Army of the Damned

The Army of the Damned is a group of pre-War ghouls who were formerly soldiers in the U.S. Army. They consider themselves to be cursed to live forever in a radioactive hellscape. They are one of the recruitable minor factions in Fallout: Detroit.

Background
Before the War, the Army of the Damned were U.S. soldiers stationed on "a military base" near Tecumseh, Ontario. The base was part of Project: Aegis, a military program that involved a number of listening posts, missile bases, and other military installation established in newly-annexed Canada with the purpose of intercepting any nukes coming over the Arctic before they reach America. The soldiers here knew what they were signing up for and were willing to lay down their lives to protect their country. But when the bombs fell, the program had an overall 12% success rate. Some areas like Detroit were luckier than others; about three quarters of the nukes aimed at the Detroit area were deflected. But 12% is what the soldiers saw. 12% of the hundreds of nukes stopped. They hadn't saved their country. From their walls, they saw fires from the west, where Detroit stood. When they tried to reach out on the radio, silence was the only response.

In the weeks that followed, they saw crime and looting, and locals sick, starving, and dying. The soldiers tried to offer assistance, but the people were terrified of them. No Canadian local wanted help from a U.S. soldier. The soldiers couldn't blame them. Radioactive winds had started sweeping in from the detonation sites caused by Project: Aegis, and the soldiers and locals both knew the Army was the cause. Even worse, the Canadian Resistance had gained a foothold in the nearby town of Tecumseh and were taking shots at U.S. soldiers in Canada. The base's commander understood the locals anger and chose not to engage unless they attacked the base itself. Instead, he chose to send out patrols to the other military sites in hopes of making contact. If no one was alive, they were bring back as much ordnance as they could carry, as well as booby trap the bases and activate the defenses. The commander didn't want it falling in the wrong hands, especially if it was the Canadian Resistance with the intent of attacking their base. However the radioactive storms got worse in the years that followed and the Canadian Resistance in Tecumseh was ended by radiation poisoning. Many became feral ghouls. The soldiers were luckier in a sense. They had ample supplies of Rad-X and RadAway and the base had anti-radioactive measures. They suffered a slower ghoulification than those outside the protection of their walls and most haven't gone feral yet.

About a hundred years later, one of the soldiers had a mental break. Like the other soldiers, he believed they were going to die to protect their country. They failed. The world burned and he lived. Afterward, they tried to help the people sick with radiation poisoning. Those people died and he lived. Even those Canadian Resistance fighters who just wanted him out of their country died, and he lived. He concluded they must be dead and the irradiated wasteland was Hell. Nothing else explained their never-ending life. Every day they were cursed to wake and relive their worst days. His fellow soldiers tried to calm him and told him this wasn't the case, but his words stuck in the back of their minds. Why were they still alive? The soldier started spending more and more time standing on the walls staring out at the wastes. Spending long periods of time outside the base's protection eventually made him turn feral, although some conclude his ramblings were a sign his mind was already starting to go. The commander put a bullet through his brain in hopes of giving him peace, the only time they've ever put down one of their feral brethren. The soldiers still hear his words echoing in their heads over a hundred years later.

The Prisoner encounters the Army of the Damned in 2287, after being sent by either the Brotherhood or the Resistance to scour Canada for weapons. According to rumor, Canada was dotted with a number of military facilities before the bombs fell. Facilities full of weapons, ammo, and other supplies that could benefit either side in the coming conflict. However the Prisoner finds many of the installations stripped clean and defended with robots, turrets, and booby traps. After exploring a couple locations, the Prisoner finds clues that point to an army base in the heavily-irradiated part of Ontario. Upon approaching the base, the Prisoner is set upon by Feral Ghouls, some with frag mines strapped to their chest. After killing them, a soldier on the walls yells to stop shooting and the Prisoner explains the purpose for approaching the base. The soldiers haven't seen a human in some time so they escort the Prisoner into the base to meet the commander. The Prisoner was searching for weapons, but instead finds an army without a cause, living over past regrets every day for 200 years. Depending on the Prisoner's actions, the Army can be convinced to join either the Resistance, a group of Detroit locals who could use their help pushing out invaders, or the Brotherhood, a group with roots in the U.S. Army who would gladly accept them and benefit from their military expertise, or can be killed to take their weaponry by force.

The Army of the Damned are trained soldiers and their tactics reflect this. They are experts in many combat scenarios. In the years after the bombs, they've developed an aptitude for using booby traps, often utilizing their feral brethren for this purpose. They use ferals to protect their base and other military installations, some with explosives rigged to their chests. They see this as a way the feral soldiers can still serve the group.