Uncommonwealth of Massachusetts - User contributions [en]

"Sagittarius"

2023-05-10T17:16:19Z

Zadammac: Created page with "{{Spoilers}} {{Living Document}} '''Sagittarius''' was the alias used by a Boston-area DIA agent who later abandoned her "wallet" identity and became known by the cognomen alone, earning fame as a heavy operator with the Railroad circa the end of the 23rd century. Before the Great War, Sagittarius fronted as a contract lawyer working in corporate practice for the Slocum's Joe corporation, having been recruited in law school to work for the DIA as an operator. Her pench..."

{{Spoilers}}

{{Living Document}}

'''Sagittarius''' was the alias used by a Boston-area DIA agent who later abandoned her "wallet" identity and became known by the cognomen alone, earning fame as a heavy operator with the Railroad circa the end of the 23rd century. Before the Great War, Sagittarius fronted as a contract lawyer working in corporate practice for the Slocum's Joe corporation, having been recruited in law school to work for the DIA as an operator. Her penchant for tradecraft and subterfuge earned the Railroad her attention in the years following her emergence from cryogenic suspension. Unfortunately, during the time of the secret war between the Railroad and the Institute, Saggittarius was not a prominent diarist, and most of what is known about her activities is either culled from her memoirs (written years after the fact) or evidenced by a scattering of recovered dead-drop messages.

== Pre-War Life ==
The woman who became known as Saggitarius was a native of the greater Boston area. Sometime prior to the Great War, she was enrolled at Harvard Law as a prospective JD student, and attracted the attention of a DIA recruiter. She then proceeded to serve with the DIA at their Lexington monitoring facility while training as a counter-espionage agent, and claims to have been responsible for the exposure of at least two communist spy cells operating in the area.

It is probable that the combination of her service record and the service record of her husband (who she claims to have been in the US Army) that got her and her family admitted to Vault 111.

== Post-War Life ==
=== Interment in Vault 111 ===
Vault 111 was, in reality a secret experiment on the part of VaultTec to study the viability of cryogenic suspended animation on human subjects. This experiment sustained Sagittarius and the rest of her family, until 2217, whereupon the facility was invaded by Conrad Kellogg and a team from the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, attempting to kidnap Saggitarius's infant son. She was then returned to cryogenic suspension and remained in that state for an additional 60 years, until the cryogenics system failed and she - and she alone - was ejected from her pod.

=== Joining the Railroad ===
In the days and weeks that followed, Sagittarius eventually came to the settlement of Diamond City as part of her larger effort to track down and pursue the people responsible for the murder of her husband and kidnap of her only child - an event she mistakenly believed to have been far more recent than it actually was. At this same time, believing herself to have picked up on a DIA countersign, she encountered the general idea of the Railroad, posited at the time to be an anti-institute resistance.

Following the minor verbal clue provided, she eventually located the Railroad's primary safehouse and was tasked with assisting them with the recovery of the former Railroad headquarters position, which to her amusement proved to be her own former headquarters position, the DIA Signals Intelligence Facility in Lexington. Her performance in this respect made an impression on her Railroad handler, and shortly thereafter she was made a full agent of the organization.

=== Mercer Safehouse ===
Shortly after this event, Saggitarius established a safehouse of her own, under the Railroad codename "Fixer", giving the location the nickname [[Mercer Safehouse (Saggitarus') | Mercer Safehouse]]. Our best analysis indicates that the safehouse in question was part of, or possibly all off, the settlement at Sunshine Tidings Co-Op, in the western Commonwealth Wasteland.

Saggitarius used this safe house as part of the Railroad's mandate to evacuate synths from the wasteland, but also as a personal storehouse and staging area, returning there often.

=== Pursuit of Conrad Kellogg ===
Saggitarius's investigation eventually lead her to Fort Hagen, where the institute assassin Conrad Kellogg was staging to cross the Glowing Sea. Working alone, she proceeded to clear the entire Fort Hagen complex of hostile early-gen synthetics and murder Conrad Kellogg. This operation is said to have "lit up the Synth Retention Bureau like a Christmas Tree", and lead to Sagittarius going into hiding for an extended period, which included facial reconstructive surgery.

While this operation would have seemed to be an end to her vendetta, she now had continued business in the form of Railroad operations against the institute. By sheer happenstance, she retained the cybernetic implants possessed by Conrad Kellogg, which lead to her learning of the institute scientist Brian Virgil.

=== Operations in the Glowing Sea ===

Acting on Virgil's advice, Sagittarius pursued and murdered an institute courser, in order to obtain a special implant the courser possessed that would give it the ability to use an institute teleporter. Her objective in this case was to bring the chip and related technical data to a Railroad contact, in order to exploit the teleporter to enter the Institute's primary facility.

== Relationship to Other Major Factions ==
=== Maxon's Brotherhood of Steel ===
Of her own accord, Sagittarius has no special hatred for the Brotherhood of Steel. Perhaps confusingly, she is loosely coupled to the Synth Liberation portion of the Railroad's mission, focusing more on their mission to undermine the Institute at every turn, a goal the Brotherhood shares. However, shortly after the arrival of the Prydwen in the commonwealth, the Railroad's official policy toward the Brotherhood became one of hostility.

=== Commonwealth Institute of Technology ===
With the loss of her son and the death of her husband, Sagittarius has coped by wreathing herself in the fury of the "avenging angel", and the target of her ire is the surviving organization of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology. While her direct interaction with the Institute's forces have been limited up to this point.

=== The Commonwealth Minutemen ===
Sagittarius was also, supposedly, the General of the Minutemen. However, this role was too public for her taste, and one she rarely pursued.

== Establishments ==

=== Mercer Safehouse ===
The one location firmly associated with Sagittarius in the commonwealth was [[Mercer Safehouse (Saggitarus') | Mercer Safehouse]]. While somewhat ramshackle at first, the safehouse eventually became a key fallback position for the railroad as well as a personal refuge.

== Gameplay Mechanics ==
=== Difficulty and Modifications ===
Sagittarius was played on the normal difficulty and didn't heavily rely on any modifications.

=== Combat Style ===
Sagittarius's combat style relied entirely on the use of the Deliverer handgun and high stealth, supplemented with stealth boys and the occasional use of explosives.

Jason Watts

2023-05-10T16:09:22Z

Zadammac:

{{Spoilers}}

{{Living Document}}

General '''Jason Alexander Watts''' was a pre-War survivor who served as the General of the [[Minutemen (General Watts') | Commonwealth Minutemen]] from October of 2287 onward. Before the war, Jason served in the United States Army as a logistics coordinator with the Corps of Engineers, and is known to have retired from military service prior to the retaking of Anchorage in 2077. He studied civil engineering at the graduate level at the Commonwealth Institute of Technology and had graduated to a Master's Degree just prior to the Great War. His civil engineering training is often credited by him for his extreme success post-War, and he has an [[Watts' Maxim | eponymous maxim]] ascribed to him that holds "cities are the machines we built to keep us alive". He was known to have been a dairist and kept [https://discord.gg/RaJFtcsCVV extensive records] of his travels and exploits post-War, which have helped to solidify his reputation and third-party biographies.

== Pre-War Life ==
Jason Alexander Watts served as a logistics engineer attached from the Corps of Engineer to the 108th Infantry Regiment during the [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Resource_Wars Resource Wars], for which he received extensive combat training, but served in a rear-echelon capacity. He is known to have participated in a vaguely-defined battle directly, and it's known that he intended to give a speech to his Veteran's Association speaking out against the mismanagement of the mental health of combat veterans at his veteran's association in Cambridge on the day of the Great War. Following the declaration of national emergency after the launch of nuclear ballistic missiles by the Chinese military, he, his wife Nora, and son Shaun sheltered in [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault_111 Vault 111].

General Watts was actually a witness of the explosion which formed the [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Glowing_Sea Glowing Sea]], and complained throughout most of the rest of his life of vision problems and difficulties with his ocular health as a result. In spite of these difficulties, however, he is known to have been a bit of a sharpshooter during his exploits post-war.

== Post-War Life ==
=== Interment in Vault 111 ===
Immediately following the great war, Jason spent over 200 years in mostly-uninterrupted cryogenic stasis within Vault 111, as part of an experimental program by the Vault-Tec Corporation on the viability of cryogenic stasis - a study which the residents of the vault were not informed would be conducted on them. As a result of happenstance, he, his wife Nora, and son Shaun were the only family in the vault containing an infant child. This meant that when [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Conrad_Kellogg Conrad Kellog]] entered Vault 111 on Institute instructions to kidnap the infant Shaun, Nora died attempting to prevent this from happening, while Jason was conscious and observant. Out of a desire to maintain a possible "backup" related to their test subject, the Institute kept Jason alive while terminating the life support functions of every other cryogenically-interred member of the Vault.

