhood as she traveled The Long Road.

And it wasn't until Annabeth's team reached Tennessee that she realized what she really wanted to do. By this point her team, which had originally consisted of five Initiates, two knights, and a paladin, was reduced to two initiates, a knight, and the paladin. The other Initiate was a fellow Vault Dweller, Maxwell. But he not from Annabeth's vault, but from a Vault 144. They had apparently been tested to master various forms of languages. The knight was a craven of a man named Mikey who was only a member of the Brotherhood thanks to the sponsorship of an Elder, or so he would claim, and had only survived so far because he priorities his survival above all else. And finally there was Paladin Pylia, originally a doctor who nonetheless showed fearlessness in battle but compassion to others. By this point moral was at a all time low, as were supplies. Before they had survived off BOS rations and utilized chemical purifiers to drink clean water, but both had ran out. And so Annabeth and her fellow Initiate was tasked to find supplies while the knight and paladin charted their course.

It was when than that Annabeth and her fellow initiate had stumbled onto a tense standoff. A small family of tribals, armed with crude guns, were being held up by a gang of raiders, also armed with crude weapons. Her fellow initiate suggested that they simply standby and watch, as there was no telling how either side would react to their presence. But when Annabeth noticed that one of the tribal women was pregnant and yet armed with a gun to fight off the raiders, Annabeth could not allow herself to stand idly by. Before the firefight could start Annabeth charged the raiders with her laser rifle, catching a few off guard and disintegrating them instantly. The raiders turned their guns onto Annabeth but her power armor enabled her to shrug off their bullets and engage them in close-quarters combat. In a blind frenzy, she had destroyed her own rifle to ensure the raiders could not use it against her as she hefted her trusty sledge hammer and brutalized the raiders, sending the survivors scattering. She never got a word of thanks from the tribals; they had fled as soon as Annabeth arrived and distracted the Raiders. Her fellow initiate was quite angry at her for not only breaking her rifle, but putting herself in danger and achieving nothing for it. But Annabeth had no regrets. She got what she wanted from it.

And since that day, Annabeth had started to act more independently, even acting outside the Brotherhood Codex. At her urging, she had her fellow Initiate translate and speak to various tribals they came across, sharing knowledge in exchange for supplies. She even learned how to craft spears from the tribals, which helped Annabeth since she lacked a gun to use for the longest time. Though she received insults and lectures from the Knight Mikey, Paladin Pylia showed silent approval as Annabeth often took the lead when it came to speaking to tribals, even learning their language thanks to Maxwell. Thanks to Annabeth's new found desire to take initiative of her own life, she was able to make the journey east last much more smoothly, securing enough supplies to keep the four well fed when they arrived in Capital Wasteland and joined up with the local Brotherhood Chapter. For her ability in the face of perils, Annabeth was promoted straight from Initiate to Knight Sargent.

She quickly would begin to prove her worth for the Brotherhood. Often taking on missions alone, she would single-handily protect the roads and secure settlements from raiders, mutants, wayward beasts, and even the occasional haywire robot. But more than that, she made sure to foster positive relationships between the Brotherhood and these settlements, encouraging them to become strong and join the Brotherhood. She oversaw many welfare projects if only because she wanted to see these people live comfortably, with or without Brotherhood assistance. And when she heard word of a mission to the south, into the mysterious lands of North Carolina, Annabeth knew what she needed to do. Grasping her hammer and donning her armor, she would join the Chapter to retake America.

Survivalist - Thanks to her willingness and education from tribals, Annabeth is quite adapt at surviving off what little the wasteland provides, be it surviving off irradiate plants and animals, or crafting highly effective weapons from scraps and monster parts.
Empathetic Insight - Annabeth has something of a knack at sensing emotions and intentions in others, which enables her a bit of an edge when she needs to be charismatic. She's good at sensing lies and detecting feints, and isn't afraid to call bluffs or be a subtle as her sledge hammer.
Force of Personality - Some call it willpower, others call it recklessness, but whatever you call it Annabeth is capable of forcing her ideals to shine through even the bleakest of situations, and isn't easily broken no matter the adversity. Indeed, the only thing that can truly destroy Annabeth's confidence is herself, which she tries her best to avoid by always putting herself in the company of others.

Deck of Playing Cards, Harmonica, Packs of Cigarettes, Personal Diary, lots of ink pens, Bag full of Bottle Caps, Needles and Thread, Someone's Skull, Lighter, bag of rock salt.

