"Who is Joshua?" Andy and Alexandra stood together, and Alexandra seemed a little silent in the face of this question, as if the name was a taboo.

It was a long time before she whispered to Andy who Joshua was.

"A long, long time ago, long before New Canaan was destroyed by the mob, it was prosperous, and although it did not carry out trade on the scale of its present day, and did not allow outsiders who did not want to convert into the city, it still developed well."

At that time, the prophet Black advocated that we should not be satisfied with stability, but that we should also give grace to more people from outside. At that time, the immigrants from the NcR were nowhere to be seen, and the first thing we looked at was some tribes in the east, who were originally just like us, but they were exposed to the wasteland and lacked cultural heritage, and after a few generations, they were almost wild humans. ”

"So we sent some of the people who could take care of ourselves the best among us to travel there, and we did it with a moment of pure kindness that we hoped to re-teach our common knowledge to the Buraku people, so that they could come out of their misery, no more witchcraft healing, no more fleshly fighting wild beasts, no more avoidable suffering."

"Of course, it is also important to take this opportunity to bring these people into the light of God."

"A lot of people don't have the ability to do it well, the language spoken by the Buraku people is obscure, some of the tribal languages are said to date back to the fusion of three or four pre-war languages, no one knows what was going on, and there is speculation that the foreigners who visited the area in large numbers were also involved in the demographic and cultural composition of those tribes."

"People are killed, they are not good at fighting, so they often end up with tribesmen who don't want to communicate at all and just want to loot, and in the long run, most of them give up and continue to the eastern tribes."

"Only Joshua did a good job, he was the strongest and wisest of us, he liked to read all kinds of books related to military affairs and war since he was a child, he was physically strong enough to fight more than a dozen marauders alone, and he was quite charismatic, and people always couldn't help but follow in his footsteps and listen to his voice. In general, this is almost a perfect person, and it is precisely because of this..."Alexandra thought for a moment, her face a little tangled.

"It is precisely because of this that even if the New Canaanites cannot forget him today, their name cannot be mentioned." Andy listened to the approval of this vast pattern of selflessness, and was a little puzzled by Alexandra's last words, but then he suddenly felt that these actions were very familiar, and then he thought, haven't the followers of the apocalypse been doing the same thing?

"This Joshua does seem to be very powerful... Well, besides, have you heard of the Followers of the Apocalypse? Alexandra looked at the people working in the distance and nodded.

"Of course, we have known the names of the Followers of the Apocalypse for a long time, and long before the NcR officially started the eastward movement, the Followers of the Apocalypse have been sending personnel to the east to collect information about the Buraku here and try to pass on a lot of valuable pre-war knowledge to them, which is almost exactly what we did, so we have been in contact with each other for a long time, and have established stable contacts."

"After that, from time to time, we will send people to form joint teams with them and go to the Buraku settlements in the east."

"So that time—" She was silent for a moment, even though she had left New Canaan, even though she had renounced her former beliefs, even though it sounded like it had been many years ago, even though that person was no longer here, it seemed that Alexandra still thought in her heart that it was some kind of bad taboo to discuss this New Canaanite named Joshua.

Alexandra settled down and took a cigarette from Andy.

"About 7 years ago? Coincidentally, isn't it? In that year, the proudest of the people in New Canaan disgraced us, and our good hearts finally received another kind of retribution, which caused the whole of New Canaan to be destroyed in flames, and some people interpret this shit thing as some kind of God's test, haha.... Finally, and most insignificant, I also publicly reneged on my vows, my membership, and my departure from New Canaan that year. ”

"After the fall of New Canaan, some of the survivors went to Burnham Springs to find a way out, and I learned from them what happened next." Andy listens more and more curious, urging Alexandra to tell him the story from time to time.

"Tell me about it, Alexandra." She smoked for a while, then threw the butt directly to the ground.

"Then listen up.... At the time, New Canaan had a partnership with the Followers of the Apocalypse, and although the Followers of the Apocalypse were from the NcR, they were an autonomous organization within the NcR, with independent political and scientific power, and a very different ideology from the NcR. So when our missionaries and their members met in the tribe, we admired them, and they admired us, and that was the beginning of the collaboration. ”

"We talked together about how to better civilize the Buraku, and eventually the focus fell on language, which is the ladder of communication between people, and without the help of language, it is extremely difficult for people to understand each other. So, if you want to civilize them, you have to learn their language first, and as I said before, it's very difficult to learn their language, and the New Canaanites generally have a lot of cultural literacy, which is very good compared to the whole wasteland, and even then, people feel extremely difficult to learn those native languages. ”

"Only Joshua was smart enough and capable of going to the tribes to practice his spoken language regularly, and he knew the languages of those tribes the deepest of any of us. But this was not enough, as Joshua himself said that when he interacted with the natives, he would always find that what he said did not match or even contradict what he wanted to say, because he did not understand the language well. Andy could understand that he had also heard tribal languages such as Blackfoot and Dog, which at worst sounded like aliens.