Jason would not escape until nearly 60 years later, when an apparent failure of the cryogenic systems of the vault (after 200 years of neglect) resulted in his release from his capsule. Finding the Vault abandoned, Jason had no choice but to escape to the surface.

=== Establishment of the Second-Generation Minutemen ===
Shortly after escaping Vault 111, Watts would explore the nearby city of Concord, which would lead to him interrupting a raider attack on [[Preston Garvey]]'s settler group at the Museum of Freedom. Seeing himself as armed and in a position to help, Watts proceeded to clear both the Museum and the City of Concord against both the raiders and a [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Deathclaw Deathclaw], through the use of equipment salvaged by the settlers. Jason then escorted these settlers back to his home in the ruins of [[City of Sanctuary Hills | Sanctuary Hills]], assisted them in fortifying the position and making it suitable for long term survival, and thereafter formed a working relationship with Preston Garvey.

While initially thrown off by the ragtag nature and historical allusions of the Commonwealth Minutemen, over the following days the idea and premise grew on Jason, and on October 29, 2287, Jason agreed (initially tentatively) to serve as the General of a reborn Commonwealth Minutemen, with Preston as his nominal Colonel. The two frequently travelled together in those early days and established a variety of relationships with what would become known as the "Founding" minutemen settlements of the region, [[Abernathy Farm (General Watts') | Abernathy Farm]], [[Tenpines Station]], [[Fort Starlight]], and [[Red Rocket Station (General Watts') | Red Rocket Station]], along with other northwestern settlements.

=== Pursuit of Conrad Kellogg ===
In the months that followed this, General Watts engaged in a personal vendetta against the mercenary Conrad Kellogg, an Institute operative who was responsible for the death of his wife and kidnapping of his son. This pursuit lead ultimately to a final confrontation at Fort Hagen, after which point Jason considered the trail to finding Shaun largely cold, according to his writings. Years later, Watts would refer to this vendetta and his execution of Conrad as an abuse of his personal authority, as he bent a large amount of Minutemen resources toward the pursuit.

During this time period, the general also re-established Minutemen control of [[Fort Independence]].

=== The "First Reconstruction" ===
The death of Kellogg lead to a period which Jason referred to in later writings as the "First Reconstruction", during which he focused largely on expanding and fortifying settlements allied to the minutemen, especially [[Oberland Station (General Watts') | Oberland Station]], [[Fort Starlight]], and early versions of the [[City of Sanctuary Hills]].

Unfortunately, during this period, Jason also became markedly more reserved in his writings, verging on paranoid. It is believed that during this time he began to work with the Railroad, at least in a limited capacity. It is also known that at that time he personally crossed the Glowing Sea at least twice through the use of protective power armour, attempting to make contact with a rogue scientist he believed could help him to infiltrate the Institute's surviving facilities.

It IS known that during this period, on Christmas Eve of 2287, General Watts precipitated the [[Eviction of Covenant]], and three days later formally declared war between the Commonwealth Minutemen and the Gunners, a mercenary faction that was heavily armed and omnipresent in the Commonwealth at the time. This time period also saw the establishment of some early southern holdings, notably [[Egret Works]] and [[Fort Sommerville]].

== Relationship to Other Major Factions ==
=== Maxon's Brotherhood of Steel ===
General Watts had already established much of the northwestern commonwealth as allied to the Minutemen by the time the main Brotherhood contingent entered the Commonwealth and took up residence at Boston Airport, in sight of [[Fort Independence]]. Given the highly militarized posture of the Brotherhood of Steel, Jason's initial reaction to the Brotherhood is distrust. While stories of the Capital contingent of the Brotherhood, lead by the previous elder, Owen Lyons, softened Jason's view of the Brotherhood, by the spring of 2288 Jason had entirely abandoned the idea of an alliance between the Brotherhood or the Minutemen, and relationships between the two increasingly soured.

The main bone of contention between the Minutemen and the Brotherhood by January 2287 was the Brotherhood's habit of extorting settlements for food, a practice shared by raiders. However, Brotherhood leadership stopped short of directly extorting Minuteman-allied settlements or attacking Minuteman patrols, avoiding direct provocation. Being the superior force, General Watts also stopped short of directing Minutemen to liberate the settlements exploited by the Brotherhood or interfering in Brotherhood patrols, beyond monitoring their activities and reporting back.

=== Commonwealth Institute of Technology ===
Initially unknown to him, Jason established himself as an enemy of the Institute the moment he abandoned Vault 111, and this only solidified as Jason began to explore the post-War commonwealth and pick up rumours of Institute involvement. By January of 2287, Jason had firmly established the Institute as the ultimate enemy in his mind, having lost what limited respect he would have had for their continuation of proper engineering practice through their more objectionable pursuits of research into FEV and, naturally, the Gen 3 synth program. Jason's writings are clear that he considers the Generation 3 Synths, in particular, to be human for all intents and purposes (it is more accurate to say he considers them to be "persons", the distinction having some importance), and the practices of the Synth Retention Bureau and the associated attitude of Synths-As-Property to be wholly repugnant.

=== Children of Atom ===
Jason encountered the Children of Atom during his first crossing of the Glowing Sea, and credited them with his survival of the ordeal. He did not, however, consider their cause especially worthy or noble, nor did he abandon his own largely privately-held religious beliefs as a result. His limited writings on the matter were vaguely colonial in their attitudes, considering the Children of Atom as "poorly misguided", though he expressed some interest in their "seemingly miraculous survival".

His favorable impression of the Mother Isolde faction of the Children was one of the motivating thoughts behind the establishment of [[Fort Sommerville]].

=== The Railroad ===
Jason kept his involvement with the Railroad, if any, close to his chest, though there is some evidence to suggest that he began working with them during the period of his First Reconstruction, around the turn of the year between 2287 and 2288. He was, however, somewhat more vocal about his impressions of the Railroad, commending their cause and efforts.

=== Gunners ===
While initially writing about the Gunners as a "potential problem" as early as November 2287, by the start of 2288, he delcared a formal state of war between the Minutemen and the Gunners. More so even than the institute or the brotherhood, Jason considered the Gunners to be the antithesis of the Minutemen, writing in one journal entry that they were "little more than militarized raiders".

During the period of their ongoing conflict, Jason would frequently expand on this example in Minuteman training materials. In these materials, "Gunner Gorge" was the veritable Donny Don't of training materials, depicted as everything from a dangerous scoundrel whose behaviour was the exact opposite of an upstanding Minuteman to dangerous morons whose safety practices, medical training, and field discipline were constantly getting him killed.

== Establishments ==
During his time as General, Jason established or expanded a number of settlements.

=== Sanctuary Hills ===
Shortly after finding the Concord suburb of Sanctuary Hills to be abandoned, Jason established what would later become the [[City of Sanctuary Hills]] among the ruins of the suburb. To the greatest extent possible he preserved the existing architecture, but found the idea of living long-term in the township to be too painful to consider as a serious prospect, and abandoned it just a few weeks later, returning only to attend to official business in his capacity as General. The town served as the de-facto headquarters of the Commonwealth Minutemen for around two months until the establishment of the formal headquarters, first at [[Fort Independence]] then later at [[Fort Starlight]].

The town did, however, remain important, in spite of his personal baggage surrounding it. Jason often wrote of Sanctuary Hills as the "promise of his generation to the survivors", and once referred to the city in a speech commemorating the anniversary of the reformation of the Minutemen as the "Little Blue Jewel of the Commonwealth".

=== Fort Starlight ===
During the initial expansion of the reformed Commonwealth Minuteman throughout the Northwest, the former [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Starlight_Drive-In Starlight Drive-In] ruins near Lexington were cleared of an infestation of mole-rats and established as something of a forward camp used frequently by Jason and Preston in the early days of the new minutemen. Because of this habit, and the location's rather central access (controlling the roads northeast and northwest into minuteman territory, east to Bunker Hill and Lexington, and south to locations like Greygarden, Oberland, and Cambridge, this camp grew rather rapidly in size, especially after the discovery that its main water source was much more abundant than originally believed.

As early as mid-November, 2287, just weeks after his emergence from the Vault, General Watts had begun referring to the site as [[Fort Starlight]], and refers to the settlement as such in [[General Order #01]], broadcast on November 16, 2287, presumably within hours of the capture of [[Fort Independence]] and its radio system.