Melee Combat - Annabeth is especially skilled in melee combat utilizing two-handed weapons, weather it be something as simple as a baseball bat or as advance as a super sledge. Her favored weapon are hammers, which she's been using ever since she fought in the Civil War of Vault 30. In addition, Annabeth is also quite skilled in some other types of melee weapons, including knives and spears. She's actually quite a shot when using javelins, capable of slicing the wings off a bloatfly with a single throw.
Laser Weapons - As part of her brotherhood training, Annabeth has been familiarized with various types of laser Weapons, from the basic plasma pistols and laser rifles to even the more advance gauss rifle and gatling lasers.
Incredible Durability - Not so much a skill as much just a talent of Annabeth. Even outside of her power armor Annabeth is incredibly tough to take down. She could and has brawled a super mutant and come out on top before. And while she's far from invincible, she can survive things that would kill most monsters, let alone humans.

T-60 Power Armor (C Model, Brotherhood of Steel Knight-Sargent Paintjob, Standard Headlamp, Recon Sensors, Optimized Servos), Sledge Hammer (Heavy Rocket Mod), Throwing Spears (Can carry around four out of armor, and up to ten in armor), AER9 Laser Rifle (Photon Exciter, Sniper Barrel, Full Stock, Reflex Sight, Beam Splitter), Microfusion Cells (Mostly Standard, but at least three full Over Charge Cells), Fusion Battery (one in the armor and two spares), Combat Knife (Serrated Blade), BOS Uniform (Olive w/Hood), Battle Coat, Vault 30 Canteen, Stimpacks (Tries to keep at least five shots), Psycho (Tries to hide at least one), MRE (Carries usually seven), Bedroll, Authentic Canvas Bag, Toiletries.

Eliza-Marie O’Connor

Liza

27

Female

Sporting Platinum Blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and baby blue eyes, the latter contributing quite heavily to her being given the nickname Baby during her training years, Eliza has always looked a lot younger than she actually is. Though it still irks her, most know that despite her looks Eliza has a wealth of experience to draw upon. Standing at just over 5"6' and weighing around 140lbs Eliza is quite a bit smaller than her compatriots which caused no small amount of ridicule during her training and early service years.

Eliza bears very few markings or scars, of the two most obvious the scar running vertically down her face from her forehead across her left eye and down to the bottom of her cheek is the less obvious of the pair, the blast marking that engulfs most of Eliza's neck and chin is her most noticeable feature and often defines a number of her first encounters with new people.

Before her accident Eliza was a girl of few worries, at just 24 she was being considered for a commission to Lieutenant and she was still at relative peace with her mother despite the two still being at odds over the events at Adams Air Force base. Rarely seen without a smile on her face Eliza could light up even the darkest of rooms.

But for better or worse it wasn't to last. Indeed spending three weeks in a coma seems to have changed Eliza at her very core, the friends she alienated herself from called it a rot while her commanding officer called her increased focus and determination while on field work 'some of the finest soldiering he'd ever seen.' In truth it was a mix of the two and even Eliza will admit that the coma changed her entire attitude and outlook on life. Her bright and bubbly personality had made way for something more dark and cynical, all the pent up unresolved issues regarding her father, her brothers death and her and her mother's growing resentment towards one another were seemingly used as a foundation for the lingering effects of her accident and while Eliza is far too professional to allow such trivial issues to interfere with her duties as a both a soldier and an officer, even her personal file states that she has "latent psychological issues" which need to be investigated sooner rather than later if she ever wants to make Major.

Yet the more cynical outlook on things has also had its benefits, Eliza has always been for want of a better word a very pretty young woman, some may even say beautiful when she wipes the mud and blood of combat from her face. And while in her adolescence she claimed to be blissfully ignorant of the way she could turn heads by simply walking into a room, her post coma self is all too aware of the doors that her looks have opened for her and though she's not quite vain enough to think that her looks are all that she is or has, she knows that a flirtatious flutter of her eyelashes wouldn't hurt her interactions with most people.

Having spent that last nine years in some of the most gruelling places she could have been sent to too it is fair to say that very little phases, Eliza, anymore. From the largest of DeathClaws to the smallest of StingWings, Eliza has faced most if not all the deadly creatures that the Wasteland has to offer. Yet it was the humble Frag Grenade that would leave Eliza with her most obvious issues, the infrequent abdominal pains and partial deafness in her right ear that have plagued her ever since continue to prove problematic. The pains more so than the deafness and although Eliza doesn't mind talking about the incident the constant questions as to why she still gets pains after extensive surgery vex her to no end. Spending much of her early life in her older brothers’ shadow has left Eliza with a profound inferiority complex. And though her friends, family and compatriots will say it is completely unfounded, Eliza can still struggle with the thought that she doesn't fully deserve her position no matter how hard she tries.

