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April 2052: Driven by a desperation for increasingly limited resources, Europe and the Middle East are embroiled in a general war.
July 2052: Increasingly less relevant as the world order decays under the weight of resource crises, the United Nations is declared disbanded.
December 2053: As part of the ongoing resource war, Tel Aviv is destroyed by a nuclear weapon, ascribed to a terrorist organization.
January 2054: With the nuclear taboo broken, a limited nuclear exchange occurs between the European Commonwealth and the Middle Eastern Alliance. The war would continue until 2060.
February 2054: With nuclear armageddon now firmly entrenched as a realistic possibility, the US government begins Project Safehouse - the construction of vaults intended to shelter at least some of the mainland US population in the event of nuclear war, for as long as needed. Construction of the new vaults will start in late 2054.
January 2066: Chinese forces begin an invasion of Alaska, sparking a full-scale war between China and the United States, in order to secure the remaining oil reserves.
February 2071: Sergeant Nathan Grey ends up in command of the First Platoon of the 108th Infantry Regiment’s Fox Company after heavy Chinese bombardment kills all higher ranking officers. For meritorious service and rallying Fox Company into a counterattack that bought time for other forces to consolidate and push the Chinese back, Nathan Grey is sent to OCS. He would return to the 108th as Second Lieutenant Grey.
August 2071: The 108th Regiment is rotated off the front and sent to security duties on the Alaskan pipeline. Fox Company quickly becomes the preferred formation in the regiment to use for anti-saboteur duty due to their high state of readiness and willingness to engage in any task, an attitude encouraged by both their official commander - Captain Nora Smith - and the ‘new’ Second Lieutenant. Nathan Grey is swiftly made First Lieutenant and closely regarded as Smith’s favorite ‘problem solver’ for his dedication to troop discipline.
June 3rd, 2072: Official annexation of Canada is ordered. US Army and Marines elements already present along the Alaskan pipeline find themselves in full military combat.
June 12th, 2072: The 108th Regiment, newly re-equipped with T-51 powered armor, punches through Canadian lines and begins causing havoc in the enemy rear, with Captain Nora Smith leading Fox Company in particular in a vicious campaign against enemy logistics that is credited with breaking the back of the Canadian counteroffensive. Captain Nora Smith credits Lieutenant Grey in her reports.
August 2072: The 108th Regiment is rotated off the front once again, due to attrition. Due to this same attrition, Captain Smith has been made Major and given charge of the 2nd Battalion of the Regiment, with Lieutenant Grey likewise made Captain of Fox Company. Both feature in propaganda reels and ‘enjoy’ numerous rumors. Only one of these - that they are lovers - has a basis in fact.
November 2072: The 108th Regiment is assigned to anti-partisan duties, a task it would remain utilized for for its remaining service in Canada.
January 2073: Major Nora Smith suffers significant injury due to a partisan IED and is honorably discharged. The 2nd Battalion is placed under the command of Major Thomas Hedge. Fox Company remains under ‘Nate the Rake’s’ (an ironic nickname given his scrupulous habits and teetotallery) command.
February 2073: Nora Smith begins studying for her law degree while in recovery. She takes accelerated coursework, and excels.
March 2073: Incidents of ‘indiscipline’ begin to rise among the 108th Regiment in response to continued partisan activity and attacks by disorganized Canadian regular forces. Fox Company in particular shows a predilection for reprisals and preemptive strikes that, in normal circumstances, would be considered concerning. Major Thomas Hedge responds with standard punishments and takes credit for victories regardless.
August 2073: Major Thomas Hedge is found dead after ordering a Fox Company sergeant accused of knowingly causing civilian casualties to base pending investigation. His death is ascribed to partisan activity. Captain Nathan Grey is breveted into his position by Colonel Leavenworth, in the hopes that a well-liked officer can maintain discipline.
December 2073: Incidents in the 2nd Battalion drop back to typical wartime levels. Attacks by partisan forces begin to increase, however, and the 108th Regiment as a whole displays increasing ruthlessness.
March 2074: The United States begins an invasion of mainland China.
February 2075: After a long and cold winter, the 108th Regiment begins a campaign of targeted reprisals against local hubs of partisan activity, with the 2nd Battalion leading the charge.
April 2075: Major Nathan Grey is filmed supervising the execution of a partisan commander in Vancouver. The footage will later be used for domestic consumption.
May 2075: Several members of Fox Company, Nathan Grey among them, are finally discharged from service with honors. Due to a close personal relationship, many choose to settle down in the Boston area. Nathan Grey confirms what everyone in the company already knew by marrying Nora Smith later that month. He quickly finds work in construction.
January 2076: Sergeant Shaun Macabee, one of Grey’s close subordinates and friends from the Fox Company days, dies of complications from stomach surgery.
August 4th, 2076: Nathan Grey responds to the realization that he will become a father in eight months by passing out in front of his wife.
January 2077: Chinese forces finally retreat from Anchorage, Alaska.
May 2077: Nathan and Nora Grey’s son, Shaun, is born.
October 23rd, 2077: The Chinese government, facing a losing war on their home soil, elects to resort to nuclear bombardment of the United States. The United States responds, and the world ends in fire. The Vaults created by Project Safehouse prove for many to be not at all what was promised, as the Vaults were instead constructed as testing grounds for the deranged minds of the American military-industrial complex. One of these Vaults, Vault 111, takes in Nathan Grey, Nora Grey, and Shaun Grey. It is a cryogenics project, intended to assess the effects of deep freezing and transmit those results to Vault Tec higher-ups for their own use. All three, along with dozens of neighbors and friends, are left in suspended animation. The world outside moves on, as survivors band together and try to live another day in a world scarred by nuclear war and unleashed biological weapons.
