In any case, I'mma be first to dump their app.
Nation: The Zealots
Location: New York City
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History: The history of what would be considered that of the Zealots is itself intertwined with the identity of the Jewish community that survived the Great War and the factors to its survival. Primary of most are the communities that gained access to the Vault nuclear shelters. Seeking refuge in these, thousands of Americanized Jews obtained refuge on the fringes of New York or outside, waiting out the effects of the fallout for several generations before their shelters opened.
The other factors are those who were caught in the middle of New York's hot summer. Although the effects of ghoulification had not been realized during the Hot Summer and New York City's reactor melt downs it seeded the factors which ultimately created the big Apple's future, oldest-living Jews.
The Zealots as they would become did not come to fruition immediately after the Jewish vaults open, but became a slow evolution, spawned from self-defense from the Judaic communities.
On leaving the Vaults in the year 2175 the Vault-born Jews stumbled into New York, innocent to the threats posed by the war-ravaged and polluted city. Though armed, the scattered survivors found it difficult to survive in the fierce jungle. But by providence often afforded to the Hebrew people they were reunited with the old-world Jewish Community.
The ghoulified Jews were led by a man going by the name of Leonard Rothman. Claiming himself to be a Kohen – a descendant of the first High Priest Aaron, brother of Moses – he lead a community of roughly two-hundred old-world ghouls in the heart of Queens. Recognizing their brothers, they invited them into their community, offering protection in numbers and an ultimate means of survival, even if for the Queens Ghouls life was hardly kind to them.
Over the next several decades many of Leonard Rothman's followers died or succumbed to the ultimate rabid nature of being a ghoul. Reducing their numbers over time from two hundred to just short of thirty-five. The humans continued to persist.
Between 2175 and 2273 the Jewish population of Queens did manage to grow, either in from raider bands surrendering to the defenders of the Jewish community or simply by slow – if anemic – population growth. The expansion of the community afforded them to spread out, occupying the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and The Bronx.
These early communities kept close relationships, relying on each other for mutual self defense against the hostile elements of greater New York, all the while trading in scrap and chems with coastal merchants who sailed up and down the East Coast in old pre-war ships or boats cobbled together from scrap. The extensive urban debris of New York provided a wealth of not only supplies and weapons left behind by the National Guard and crews who were deployed to contain and lessen the effects of the Hot Summer, but the knowledge of the surviving old-world Jews in professional fields allowed for the production of higher-end manufactured goods. In a sense the community propped itself on the production of home-made pharmaceuticals and chems sold to the merchants at a good profit. Often times the interests of self defense called for raiding, which brought in additional supplies, as well as slaves traded abroad. But even their efforts were strained, and parts of their communities fell into mismanagement as the Jewish community began to fall back into centralized areas.
In the defense of their communities however the Jews of Queens came into contact with one raider who simply referred to himself as “Dogballs”.
Taken in as a casualty of a failed raid against them, Dogballs was shot through the head with a rifle. However by unfortunate luck the raider was not dropped for dead and slipped into a coma from his injuries. Retrieving his corpse the defenders found the body still retained vitals and urgently dressed his wounds. Surrendering him to the ghouls they presided over his unconscious corpse, pensively waiting for him to come to as they debated his fate. It was a year before Dogballs came around.
In the year 2275 he came to. His recovery came as a shock, forcing many to hail his return from death as a miracle. So much so the ghoulish kohen Leonard Rothman came to visit him. Sitting down with him, Rothman discussed the raider's life. And offered him salvation as God saw fit to keep him alive, for whatever grand humor that would serve. Dogballs apprehensively accepted.
Though outcasted as per his lack of faith Dogballs tried his best – if at the insistence of Rothman – to do so. He was offered and given much, food, shelter, an education by the Rabbis; as per the mounted pressure by the descendants of the Jewish vault community on Kohen Leonard. And it was Dogballs he turned to to address many of the problems the communities faced. It is often wondered if his missions were a means to kill the raider, or to force him to prove himself. But the kohenim has remained silent on the matter.
Dogballs was the one to set foot into the sewers of New York, to slay the great ghoul alligator The Leviathan who had set up a nest there and who had eaten many a traveler or scavenger. And it was Dogballs who had met the super mutant named “Goliath” that promised to lead an army on the Jews. For all the monsters and threats that faced the community it was Dogballs who was chosen to act. And it was Dogballs who began to volunteer.
In 2277, Dogballs accepted conversion to Judaism.
To his followers this was a monumental decision, and in their eyes legitimatized him as a great man. To those that had followed him distantly this made him approachable. His renown exploded at his conversion as he was now not just an outsider, he was a brother. As part of his conversion he renounced his old raider name of Dogballs and adopted the name Solomon.
Solomon's followers flocked to him, in effect forming a fourth tribe in the three-borough territory of the Jews. Renowned for an almost fanatical devotion to Solomon as an almost messiah figure they adopted the name of Zealots. They echoed his statements to forge a unified kingdom for their people. The ending of all threats. Construction of a great temple. And most grandest of all: a return – an aliyah – to the promised land across the mysterious dark sea.
Many of the old-world ghouls treated this decree with cynicism. But were helpless to do anything but watched as the three communities of Queens, The Bronx, and Brooklyn folded into the Zealot's flag.
Over the next several years Solomon lead a borough-by-borough campaign on the wild boroughs of New York. In doing so he forced out the communities who lived within, enslaved the others, or forced the conversion of the gentile populations. His acts of forced conversion came under heavy fire from the old-world ghouls who contended that their faith was simply not a ideology, but a way of life and an identity. They demanded Solomon should respect that.
It is a argument that Solomon responded with, “we must install a fear of Jews in defense, and in effect encourage mityahed.” Relationships between Solomon and the old-world Jews has remained stressed ever sense.
The occupation of New York by the Zealots became final by 2283. Solomon encouraged the process of mityahed, which increased his number of supporters. To rest many of the tensions between him and the old-breed of Jews, Solomon met with Kohen Leonard and prepared to law more defined and reformed “legal” rights to this first-convert Jews he brought in, and under which circumstances they could convert under. The most pressing of this new legal frame-work that new converts may only be taken in if they marry a formal, religious Jew.
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