=== Fort Independence ===
Though initially reluctant (considering the effort a gross misuse of the resources available at the time and an over-extension of the influence of the Minutemen), General Watts eventually agreed with Preston Garvey to take control of [[Fort Independence]], a traditional fortification of the Minutemen. For an incredibly brief time period, the facility served as the headquarters of the Minutemen after it was reclaimed on the 15th or 16th of November, 2287. However, [[General Order #01]], broadcast late in the day on the 16th, established immediately that "Fort Indy" was a subordinate headquarters to the primary fortification at [[Fort Starlight]], at least as far as command structure was concerned. It is supposed that this was due to its isolated position near the roving headquarters of the Brotherhood of Steel, who were already active in the Boston Area by the time command of the facility was established.

However, as the situation in the Commonwealth for the Minutemen improved, "the Castle" became an increasingly important settlement whose significance went beyond its powerful improvised Radio Repeater Array, becoming the main training facility for the [[1st Artillery Regiment (Commonwealth Minutemen)]] and the "Southwest Headquarters".

=== Other (Minor) Settlements ===
With the main day-to-day goal of bootstrapping "proper civilization" in the Commonwealth Wasteland, General Watts put much of his effort into getting every settlement he could to align themselves to the minutemen cause. In practice, this effort was helped by two major policies: the mutual defense premise of the minutemen, and a "minimum militarization policy" that ensured not every settlement the Minutemen controlled was turned into an absolute strongpoint. Wherever possible, Watts left the established local leaders of a settlement in charge of the affairs of that settlement, and made only minor changes with regard to militarized positions, especially during the First Reconstruction.

Broadly speaking, the full list of settlements lead by or associated with General Watts can be divided into two categories: '''civilian''' and '''militarized''', as follows:
* Civilian Positions
** [[Abernathy Farm (Gen. Watts') | Abernathy Farm]]
** [[City of Sanctuary Hills]]
** [[Egret Works]]
** [[Greygarden]]
** [[Sunshine City]]

* Militarized Positions
** [[Fort Starlight]]
** [[Fort Independence]]
** [[Fort Sommerville]]
** [[Red Rocket Station]]
** [[Oberland Station]]
** [[Tenpines Station]]
** [[Hangman's Station]]

== Gameplay Mechanics ==
=== Difficulty and Modifications ===
Jason Watts was played on the Survival difficulty, using a modification known as '''SKK Survival Utilities''' along with a variety of lore-friendly and gameplay-balanced settlement management modifications. SKK Survival Utilities was used to give Jason the ability to move items more freely between settlements, fast travel under certain (limited) conditions, and other minor changes.

=== SPECIAL spread and Perks ===
Jason's initial Special spread was 8/1/4/8/6/1/1 after a respec taken at around level 30 (he then raised his Perception to 2 (because bobblehead) and endurance to 4 (because of the you're Special) book. For selectable perks, his primary focuses were Rifleman, Big Leagues, Local Leader, and Inspirational, taking many other associated perks for utility purposes.

=== Combat Style ===
Jason's build and specialization was around single-shot rifles. Initially, these were usually medium-range rifles. By around level 30//Act Three, greater effort and emphasis was placed on the behaviours of a sniper, because of the extreme damage multipliers in Survival mode making taking return fire impractical.

Fort Starlight

2023-05-10T14:26:52Z

Zadammac: Created page with "{{Living Document}} Category: Settlements Category: Watts Timeline '''Fort Starlight''' was a fortified settlement that served as the Headquarters of the Commonwealth Minutemen from November 2287 onward. Established in the ruins of a drive-in movie theater (from which it derived its name), Starlight commanded a respectable footprint as well as exterting control over major road intersections that solidified Minuteman influence in..."

{{Living Document}}
[[Category: Settlements]]
[[Category: Watts Timeline]]

'''Fort Starlight''' was a fortified settlement that served as the Headquarters of the [[Minutemen (General Watts') | Commonwealth Minutemen]] from November 2287 onward. Established in the ruins of a drive-in movie theater (from which it derived its name), Starlight commanded a respectable footprint as well as exterting control over major road intersections that solidified Minuteman influence in the Northwestern Commonwealth. It's founder, [[Jason Watts]], established it as his headquarters in the capacity of General of the Minutemen once it became clear the faction was more than just the pipe dream he'd shared with Preston Garvey.

=== Strategic Significance ===
Starlight's strategic significance was largely in its positioning. Through its adjoining road intersections, it gated access to Concord (and by extension, [[Red Rocket Station (General Watts') | Red Rocket Station]], [[Tenpines Station]], [[Covenant (General Watts') | Covenant]], Lexington, Cambridge, and so on. It was considered a major clearing hub for trade throughout the Northwest, though for a significant portion of its early history it did not actually have any market facilities, especially after it was decided it would be primarily a military facility of the standing minutemen.

=== History ===
==== Establishment ====
A camp at Starlight was first established after General Watts and Colonel Garvey cleared the area of a mole-rat infestation, very early on in the establishment of the current incarnation of the Minutemen. This initial camp consisted of no more than sleeping quarters for four individuals (to include the General, Preston, and two individuals to hold the facility against invading raiders or wasteland creatures), the [[Minuteman Archives (Starlight) | Minuteman Archives]], and some limited workshop facilities.

==== Fall of 2287 ====
Throughout the fall of 2287 Starlight saw repeated expansions, culminating in November 16th's "General Order #01" which established the facility as the headquarters of the Minutemen, formally, and is the first official mention of it having been named "Fort" starlight. These initial expansions saw the construction of two "temporary" housing facilities on the grounds, alongside the water treatment plant, Northern Gatehouse, improvements to the former screen structure (termed "South Watch"), and construction of what General Watts termed "expedient defensive positions". During this period, the complement of Fort Starlight dramatically increased, supporting about 14 people at its contemporary height, the majority of whom were convoy workers engaged in goods transportation to neighbouring settlements.

==== Winter of 2287-2288 ===
During the period known as the First Reconstruction, General Watts expanded Fort Starlight further, beginning construction on the building then known as "The Factory", as well as constructing the Starlight Infirmary, and establishing additional defensive positions including an artillery platform. During this period, the idea of having the Fort be self-sufficient for food production was abandoned, with preference given to relying on the multiple nearby allied farms.

This period also saw at least the establishment of plans to wall-in the property, which previously relied on pre-war fencing and expediently-constructed covers to funnel attacks toward defensible positions.

=== Facilities ===
==== Minutemen Archives ====
See Full Article: [[Minuteman Archives (Starlight)]]

Among the earliest establishments at Fort Starlight was the Archives, built into a large storage room on the back side of the screen building (South Watch, in the modern parlance). The archives served as little more than a storage and categorization facility for documents recovered by Minutemen-aligned scavengers, with the broader goal of eventually establishing a more readily-used library in a more central location. General Watts was a noted hoarder of technical documentation especially, and saw the Archives as the means to preserve much of the Old World for later reconstruction.

==== Starlight Infirmary ====
See Full Article: [[Starlight Infirmary]]

Fort Starlight was the proud recipient of the first fully-equipped Minuteman-funded clinic, which offered medical care to settler and soldier alike through Minuteman-provided subsidies. The facility was considered rather advanced for the time (rated "level three"), and in addition to walk-through care and pharmacy services, had long-term care beds for three individuals as well as a radiological decontamination facility.

==== Water Treatment Plant ====
A highly rudimentary water treatment plant was constructed at Fort Starlight, consisting of a single industrial water purifier feeding from a depression in the central "lot" of the facility. Initially thought to be somewhat wasted effort and fed largely by rainwater, it was later discovered that this crater was filled by the breach of a graded water main that itself fed out of the nearby water table; in essence, nearly-unlimited water. The treatment plant was exposed to the elements but remained operational due to its perceived strategic importance if the fort should later fall under seige.

==== Drive-in Building ====
The original drive-in building had largely survived the Great War, though of course it was in poor repair following two centuries of neglect thereafter. At the time of writing, the Drive-In Building was actually largely unused, except for a portion of its eastern overhang, which was used as a support for a radio mast and a portion of the Northern Gatehouse.

==== Northern Gatehouse ====
The Northern Gatehouse was a crude wooden fortification built as a support for turrets and manned firing positions at the original driveway in and out of the lot, which was further enforced using chain link gates. This was a crude and expedient fortification step, which was always intended to be replaced when the lot could be walled in properly.

==== The Factory ====
See Also: [[Starlight Barracks | Starlight Arsenal]]

In December of 2287, General Watts personally undertook an effort to construct a large, three-story factory building in the shadow of South Watch, which was intended to serve as an arsenal structure. The original plans show a two-section factory, which would have used automated equipment to process incoming junk items down to raw components, then use those components to automatically manufacture three forms of ammunition commonly used by the Commonwealth Minutemen: fusion cells, .50 BMG, and .45 rounds.

It is known that at the time some of the assembly equipment - particularly an ammunition forge - had been constructed, but not installed. The project stalled out over a shortage in construction materials. In January of 2288, General Watts further commented that the project had been a "boondoggle" and was perhaps premature.