2110: Formed from remnants of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology staff, the underground Institute is officially declared. Focused on continuing technological research in secret, they remain hidden from the gradually arising post-war order. Despite those efforts, rumors of their existence quickly spread.
2140: Drawing from pre-War history of the Boston area, the first groups of ‘Minutemen’ are formed from cooperatively-minded survivors, homesteaders, and scavengers. Dedicated to mutual self-defense, they quickly grow as a means for communities to band together in the face of the monsters of the new world. They adopt military ranks - a leading ‘General’ with independent ‘colonels’ running individual contingents - but this has little to do with the prewar meaning of those ranks.
2178: The Institute begins experimenting with the Forced Evolutionary Virus as a means of creating artificial humans. Due to the pervasive radiation exposure of human ‘samples’ (both people and corpses) taken, the only results of Super Mutants. These are released on the surface, and quickly become a significant threat.
2180: The Minutemen defend Diamond City, the largest and most prosperous of the Boston townships, built in the ruins of Fenway Park, from a Super Mutant invasion. This catapults the movement into prominence, and they quickly establish a proper headquarters in the ruins of Fort Independence, named, somewhat obviously, The Castle.
2182: The Minutemen begin to use their influence in an attempt to form a proper governing coalition among the Commonwealth’s settlements, including the Institute. They are met with significant roadblocks, not only in communication but in the complex, decades-long rivalries and histories between tribes, cities, and even some part-time mercenary and bandit groups.
2186: The Institute, tiring of the deadlock, and under the auspices of a newly appointed and hawkish Director, instigates the CPG Massacre. Initially intended to scare the delegates into compliance, it instead degenerates into a firefight that claims the lives of all present. The Minutemen lose significant prestige for sponsoring the failed government.
2227: The Institute, having run into a roadblock in their cloning and creation of artificial life, decide to utilize Vault 111 and its frozen denizens. Seeking completely untouched DNA, they choose to abduct Shaun Grey. Due to the quick temper of their agent, Conrad Kellogg, Nora Grey is killed. Nathan Grey, able to observe this, is put back on ice as a backup.
2229: An early prototype synth intended to mimic a human commits a massacre in Diamond City, before being gunned down by security personnel. The realization that synths can successfully mimic humans perfectly, rather than being the obviously mechanical models seen previously, causes a region-wide wave of paranoia and mistrust to grow.
2240: The Castle is severely damaged and its garrison massacred by a Mirelurk Queen. This causes the Minutemen to lose region-wide coordination, especially with continued refusal by Diamond City to support the movement, seeing it as a threat to their independence. This begins a slow decline under a series of weak generals.
2247: Shaun Grey, raised in the Institute his entire life, earns his first doctorate.
2255: The Brotherhood of Steel, a post-war group of power-armor-utilizing soldiers determined to safeguard and suppress dangerous technologies, arrives in the ruins of Washington DC as an expedition led by Owen Lyons. They set up operations in the remnants of the Pentagon and begin a protracted war against the Super Mutants there (created by experiments in Vault 87).
2257: Shaun Grey is appointed Director of the Institute. Under his tenure, the Institute begins far more aggressive infiltration and experimentation than ever before.
2266: The modern incarnation of the organization known as the Railroad comes into being. Initially intended to focus on freeing all slaves, they found themselves attacked by the Institute for unknown reasons, with this latest massacre leaving only two survivors, who reformed the Commonwealth branch into a far more clandestine and secretive group focused on the Institute and their synths - namely, freeing them from Institute control.
2270: The Brotherhood in DC splits as Elder Owen Lyons refuses to dedicate resources towards securing technology, instead being more concerned with the Super Mutant threat and the protection of the locals. The Brotherhood Outcasts believe themselves to be the true Brotherhood, working solely to keep technological might focused firmly in their hands, and away from those who might start another nuclear conflict.
2277: The Brotherhood presence in DC, despite decades of grinding warfare and being forced to refill its ranks with local Wastelanders, manages to triumph over a group proclaiming itself to be the re-established US government, known as the Enclave, and to reactivate a water purifier which could cleanse the Potomac River of radiation. The Brotherhood subsequently begins to entrench its hold over the DC area.
2282: General Becker dies. Minutemen operations are sufficiently disturbed by this point that they essentially collapse entirely as individual colonels break off with their own groups. The Minutemen essentially cease to exist as a coherent organization, with most members returning to full-time farming or scavenging.
2283:The Brotherhood Outcasts are re-integrated under the young Elder Maxson. With his ranks swelled and the stolen materiel and expertise returned, the Brotherhood can look towards expansion.
September 2287: The last active Minutemen contingent, under Colonel Ezra Hollis, falls during the defense of the town of Quincy, which is massacred by Gunner mercenaries. Minuteman Preston Garvey rallies remaining survivors and townsfolk and flees north. His fellow militiamen and settlers are picked off one by one over the next month, until only he, three other Minutemen, and four traumatized survivors remain.
October 9th, 2287: The Institute sends a signal to Vault 111 a day ahead of schedule, overriding the cryo chambers. After over two hundred years of continuous operation, only one remains active: the chamber containing Nathan Grey.