Jason Watts

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 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 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 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 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 Vault 111.

General Watts was actually a witness of the explosion which formed the [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 [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 Deathclaw, through the use of equipment salvaged by the settlers. Jason then escorted these settlers back to his home in the ruins of 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, Tenpines Station, Fort Starlight, and 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, 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 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
  • City of Sanctuary Hills
  • Egret Works
  • Greygarden
  • Sunshine City
  • Oberland Crossing

• Militarized Positions
  • Fort Starlight
  • Fort Independence
  • Fort Sommerville
  • Red Rocket 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.