==== Residencies ====
From fall of 2287 to the early days of 2288, two expedient structures containing beds for 7 persons each had been constructed in the lot, alongside the existing bedding fit for two people in the base of South Watch. In January 2288, shortly after the completion of work on the Infirmary, Jason Watts recorded in his diary that the condition of these residences was "embarrassing".

==== South Watch ====
The large structure consisting of two minor storage rooms and the original projection screen, which was original to the Drive-In facility in its pre-war heyday, eventually became known as South Watch. There was access to the top "edge" of the screen by means of a staircase and a narrow walkway, and this platform was fortified with firing positions to permit a lookout and sharpshooter to provide oversight of Lexington and the southern roads.

As early as January 2287, plans had been established to make use of this elevated platform for wind-based electricity production and to build South Watch into part of the guard facility of a yet-to-be-established Southern Gatehouse.

Jason Watts

2023-05-10T13:36:08Z

Zadammac: /* Other (Minor) Settlements */

{{Spoilers}}
{{Living Document}}

General '''Jason Alexander Watts''' was a pre-War survivor who served as the General of the [[Minutemen (General Watts') | Commonwealth Minutemen]] from October of 2287 onward. Before the war, Jason served in the United States Army as a logistics coordinator with the Corps of Engineers, and is known to have retired from military service prior to the retaking of Anchorage in 2077. He studied civil engineering at the graduate level at the Commonwealth Institute of Technology and had graduated to a Master's Degree just prior to the Great War. His civil engineering training is often credited by him for his extreme success post-War, and he has an [[Watts' Maxim | eponymous maxim]] ascribed to him that holds "cities are the machines we built to keep us alive". He was known to have been a dairist and kept [https://discord.gg/RaJFtcsCVV extensive records] of his travels and exploits post-War, which have helped to solidify his reputation and third-party biographies.

== Pre-War Life ==
Jason Alexander Watts served as a logistics engineer attached from the Corps of Engineer to the 108th Infantry Regiment during the [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Resource_Wars Resource Wars], for which he received extensive combat training, but served in a rear-echelon capacity. He is known to have participated in a vaguely-defined battle directly, and it's known that he intended to give a speech to his Veteran's Association speaking out against the mismanagement of the mental health of combat veterans at his veteran's association in Cambridge on the day of the Great War. Following the declaration of national emergency after the launch of nuclear ballistic missiles by the Chinese military, he, his wife Nora, and son Shaun sheltered in [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault_111 Vault 111].

General Watts was actually a witness of the explosion which formed the [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Glowing_Sea Glowing Sea]], and complained throughout most of the rest of his life of vision problems and difficulties with his ocular health as a result. In spite of these difficulties, however, he is known to have been a bit of a sharpshooter during his exploits post-war.

== Post-War Life ==
=== Interment in Vault 111 ===
Immediately following the great war, Jason spent over 200 years in mostly-uninterrupted cryogenic stasis within Vault 111, as part of an experimental program by the Vault-Tec Corporation on the viability of cryogenic stasis - a study which the residents of the vault were not informed would be conducted on them. As a result of happenstance, he, his wife Nora, and son Shaun were the only family in the vault containing an infant child. This meant that when [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Conrad_Kellogg Conrad Kellog]] entered Vault 111 on Institute instructions to kidnap the infant Shaun, Nora died attempting to prevent this from happening, while Jason was conscious and observant. Out of a desire to maintain a possible "backup" related to their test subject, the Institute kept Jason alive while terminating the life support functions of every other cryogenically-interred member of the Vault.

Jason would not escape until nearly 60 years later, when an apparent failure of the cryogenic systems of the vault (after 200 years of neglect) resulted in his release from his capsule. Finding the Vault abandoned, Jason had no choice but to escape to the surface.

=== Establishment of the Second-Generation Minutemen ===
Shortly after escaping Vault 111, Watts would explore the nearby city of Concord, which would lead to him interrupting a raider attack on [[Preston Garvey]]'s settler group at the Museum of Freedom. Seeing himself as armed and in a position to help, Watts proceeded to clear both the Museum and the City of Concord against both the raiders and a [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Deathclaw Deathclaw], through the use of equipment salvaged by the settlers. Jason then escorted these settlers back to his home in the ruins of [[City of Sanctuary Hills | Sanctuary Hills]], assisted them in fortifying the position and making it suitable for long term survival, and thereafter formed a working relationship with Preston Garvey.

While initially thrown off by the ragtag nature and historical allusions of the Commonwealth Minutemen, over the following days the idea and premise grew on Jason, and on October 29, 2287, Jason agreed (initially tentatively) to serve as the General of a reborn Commonwealth Minutemen, with Preston as his nominal Colonel. The two frequently travelled together in those early days and established a variety of relationships with what would become known as the "Founding" minutemen settlements of the region, [[Abernathy Farm (General Watts') | Abernathy Farm]], [[Tenpines Station]], [[Fort Starlight]], and [[Red Rocket Station (General Watts') | Red Rocket Station]], along with other northwestern settlements.

=== Pursuit of Conrad Kellogg ===
In the months that followed this, General Watts engaged in a personal vendetta against the mercenary Conrad Kellogg, an Institute operative who was responsible for the death of his wife and kidnapping of his son. This pursuit lead ultimately to a final confrontation at Fort Hagen, after which point Jason considered the trail to finding Shaun largely cold, according to his writings. Years later, Watts would refer to this vendetta and his execution of Conrad as an abuse of his personal authority, as he bent a large amount of Minutemen resources toward the pursuit.

During this time period, the general also re-established Minutemen control of [[Fort Independence]].

=== The "First Reconstruction" ===
The death of Kellogg lead to a period which Jason referred to in later writings as the "First Reconstruction", during which he focused largely on expanding and fortifying settlements allied to the minutemen, especially [[Oberland Station (General Watts') | Oberland Station]], [[Fort Starlight]], and early versions of the [[City of Sanctuary Hills]].

Unfortunately, during this period, Jason also became markedly more reserved in his writings, verging on paranoid. It is believed that during this time he began to work with the Railroad, at least in a limited capacity. It is also known that at that time he personally crossed the Glowing Sea at least twice through the use of protective power armour, attempting to make contact with a rogue scientist he believed could help him to infiltrate the Institute's surviving facilities.

It IS known that during this period, on Christmas Eve of 2287, General Watts precipitated the [[Eviction of Covenant]], and three days later formally declared war between the Commonwealth Minutemen and the Gunners, a mercenary faction that was heavily armed and omnipresent in the Commonwealth at the time. This time period also saw the establishment of some early southern holdings, notably [[Egret Works]] and [[Fort Sommerville]].

== Relationship to Other Major Factions ==
=== Maxon's Brotherhood of Steel ===
General Watts had already established much of the northwestern commonwealth as allied to the Minutemen by the time the main Brotherhood contingent entered the Commonwealth and took up residence at Boston Airport, in sight of [[Fort Independence]]. Given the highly militarized posture of the Brotherhood of Steel, Jason's initial reaction to the Brotherhood is distrust. While stories of the Capital contingent of the Brotherhood, lead by the previous elder, Owen Lyons, softened Jason's view of the Brotherhood, by the spring of 2288 Jason had entirely abandoned the idea of an alliance between the Brotherhood or the Minutemen, and relationships between the two increasingly soured.

The main bone of contention between the Minutemen and the Brotherhood by January 2287 was the Brotherhood's habit of extorting settlements for food, a practice shared by raiders. However, Brotherhood leadership stopped short of directly extorting Minuteman-allied settlements or attacking Minuteman patrols, avoiding direct provocation. Being the superior force, General Watts also stopped short of directing Minutemen to liberate the settlements exploited by the Brotherhood or interfering in Brotherhood patrols, beyond monitoring their activities and reporting back.

=== Commonwealth Institute of Technology ===
Initially unknown to him, Jason established himself as an enemy of the Institute the moment he abandoned Vault 111, and this only solidified as Jason began to explore the post-War commonwealth and pick up rumours of Institute involvement. By January of 2287, Jason had firmly established the Institute as the ultimate enemy in his mind, having lost what limited respect he would have had for their continuation of proper engineering practice through their more objectionable pursuits of research into FEV and, naturally, the Gen 3 synth program. Jason's writings are clear that he considers the Generation 3 Synths, in particular, to be human for all intents and purposes (it is more accurate to say he considers them to be "persons", the distinction having some importance), and the practices of the Synth Retention Bureau and the associated attitude of Synths-As-Property to be wholly repugnant.

=== Children of Atom ===
Jason encountered the Children of Atom during his first crossing of the Glowing Sea, and credited them with his survival of the ordeal. He did not, however, consider their cause especially worthy or noble, nor did he abandon his own largely privately-held religious beliefs as a result. His limited writings on the matter were vaguely colonial in their attitudes, considering the Children of Atom as "poorly misguided", though he expressed some interest in their "seemingly miraculous survival".