Born in Raven Rock in 2253 to Blaire and Jackson O'Connor she was the second of two children, her older brother Mason being five years older than her. Born into a family with a long military service history she would fit into that lifestyle easily and has served with distinction from Adams onwards.

A member of Eliza's family has served in the US military in one form or another since it was formed, and Eliza was not going to be the one to buck the trend. Though her mother had hoped she would follow her footsteps and try to join the science division Eliza instead opted to follow her father and brother and join the army when she was old enough, this partly led to her father constantly chastising her for not being as good as her older brother. As he never wanted her to follow her mother as well and expressed a not so insignificant amount of outrage once Eliza announced what she planned to do.

The daughter of one of the more experienced field officers that served in the Enclave at the time Eliza had a lot to live up to from minute one. Eliza wouldn't struggle throughout training, yet her desire to show her father that she could do military service would cause her training to become mired with niggling injuries as she would often push herself too far in the pursuit of trying to make him proud of her. However, it was when it came to live fire exercises that Eliza would finally shine in the eyes of the instructors and indeed to an extent her fathers, her calm and collected nature under fire allowed her to take command of her squad when the squad leader cracked the moment actual shots came over their heads. And her natural knack for leadership meant she was soon made Corporal.

Her first real mission would not be anything too dangerous, a simple patrol of an already secured area. Not what she wanted but when her father used his connections to get her an "easier" first assignment she couldn't exactly say no. However, Eliza would return from a very quiet patrol mission to the news that her home, the place she has grown up in and had many fond memories of had been destroyed by the Brotherhood. Luckily for her, her family and most of her friends had survived the battle yet the same could not be said for the upcoming battle of Adams Air force base.

Her first encounter with Brotherhood forces would not be one she would forget any time soon. The battle at Adams Airforce base was her first true experience of combat and seeing her squadmates, the ones she had grown up and trained with falling around her was nearly enough to break her and question whether her father had been right all along. But it was finding her brother dead in one of the hangars and watching as her father, who had to force her onto the last Vertibird, was cut down by a sword-wielding knight that truly tested her will.

The two months after Adams would be a mixed bag for Eliza. Along with a transfer to a base in Northern Pennsylvania and a promotion, she would catch the eye of a young mechanic named James Parker, it would be said mechanic who would help her deal with the rougher times during those two years as her already distant relationship with her mother would worsen after the deaths of her brother and father and with the last of her family drifting away Eliza would need all the help she could get.

A week after her 24th birthday Eliza and her squad were sent on what should have been a routine sweep to check on a disturbance at one of the bunker's hidden entrances. When they entered the building Eliza could tell something was off and she was right. she walked through the building in close proximity to the engineer sent with them since he wasn't particularly well equipped to fight then she heard it, the pin falling out followed by the grenade falling down in front of the engineer, a trap laid by God only knows. It was like instinct she pushed him out of the way behind cover just in time for the grenade to explode and for her to take the blast instead. Eliza would wake up just over three weeks later in the medical bay to the sound of various monitors beeping and her relieved looking partner sitting next to her. And though the influence of a not so insignificant amount of painkillers clouded her mind she still understood the full extent of the grim summary the doctor gave her. Eliza's recovery would take time but with the help of her new family and large amounts of medication, she would recover.

The next three years would be a mixed bag for Eliza as within a year her prospects of a prosperous future had gone up in smoke around her. Her relationship with her mother had deteriorated to the point of open hostility between the two of them and her blossoming relationship with James quickly withered and died as Eliza began to seclude herself from life outside of military duty. But it wasn't to be all doom and gloom for the young Lieutenant, along with a promotion to Captain she would find herself being given the opportunity of a lifetime by her almost father figure of a CO.

With the loss at Adams and the scheming by Colonel Autumn leading to a brutal civil war within the Enclave Eliza found herself on the side of the reformist faction and with her CO knowing of her deep hatred of her father, a staunch a Purist as one could be, he saw no better candidate than Eliza to help lead this new unit. They were called the Pathfinders, a unit spearheaded by a Major Jack Parker, with the task of hunting down Enclave Purist remnants and putting them down. Based out of the BoS outpost in the Carolina Creamery the mission for the most part has been successful, with many remnant cells being put down like the dogs they are and Eliza even being considered to replace Jack as the units CO if/when he moves behind a desk for the rest of his life.

In recent weeks however, a new threat has begun to show its ugly face, rumours of a Super Mutant army making its way up from Florida have begun circulating and Major Parker has dispatched Eliza along with her fireteam to assist a Brotherhood led expedition into South Carolina to search for a suitable Firebase location to hopefully deal with the coming mutant threat.