The Holy Federal Union

"By the Founders, for the People."

The HFU is centered around Philadelphia and its wider metropolitan area while also holding parts of New Jersey, the Delaware River & Bay and parts of interior Pennsylvania.

Map [+]

The Holy Federal Union can trace its roots back to Vault 74, located under the Great American Exhibition (formerly known as the National Constiuttion Center) in Philadelphia. Like many other vaults, it too was an expriment set up by Vault-Tec where they would try to induce an ultra-nationalist, jingoistic belief in America, American values and American history by way of heavily censored and editted holotapes, propaganda, and paraphenallia. Every aspect of the Vault was designed to inspire American Exceptionalism in some way, everything from the posters on the walls to the meals that were served, from school lessons to the toys kids played with. It actually turned out to be a fairly sucessful effort, only not in the way that Vault-Tec intended.

Over the generations, this constant reinforcing of the idea of Old America as some sort of promise land and the Founding Father as legendary figures and history would elevate them to god-like status. A naisent religious belief in the Founders and other American figures began to spread, first as simple desires to be as strong and as worthy as the great men and women of the past, and then prayers to their spirits and legacies. At first Overseers tolerated the creed as a cultural oddity and cared little for the little shrines to Washington and Roosevelt that popped up along the halls. But later Overseers would be raised as proper believers in the power of the Founding Fathers. It wasn't until the vault door was opened and the dwellers discovered that despite the majority of Philadelphia being obliterated by nuclear bombs, the Great American Exhibition was some how spared and mostly in tact. It was declared a miracle and a sign from the now heavenly Founding Fathers that they had chosen their new citizens and proof that they existed as divine beings.

Using their GECK, Vault 74 created a settlement around what they now dubbed the "Constitutional Temple of the Founders". In those early years, it was the preaching Ambassadors preforming missionary work that spread the new Americanist faith of Vault 74 to the survivors in Philadelphia, converting the local settlements and tribes through acts of piety, devotion and (occassionally) martyrdom. It was through religion that Philadelphia and its outlying areas would be united and it would be through a theocratic-democracy that it would be ruled: the Holy Federal Union. Blessed Patriots under the protection of and tasked with the rebuilding of a New America by the heavenly Founders. And they took to this task with great zeal, building up the city and converting many once-savage raider tribres, exterminating or banishing the ones who refused the light of Washington over the Delaware River.

In 2261, then President Nathaniel O'Jones launched a holy Intervention to the west, aimed at the fertile lands held by the Deitsch Principalities in order to alleviate increasingly common food shortages at home. By the end of 2277, the Union had gained the submission of several Deitsch princes who converted to Americanism and allowed clerical Ambassadors to preach the word of the Founders in their land; those who refused had their lands confiscated.

In 2289 was a dark year in the Union's history as Ghouls, whose memory of the pre-war America often came into conflict with preaching of the Ambassadors and Americanist beliefs of "Old America", had finally reached a tipping point as a group called the Gadson Ghouls began to preach heresy and distribute blasphemous false idols, texts and artifacts. The Continental Army soon had them arrested, tried for heresy and treason and shot at dawn, executed by laser musket firing squad, but the damage was done. The Founder's faithful flock began to look into "alternative" interpretations the Constitution and ideas about the Founders. As his final act in office, President Dewitt Santon declared the "Ghoul Expulsion Act", a highly controversial ordinance that officially banned any ghoul that were of "insufficient piety" and expelled them outside of the Union. Despite this, the orthodox Federalist creed has begun being challenged by new sects such as Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian, even radical Anti-Federalists.

The Constitutional Crisis - A result of the Gadson Ghouls' heretical preaching, where once there was unity in the Founder's words and under the stars and stripes, there is now questioning and a growing schism. Jeffersonians are a particularly aggressive branch that say the Founders were not the only Gods and say that Old America was a "land full of gods" and thus it all must be reclaimed, from sea to shining sea. Hamiltonians believe that while the Constitution outlines the powers of the Founders, they also possess more "implied powers" which can only be gleamed from interpretation of the Constitution while also believing that it is possible for ordinary mortals to achieve these "implied powers". Anti-Federalists are a radical branch that states the office of President and the Synod Senate are actually heretical and un-constitutional and thus should be dissolved entirely in favor of local holy men, Ambassadors and Judges ruling over a confederation of the faithful.

Military Divide - The Continental Army and Navy, while technically united and a powerful political force, are deeply divided on what route the Union should look towards in its ambitions of expansion. The Army favors the "Western Frontier", continuing pushing deeper into the Pennsylvanian heartland and possibly towards the Capital Wasteland in order to free the holy city of Washington DC from the grip of the unbelievers. The Navy on th other hand favors the "Eastern Horizon", pushing into New Jersey and wiping out the Jerseyite raider clans, gaining access to additional ports and coastal cities while considering a war with New York to claim its vast riches for the Union.

The Ghoul Expulsion Act - While a destabilizing religious force, Ghouls were also the best connections to old world knowledge and technology the Union had. By expelling most of their Ghouls, they've lost even more of their actual history and production capacity as many Ghouls were factory and workshop overseers, their immortal lifespans giving them the ability to become masters at their craft. While a few still remain, many more have left the Union, taking their knowledge and expertise with them. Not to mention the word they spread about the Union as "parody fanatics" does little to help the Union's reputation.