His favorable impression of the Mother Isolde faction of the Children was one of the motivating thoughts behind the establishment of [[Fort Sommerville]].

=== The Railroad ===
Jason kept his involvement with the Railroad, if any, close to his chest, though there is some evidence to suggest that he began working with them during the period of his First Reconstruction, around the turn of the year between 2287 and 2288. He was, however, somewhat more vocal about his impressions of the Railroad, commending their cause and efforts.

=== Gunners ===
While initially writing about the Gunners as a "potential problem" as early as November 2287, by the start of 2288, he delcared a formal state of war between the Minutemen and the Gunners. More so even than the institute or the brotherhood, Jason considered the Gunners to be the antithesis of the Minutemen, writing in one journal entry that they were "little more than militarized raiders".

During the period of their ongoing conflict, Jason would frequently expand on this example in Minuteman training materials. In these materials, "Gunner Gorge" was the veritable Donny Don't of training materials, depicted as everything from a dangerous scoundrel whose behaviour was the exact opposite of an upstanding Minuteman to dangerous morons whose safety practices, medical training, and field discipline were constantly getting him killed.

== Establishments ==
During his time as General, Jason established or expanded a number of settlements.

=== Sanctuary Hills ===
Shortly after finding the Concord suburb of Sanctuary Hills to be abandoned, Jason established what would later become the [[City of Sanctuary Hills]] among the ruins of the suburb. To the greatest extent possible he preserved the existing architecture, but found the idea of living long-term in the township to be too painful to consider as a serious prospect, and abandoned it just a few weeks later, returning only to attend to official business in his capacity as General. The town served as the de-facto headquarters of the Commonwealth Minutemen for around two months until the establishment of the formal headquarters, first at [[Fort Independence]] then later at [[Fort Starlight]].

The town did, however, remain important, in spite of his personal baggage surrounding it. Jason often wrote of Sanctuary Hills as the "promise of his generation to the survivors", and once referred to the city in a speech commemorating the anniversary of the reformation of the Minutemen as the "Little Blue Jewel of the Commonwealth".

=== Fort Starlight ===
During the initial expansion of the reformed Commonwealth Minuteman throughout the Northwest, the former [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Starlight_Drive-In Starlight Drive-In] ruins near Lexington were cleared of an infestation of mole-rats and established as something of a forward camp used frequently by Jason and Preston in the early days of the new minutemen. Because of this habit, and the location's rather central access (controlling the roads northeast and northwest into minuteman territory, east to Bunker Hill and Lexington, and south to locations like Greygarden, Oberland, and Cambridge, this camp grew rather rapidly in size, especially after the discovery that its main water source was much more abundant than originally believed.

As early as mid-November, 2287, just weeks after his emergence from the Vault, General Watts had begun referring to the site as [[Fort Starlight]], and refers to the settlement as such in [[General Order #01]], broadcast on November 16, 2287, presumably within hours of the capture of [[Fort Independence]] and its radio system.

=== Fort Independence ===
Though initially reluctant (considering the effort a gross misuse of the resources available at the time and an over-extension of the influence of the Minutemen), General Watts eventually agreed with Preston Garvey to take control of [[Fort Independence]], a traditional fortification of the Minutemen. For an incredibly brief time period, the facility served as the headquarters of the Minutemen after it was reclaimed on the 15th or 16th of November, 2287. However, [[General Order #01]], broadcast late in the day on the 16th, established immediately that "Fort Indy" was a subordinate headquarters to the primary fortification at [[Fort Starlight]], at least as far as command structure was concerned. It is supposed that this was due to its isolated position near the roving headquarters of the Brotherhood of Steel, who were already active in the Boston Area by the time command of the facility was established.

However, as the situation in the Commonwealth for the Minutemen improved, "the Castle" became an increasingly important settlement whose significance went beyond its powerful improvised Radio Repeater Array, becoming the main training facility for the [[1st Artillery Regiment (Commonwealth Minutemen)]] and the "Southwest Headquarters".

=== Other (Minor) Settlements ===
With the main day-to-day goal of bootstrapping "proper civilization" in the Commonwealth Wasteland, General Watts put much of his effort into getting every settlement he could to align themselves to the minutemen cause. In practice, this effort was helped by two major policies: the mutual defense premise of the minutemen, and a "minimum militarization policy" that ensured not every settlement the Minutemen controlled was turned into an absolute strongpoint. Wherever possible, Watts left the established local leaders of a settlement in charge of the affairs of that settlement, and made only minor changes with regard to militarized positions, especially during the First Reconstruction.

Broadly speaking, the full list of settlements lead by or associated with General Watts can be divided into two categories: '''civilian''' and '''militarized''', as follows:
* Civilian Positions
** [[Abernathy Farm (Gen. Watts') | Abernathy Farm]]
** [[City of Sanctuary Hills]]
** [[Egret Works]]
** [[Greygarden]]
** [[Sunshine City]]

* Militarized Positions
** [[Fort Starlight]]
** [[Fort Independence]]
** [[Fort Sommerville]]
** [[Red Rocket Station]]
** [[Oberland Station]]
** [[Tenpines Station]]
** [[Hangman's Station]]

== Gameplay Mechanics ==
=== Difficulty and Modifications ===
Jason Watts was played on the Survival difficulty, using a modification known as '''SKK Survival Utilities''' along with a variety of lore-friendly and gameplay-balanced settlement management modifications. SKK Survival Utilities was used to give Jason the ability to move items more freely between settlements, fast travel under certain (limited) conditions, and other minor changes.

=== SPECIAL spread and Perks ===
Jason's initial Special spread was 8/1/4/8/6/1/1 after a respec taken at around level 30 (he then raised his Perception to 2 (because bobblehead) and endurance to 4 (because of the you're Special) book. For selectable perks, his primary focuses were Rifleman, Big Leagues, Local Leader, and Inspirational, taking many other associated perks for utility purposes.

=== Combat Style ===
Jason's build and specialization was around single-shot rifles. Initially, these were usually medium-range rifles. By around level 30//Act Three, greater effort and emphasis was placed on the behaviours of a sniper, because of the extreme damage multipliers in Survival mode making taking return fire impractical.

Jason Watts

2023-05-10T13:35:29Z

Zadammac: /* Pre-War Life */

{{Spoilers}}
{{Living Document}}

General '''Jason Alexander Watts''' was a pre-War survivor who served as the General of the [[Minutemen (General Watts') | Commonwealth Minutemen]] from October of 2287 onward. Before the war, Jason served in the United States Army as a logistics coordinator with the Corps of Engineers, and is known to have retired from military service prior to the retaking of Anchorage in 2077. He studied civil engineering at the graduate level at the Commonwealth Institute of Technology and had graduated to a Master's Degree just prior to the Great War. His civil engineering training is often credited by him for his extreme success post-War, and he has an [[Watts' Maxim | eponymous maxim]] ascribed to him that holds "cities are the machines we built to keep us alive". He was known to have been a dairist and kept [https://discord.gg/RaJFtcsCVV extensive records] of his travels and exploits post-War, which have helped to solidify his reputation and third-party biographies.

== Pre-War Life ==
Jason Alexander Watts served as a logistics engineer attached from the Corps of Engineer to the 108th Infantry Regiment during the [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Resource_Wars Resource Wars], for which he received extensive combat training, but served in a rear-echelon capacity. He is known to have participated in a vaguely-defined battle directly, and it's known that he intended to give a speech to his Veteran's Association speaking out against the mismanagement of the mental health of combat veterans at his veteran's association in Cambridge on the day of the Great War. Following the declaration of national emergency after the launch of nuclear ballistic missiles by the Chinese military, he, his wife Nora, and son Shaun sheltered in [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault_111 Vault 111].

General Watts was actually a witness of the explosion which formed the [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Glowing_Sea Glowing Sea]], and complained throughout most of the rest of his life of vision problems and difficulties with his ocular health as a result. In spite of these difficulties, however, he is known to have been a bit of a sharpshooter during his exploits post-war.

== Post-War Life ==
=== Interment in Vault 111 ===
Immediately following the great war, Jason spent over 200 years in mostly-uninterrupted cryogenic stasis within Vault 111, as part of an experimental program by the Vault-Tec Corporation on the viability of cryogenic stasis - a study which the residents of the vault were not informed would be conducted on them. As a result of happenstance, he, his wife Nora, and son Shaun were the only family in the vault containing an infant child. This meant that when [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Conrad_Kellogg Conrad Kellog]] entered Vault 111 on Institute instructions to kidnap the infant Shaun, Nora died attempting to prevent this from happening, while Jason was conscious and observant. Out of a desire to maintain a possible "backup" related to their test subject, the Institute kept Jason alive while terminating the life support functions of every other cryogenically-interred member of the Vault.

Jason would not escape until nearly 60 years later, when an apparent failure of the cryogenic systems of the vault (after 200 years of neglect) resulted in his release from his capsule. Finding the Vault abandoned, Jason had no choice but to escape to the surface.

=== Establishment of the Second-Generation Minutemen ===
Shortly after escaping Vault 111, Watts would explore the nearby city of Concord, which would lead to him interrupting a raider attack on [[Preston Garvey]]'s settler group at the Museum of Freedom. Seeing himself as armed and in a position to help, Watts proceeded to clear both the Museum and the City of Concord against both the raiders and a [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Deathclaw Deathclaw], through the use of equipment salvaged by the settlers. Jason then escorted these settlers back to his home in the ruins of [[City of Sanctuary Hills | Sanctuary Hills]], assisted them in fortifying the position and making it suitable for long term survival, and thereafter formed a working relationship with Preston Garvey.

While initially thrown off by the ragtag nature and historical allusions of the Commonwealth Minutemen, over the following days the idea and premise grew on Jason, and on October 29, 2287, Jason agreed (initially tentatively) to serve as the General of a reborn Commonwealth Minutemen, with Preston as his nominal Colonel. The two frequently travelled together in those early days and established a variety of relationships with what would become known as the "Founding" minutemen settlements of the region, [[Abernathy Farm (General Watts') | Abernathy Farm]], [[Tenpines Station]], [[Fort Starlight]], and [[Red Rocket Station (General Watts') | Red Rocket Station]], along with other northwestern settlements.

=== Pursuit of Conrad Kellogg ===
In the months that followed this, General Watts engaged in a personal vendetta against the mercenary Conrad Kellogg, an Institute operative who was responsible for the death of his wife and kidnapping of his son. This pursuit lead ultimately to a final confrontation at Fort Hagen, after which point Jason considered the trail to finding Shaun largely cold, according to his writings. Years later, Watts would refer to this vendetta and his execution of Conrad as an abuse of his personal authority, as he bent a large amount of Minutemen resources toward the pursuit.

During this time period, the general also re-established Minutemen control of [[Fort Independence]].

=== The "First Reconstruction" ===
The death of Kellogg lead to a period which Jason referred to in later writings as the "First Reconstruction", during which he focused largely on expanding and fortifying settlements allied to the minutemen, especially [[Oberland Station (General Watts') | Oberland Station]], [[Fort Starlight]], and early versions of the [[City of Sanctuary Hills]].

Unfortunately, during this period, Jason also became markedly more reserved in his writings, verging on paranoid. It is believed that during this time he began to work with the Railroad, at least in a limited capacity. It is also known that at that time he personally crossed the Glowing Sea at least twice through the use of protective power armour, attempting to make contact with a rogue scientist he believed could help him to infiltrate the Institute's surviving facilities.

It IS known that during this period, on Christmas Eve of 2287, General Watts precipitated the [[Eviction of Covenant]], and three days later formally declared war between the Commonwealth Minutemen and the Gunners, a mercenary faction that was heavily armed and omnipresent in the Commonwealth at the time. This time period also saw the establishment of some early southern holdings, notably [[Egret Works]] and [[Fort Sommerville]].

== Relationship to Other Major Factions ==
=== Maxon's Brotherhood of Steel ===
General Watts had already established much of the northwestern commonwealth as allied to the Minutemen by the time the main Brotherhood contingent entered the Commonwealth and took up residence at Boston Airport, in sight of [[Fort Independence]]. Given the highly militarized posture of the Brotherhood of Steel, Jason's initial reaction to the Brotherhood is distrust. While stories of the Capital contingent of the Brotherhood, lead by the previous elder, Owen Lyons, softened Jason's view of the Brotherhood, by the spring of 2288 Jason had entirely abandoned the idea of an alliance between the Brotherhood or the Minutemen, and relationships between the two increasingly soured.

The main bone of contention between the Minutemen and the Brotherhood by January 2287 was the Brotherhood's habit of extorting settlements for food, a practice shared by raiders. However, Brotherhood leadership stopped short of directly extorting Minuteman-allied settlements or attacking Minuteman patrols, avoiding direct provocation. Being the superior force, General Watts also stopped short of directing Minutemen to liberate the settlements exploited by the Brotherhood or interfering in Brotherhood patrols, beyond monitoring their activities and reporting back.

=== Commonwealth Institute of Technology ===
Initially unknown to him, Jason established himself as an enemy of the Institute the moment he abandoned Vault 111, and this only solidified as Jason began to explore the post-War commonwealth and pick up rumours of Institute involvement. By January of 2287, Jason had firmly established the Institute as the ultimate enemy in his mind, having lost what limited respect he would have had for their continuation of proper engineering practice through their more objectionable pursuits of research into FEV and, naturally, the Gen 3 synth program. Jason's writings are clear that he considers the Generation 3 Synths, in particular, to be human for all intents and purposes (it is more accurate to say he considers them to be "persons", the distinction having some importance), and the practices of the Synth Retention Bureau and the associated attitude of Synths-As-Property to be wholly repugnant.

=== Children of Atom ===
Jason encountered the Children of Atom during his first crossing of the Glowing Sea, and credited them with his survival of the ordeal. He did not, however, consider their cause especially worthy or noble, nor did he abandon his own largely privately-held religious beliefs as a result. His limited writings on the matter were vaguely colonial in their attitudes, considering the Children of Atom as "poorly misguided", though he expressed some interest in their "seemingly miraculous survival".

His favorable impression of the Mother Isolde faction of the Children was one of the motivating thoughts behind the establishment of [[Fort Sommerville]].

=== The Railroad ===
Jason kept his involvement with the Railroad, if any, close to his chest, though there is some evidence to suggest that he began working with them during the period of his First Reconstruction, around the turn of the year between 2287 and 2288. He was, however, somewhat more vocal about his impressions of the Railroad, commending their cause and efforts.

=== Gunners ===
While initially writing about the Gunners as a "potential problem" as early as November 2287, by the start of 2288, he delcared a formal state of war between the Minutemen and the Gunners. More so even than the institute or the brotherhood, Jason considered the Gunners to be the antithesis of the Minutemen, writing in one journal entry that they were "little more than militarized raiders".

During the period of their ongoing conflict, Jason would frequently expand on this example in Minuteman training materials. In these materials, "Gunner Gorge" was the veritable Donny Don't of training materials, depicted as everything from a dangerous scoundrel whose behaviour was the exact opposite of an upstanding Minuteman to dangerous morons whose safety practices, medical training, and field discipline were constantly getting him killed.

== Establishments ==
During his time as General, Jason established or expanded a number of settlements.

=== Sanctuary Hills ===
Shortly after finding the Concord suburb of Sanctuary Hills to be abandoned, Jason established what would later become the [[City of Sanctuary Hills]] among the ruins of the suburb. To the greatest extent possible he preserved the existing architecture, but found the idea of living long-term in the township to be too painful to consider as a serious prospect, and abandoned it just a few weeks later, returning only to attend to official business in his capacity as General. The town served as the de-facto headquarters of the Commonwealth Minutemen for around two months until the establishment of the formal headquarters, first at [[Fort Independence]] then later at [[Fort Starlight]].

The town did, however, remain important, in spite of his personal baggage surrounding it. Jason often wrote of Sanctuary Hills as the "promise of his generation to the survivors", and once referred to the city in a speech commemorating the anniversary of the reformation of the Minutemen as the "Little Blue Jewel of the Commonwealth".

=== Fort Starlight ===
During the initial expansion of the reformed Commonwealth Minuteman throughout the Northwest, the former [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Starlight_Drive-In Starlight Drive-In] ruins near Lexington were cleared of an infestation of mole-rats and established as something of a forward camp used frequently by Jason and Preston in the early days of the new minutemen. Because of this habit, and the location's rather central access (controlling the roads northeast and northwest into minuteman territory, east to Bunker Hill and Lexington, and south to locations like Greygarden, Oberland, and Cambridge, this camp grew rather rapidly in size, especially after the discovery that its main water source was much more abundant than originally believed.

As early as mid-November, 2287, just weeks after his emergence from the Vault, General Watts had begun referring to the site as [[Fort Starlight]], and refers to the settlement as such in [[General Order #01]], broadcast on November 16, 2287, presumably within hours of the capture of [[Fort Independence]] and its radio system.

=== Fort Independence ===
Though initially reluctant (considering the effort a gross misuse of the resources available at the time and an over-extension of the influence of the Minutemen), General Watts eventually agreed with Preston Garvey to take control of [[Fort Independence]], a traditional fortification of the Minutemen. For an incredibly brief time period, the facility served as the headquarters of the Minutemen after it was reclaimed on the 15th or 16th of November, 2287. However, [[General Order #01]], broadcast late in the day on the 16th, established immediately that "Fort Indy" was a subordinate headquarters to the primary fortification at [[Fort Starlight]], at least as far as command structure was concerned. It is supposed that this was due to its isolated position near the roving headquarters of the Brotherhood of Steel, who were already active in the Boston Area by the time command of the facility was established.

However, as the situation in the Commonwealth for the Minutemen improved, "the Castle" became an increasingly important settlement whose significance went beyond its powerful improvised Radio Repeater Array, becoming the main training facility for the [[1st Artillery Regiment (Commonwealth Minutemen)]] and the "Southwest Headquarters".

=== Other (Minor) Settlements ===
With the main day-to-day goal of bootstrapping "proper civilization" in the Commonwealth Wasteland, General Watts put much of his effort into getting every settlement he could to align themselves to the minutemen cause. In practice, this effort was helped by two major policies: the mutual defense premise of the minutemen, and a "minimum militarization policy" that ensured not every settlement the Minutemen controlled was turned into an absolute strongpoint. Wherever possible, Watts left the established local leaders of a settlement in charge of the affairs of that settlement, and made only minor changes with regard to militarized positions, especially during the First Reconstruction.

Broadly speaking, the full list of settlements lead by or associated with General Watts can be divided into two categories: '''civilian''' and '''militarized''', as follows:
* Civilian Positions
** [[Abernathy Farm (Gen. Watts') | Abernathy Farm]]
** [[City of Sanctuary Hills]]
** [[Egret Works]]
** [[Greygarden]]
** [[Sunshine City]]

* Militarized Positions
** [[Fort Starlight]]
** [[Fort Independence]]
** [[Fort Sommerville]]
** [[Oberland Station]]
** [[Tenpines Station]]
** [[Hangman's Station]]

== Gameplay Mechanics ==
=== Difficulty and Modifications ===
Jason Watts was played on the Survival difficulty, using a modification known as '''SKK Survival Utilities''' along with a variety of lore-friendly and gameplay-balanced settlement management modifications. SKK Survival Utilities was used to give Jason the ability to move items more freely between settlements, fast travel under certain (limited) conditions, and other minor changes.

=== SPECIAL spread and Perks ===
Jason's initial Special spread was 8/1/4/8/6/1/1 after a respec taken at around level 30 (he then raised his Perception to 2 (because bobblehead) and endurance to 4 (because of the you're Special) book. For selectable perks, his primary focuses were Rifleman, Big Leagues, Local Leader, and Inspirational, taking many other associated perks for utility purposes.

=== Combat Style ===
Jason's build and specialization was around single-shot rifles. Initially, these were usually medium-range rifles. By around level 30//Act Three, greater effort and emphasis was placed on the behaviours of a sniper, because of the extreme damage multipliers in Survival mode making taking return fire impractical.

Jason Watts

2023-05-10T13:34:40Z

Zadammac: Created page with "{{Spoilers}} {{Living Document}} General '''Jason Alexander Watts''' was a pre-War survivor who served as the General of the Commonwealth Minutemen from October of 2287 onward. Before the war, Jason served in the United States Army as a logistics coordinator with the Corps of Engineers, and is known to have retired from military service prior to the retaking of Anchorage in 2077. He studied civil engineering at the graduate level at the..."

{{Spoilers}}
{{Living Document}}

General '''Jason Alexander Watts''' was a pre-War survivor who served as the General of the [[Minutemen (General Watts') | Commonwealth Minutemen]] from October of 2287 onward. Before the war, Jason served in the United States Army as a logistics coordinator with the Corps of Engineers, and is known to have retired from military service prior to the retaking of Anchorage in 2077. He studied civil engineering at the graduate level at the Commonwealth Institute of Technology and had graduated to a Master's Degree just prior to the Great War. His civil engineering training is often credited by him for his extreme success post-War, and he has an [[Watts' Maxim | eponymous maxim]] ascribed to him that holds "cities are the machines we built to keep us alive". He was known to have been a dairist and kept [https://discord.gg/RaJFtcsCVV extensive records] of his travels and exploits post-War, which have helped to solidify his reputation and third-party biographies.

== Pre-War Life ==
Jason Alexander Watts served as a logistics engineer attached from the Corps of Engineer to the 108th Infantry Regiment during the [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Resource_Wars Resource Wars], for which he received extensive combat training, but served in a rear-echelon capacity. He is known to have participated in a vaguely-defined battle directly, and it's known that he intended to give a speech to his Veteran's Association speaking out against the mismanagement of the mental health of combat veterans at his veteran's association in Cambridge on the day of the Great War. Following the declaration of national emergency after the launch of nuclear ballistic missiles by the Chinese military, he, his wife Nora, and son Shaun sheltered in [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault 111 Vault 111]].

General Watts was actually a witness of the explosion which formed the [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Glowing_Sea Glowing Sea]], and complained throughout most of the rest of his life of vision problems and difficulties with his ocular health as a result. In spite of these difficulties, however, he is known to have been a bit of a sharpshooter during his exploits post-war.

== Post-War Life ==
=== Interment in Vault 111 ===
Immediately following the great war, Jason spent over 200 years in mostly-uninterrupted cryogenic stasis within Vault 111, as part of an experimental program by the Vault-Tec Corporation on the viability of cryogenic stasis - a study which the residents of the vault were not informed would be conducted on them. As a result of happenstance, he, his wife Nora, and son Shaun were the only family in the vault containing an infant child. This meant that when [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Conrad_Kellogg Conrad Kellog]] entered Vault 111 on Institute instructions to kidnap the infant Shaun, Nora died attempting to prevent this from happening, while Jason was conscious and observant. Out of a desire to maintain a possible "backup" related to their test subject, the Institute kept Jason alive while terminating the life support functions of every other cryogenically-interred member of the Vault.

Jason would not escape until nearly 60 years later, when an apparent failure of the cryogenic systems of the vault (after 200 years of neglect) resulted in his release from his capsule. Finding the Vault abandoned, Jason had no choice but to escape to the surface.

=== Establishment of the Second-Generation Minutemen ===
Shortly after escaping Vault 111, Watts would explore the nearby city of Concord, which would lead to him interrupting a raider attack on [[Preston Garvey]]'s settler group at the Museum of Freedom. Seeing himself as armed and in a position to help, Watts proceeded to clear both the Museum and the City of Concord against both the raiders and a [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Deathclaw Deathclaw], through the use of equipment salvaged by the settlers. Jason then escorted these settlers back to his home in the ruins of [[City of Sanctuary Hills | Sanctuary Hills]], assisted them in fortifying the position and making it suitable for long term survival, and thereafter formed a working relationship with Preston Garvey.

While initially thrown off by the ragtag nature and historical allusions of the Commonwealth Minutemen, over the following days the idea and premise grew on Jason, and on October 29, 2287, Jason agreed (initially tentatively) to serve as the General of a reborn Commonwealth Minutemen, with Preston as his nominal Colonel. The two frequently travelled together in those early days and established a variety of relationships with what would become known as the "Founding" minutemen settlements of the region, [[Abernathy Farm (General Watts') | Abernathy Farm]], [[Tenpines Station]], [[Fort Starlight]], and [[Red Rocket Station (General Watts') | Red Rocket Station]], along with other northwestern settlements.

=== Pursuit of Conrad Kellogg ===
In the months that followed this, General Watts engaged in a personal vendetta against the mercenary Conrad Kellogg, an Institute operative who was responsible for the death of his wife and kidnapping of his son. This pursuit lead ultimately to a final confrontation at Fort Hagen, after which point Jason considered the trail to finding Shaun largely cold, according to his writings. Years later, Watts would refer to this vendetta and his execution of Conrad as an abuse of his personal authority, as he bent a large amount of Minutemen resources toward the pursuit.

During this time period, the general also re-established Minutemen control of [[Fort Independence]].

=== The "First Reconstruction" ===
The death of Kellogg lead to a period which Jason referred to in later writings as the "First Reconstruction", during which he focused largely on expanding and fortifying settlements allied to the minutemen, especially [[Oberland Station (General Watts') | Oberland Station]], [[Fort Starlight]], and early versions of the [[City of Sanctuary Hills]].

Unfortunately, during this period, Jason also became markedly more reserved in his writings, verging on paranoid. It is believed that during this time he began to work with the Railroad, at least in a limited capacity. It is also known that at that time he personally crossed the Glowing Sea at least twice through the use of protective power armour, attempting to make contact with a rogue scientist he believed could help him to infiltrate the Institute's surviving facilities.

It IS known that during this period, on Christmas Eve of 2287, General Watts precipitated the [[Eviction of Covenant]], and three days later formally declared war between the Commonwealth Minutemen and the Gunners, a mercenary faction that was heavily armed and omnipresent in the Commonwealth at the time. This time period also saw the establishment of some early southern holdings, notably [[Egret Works]] and [[Fort Sommerville]].

== Relationship to Other Major Factions ==
=== Maxon's Brotherhood of Steel ===
General Watts had already established much of the northwestern commonwealth as allied to the Minutemen by the time the main Brotherhood contingent entered the Commonwealth and took up residence at Boston Airport, in sight of [[Fort Independence]]. Given the highly militarized posture of the Brotherhood of Steel, Jason's initial reaction to the Brotherhood is distrust. While stories of the Capital contingent of the Brotherhood, lead by the previous elder, Owen Lyons, softened Jason's view of the Brotherhood, by the spring of 2288 Jason had entirely abandoned the idea of an alliance between the Brotherhood or the Minutemen, and relationships between the two increasingly soured.

The main bone of contention between the Minutemen and the Brotherhood by January 2287 was the Brotherhood's habit of extorting settlements for food, a practice shared by raiders. However, Brotherhood leadership stopped short of directly extorting Minuteman-allied settlements or attacking Minuteman patrols, avoiding direct provocation. Being the superior force, General Watts also stopped short of directing Minutemen to liberate the settlements exploited by the Brotherhood or interfering in Brotherhood patrols, beyond monitoring their activities and reporting back.

=== Commonwealth Institute of Technology ===
Initially unknown to him, Jason established himself as an enemy of the Institute the moment he abandoned Vault 111, and this only solidified as Jason began to explore the post-War commonwealth and pick up rumours of Institute involvement. By January of 2287, Jason had firmly established the Institute as the ultimate enemy in his mind, having lost what limited respect he would have had for their continuation of proper engineering practice through their more objectionable pursuits of research into FEV and, naturally, the Gen 3 synth program. Jason's writings are clear that he considers the Generation 3 Synths, in particular, to be human for all intents and purposes (it is more accurate to say he considers them to be "persons", the distinction having some importance), and the practices of the Synth Retention Bureau and the associated attitude of Synths-As-Property to be wholly repugnant.

=== Children of Atom ===
Jason encountered the Children of Atom during his first crossing of the Glowing Sea, and credited them with his survival of the ordeal. He did not, however, consider their cause especially worthy or noble, nor did he abandon his own largely privately-held religious beliefs as a result. His limited writings on the matter were vaguely colonial in their attitudes, considering the Children of Atom as "poorly misguided", though he expressed some interest in their "seemingly miraculous survival".

His favorable impression of the Mother Isolde faction of the Children was one of the motivating thoughts behind the establishment of [[Fort Sommerville]].

=== The Railroad ===
Jason kept his involvement with the Railroad, if any, close to his chest, though there is some evidence to suggest that he began working with them during the period of his First Reconstruction, around the turn of the year between 2287 and 2288. He was, however, somewhat more vocal about his impressions of the Railroad, commending their cause and efforts.

=== Gunners ===
While initially writing about the Gunners as a "potential problem" as early as November 2287, by the start of 2288, he delcared a formal state of war between the Minutemen and the Gunners. More so even than the institute or the brotherhood, Jason considered the Gunners to be the antithesis of the Minutemen, writing in one journal entry that they were "little more than militarized raiders".

During the period of their ongoing conflict, Jason would frequently expand on this example in Minuteman training materials. In these materials, "Gunner Gorge" was the veritable Donny Don't of training materials, depicted as everything from a dangerous scoundrel whose behaviour was the exact opposite of an upstanding Minuteman to dangerous morons whose safety practices, medical training, and field discipline were constantly getting him killed.

== Establishments ==
During his time as General, Jason established or expanded a number of settlements.

=== Sanctuary Hills ===
Shortly after finding the Concord suburb of Sanctuary Hills to be abandoned, Jason established what would later become the [[City of Sanctuary Hills]] among the ruins of the suburb. To the greatest extent possible he preserved the existing architecture, but found the idea of living long-term in the township to be too painful to consider as a serious prospect, and abandoned it just a few weeks later, returning only to attend to official business in his capacity as General. The town served as the de-facto headquarters of the Commonwealth Minutemen for around two months until the establishment of the formal headquarters, first at [[Fort Independence]] then later at [[Fort Starlight]].

The town did, however, remain important, in spite of his personal baggage surrounding it. Jason often wrote of Sanctuary Hills as the "promise of his generation to the survivors", and once referred to the city in a speech commemorating the anniversary of the reformation of the Minutemen as the "Little Blue Jewel of the Commonwealth".

=== Fort Starlight ===
During the initial expansion of the reformed Commonwealth Minuteman throughout the Northwest, the former [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Starlight_Drive-In Starlight Drive-In] ruins near Lexington were cleared of an infestation of mole-rats and established as something of a forward camp used frequently by Jason and Preston in the early days of the new minutemen. Because of this habit, and the location's rather central access (controlling the roads northeast and northwest into minuteman territory, east to Bunker Hill and Lexington, and south to locations like Greygarden, Oberland, and Cambridge, this camp grew rather rapidly in size, especially after the discovery that its main water source was much more abundant than originally believed.

As early as mid-November, 2287, just weeks after his emergence from the Vault, General Watts had begun referring to the site as [[Fort Starlight]], and refers to the settlement as such in [[General Order #01]], broadcast on November 16, 2287, presumably within hours of the capture of [[Fort Independence]] and its radio system.

=== Fort Independence ===
Though initially reluctant (considering the effort a gross misuse of the resources available at the time and an over-extension of the influence of the Minutemen), General Watts eventually agreed with Preston Garvey to take control of [[Fort Independence]], a traditional fortification of the Minutemen. For an incredibly brief time period, the facility served as the headquarters of the Minutemen after it was reclaimed on the 15th or 16th of November, 2287. However, [[General Order #01]], broadcast late in the day on the 16th, established immediately that "Fort Indy" was a subordinate headquarters to the primary fortification at [[Fort Starlight]], at least as far as command structure was concerned. It is supposed that this was due to its isolated position near the roving headquarters of the Brotherhood of Steel, who were already active in the Boston Area by the time command of the facility was established.

However, as the situation in the Commonwealth for the Minutemen improved, "the Castle" became an increasingly important settlement whose significance went beyond its powerful improvised Radio Repeater Array, becoming the main training facility for the [[1st Artillery Regiment (Commonwealth Minutemen)]] and the "Southwest Headquarters".

=== Other (Minor) Settlements ===
With the main day-to-day goal of bootstrapping "proper civilization" in the Commonwealth Wasteland, General Watts put much of his effort into getting every settlement he could to align themselves to the minutemen cause. In practice, this effort was helped by two major policies: the mutual defense premise of the minutemen, and a "minimum militarization policy" that ensured not every settlement the Minutemen controlled was turned into an absolute strongpoint. Wherever possible, Watts left the established local leaders of a settlement in charge of the affairs of that settlement, and made only minor changes with regard to militarized positions, especially during the First Reconstruction.

Broadly speaking, the full list of settlements lead by or associated with General Watts can be divided into two categories: '''civilian''' and '''militarized''', as follows:
* Civilian Positions
** [[Abernathy Farm (Gen. Watts') | Abernathy Farm]]
** [[City of Sanctuary Hills]]
** [[Egret Works]]
** [[Greygarden]]
** [[Sunshine City]]

* Militarized Positions
** [[Fort Starlight]]
** [[Fort Independence]]
** [[Fort Sommerville]]
** [[Oberland Station]]
** [[Tenpines Station]]
** [[Hangman's Station]]

== Gameplay Mechanics ==
=== Difficulty and Modifications ===
Jason Watts was played on the Survival difficulty, using a modification known as '''SKK Survival Utilities''' along with a variety of lore-friendly and gameplay-balanced settlement management modifications. SKK Survival Utilities was used to give Jason the ability to move items more freely between settlements, fast travel under certain (limited) conditions, and other minor changes.

=== SPECIAL spread and Perks ===
Jason's initial Special spread was 8/1/4/8/6/1/1 after a respec taken at around level 30 (he then raised his Perception to 2 (because bobblehead) and endurance to 4 (because of the you're Special) book. For selectable perks, his primary focuses were Rifleman, Big Leagues, Local Leader, and Inspirational, taking many other associated perks for utility purposes.

=== Combat Style ===
Jason's build and specialization was around single-shot rifles. Initially, these were usually medium-range rifles. By around level 30//Act Three, greater effort and emphasis was placed on the behaviours of a sniper, because of the extreme damage multipliers in Survival mode making taking return fire impractical.