The vocabulary and grammar are upside down, and a few words that sound legible have meanings that are very different from those of the lingua franca.

What's worse is that there are differences in what each tribe speaks, and the tribes that are close to each other are better, and once they are slightly separated, even the two tribes can't understand what each other is saying at all.

The same word can express very different meanings in different tones or in different contexts; Two words that don't sound indistinguishable, one can make people feel like they're being complimented, and the other can make people feel threatened.

It simply doesn't make sense.

"What help did the Followers of the Apocalypse provide?" Andy thought to himself, some of the pre-war technology mastered by the Followers of the Apocalypse was almost as good as that of the Brotherhood of Steel, perhaps.... Can they make a translation reasoning machine or something?

Alexandra sighed deeply.

"They said they had found a linguist, a young man among the followers of the Apocalypse, who was so intelligent that he had learned many pre-war languages with ease, and who could read pre-war writings written in non-SA lingua franca without barriers."

"Prophet Black thought that this was a crucial opportunity, and with the help of this rare linguist's ability, we might finally be able to completely decipher the secrets of those tribal languages, and the most powerful and influential tribe of the eastern tribes at that time was the Blackfoot tribe, so Prophet Black sent two missionaries to assist the followers of the Apocalypse, one was the experienced and faithful Calhoun, and the other was..." Andy also understood when he heard this, thinking of the secretive descriptions of those tribesmen when he was in the Blackfoot Tribe, he guessed a rough idea.

"The other one is Joshua, right? When they arrived at the Blackfoot Tribe, they found themselves embroiled in a large tribal conflict, led by two large tribes, a total of nine tribes launched a siege against the Blackfoot Tribe; The Blackfoots interrogated the team harshly and held them captive, after which they chose to help the Blackfoot win the war in order to avoid dying with the Blackfoot tribe in the massacre after the defeat. Alexandra looked at Andy in surprise.

"How do you know this?" Andy looked up proudly.

"Of course I know, because I've been to the Blackfoot tribe, and I'm even a good friend of theirs, and even the chief of the Kurisu has a good relationship with me, and we've traveled together for a while." Alexandra looked at Andy with admiration.

"You're amazing... Go to the places where the tribes are gathered, where the mere walking is dangerous, and the merchants have to set out with the intention of dying... It is not uncommon to see groups of merchants killed by raiders or marauders on the roadside, and their bodies stripped of their clothes. Andy nodded and then argued with Alexandra: "It used to be like that, but now Blackfoot has changed, they have stopped sending people to plunder, and even abolished slavery and actively traded. Alexandra didn't want to believe it at first, but only sighed after Andy confirmed it repeatedly.

"Can this happen?" Andy nodded again with great certainty.

"You can then help connect New Canaan with the Blackfoot tribe, which is now the trading hub of many tribes in the south, and the only one who can compete with them in terms of commercial trade is the Ouroboros from the north, and they have a lot of good things, especially plenty of fresh double-headed beef and bighorn lamb, both dried and pickled, which are delicious. In addition to this, there is also a rat infestation at the Jericho Water Plant, you can buy trained dogs from them, those dogs are very good at catching rats, I have seen them with my own eyes. The two chatted for a while, and Alexandra showed great interest in leading the team to the Blackfoot Tribe to establish trade relations, and she even said that she was ready to go once the situation was on the right track.

But as she spoke, she thought of Joshua again, and her expression became serious again.

Much of the things of New Canaan at that time depended on Joshua.... Joshua Graham, there are a lot of people who still think about it, fantasizing that he will one day come back to us. But it was all wishful thinking, and he became a warlord leader, a big slave owner, and since they had helped the Blackfoot tribe win that war, they had gone east with a group of followers. ”

"I sometimes wonder if Prophet Black hadn't sent Joshua to help that group of followers of the Apocalypse, and he had been in New Canaan and commanding our militia, those thugs would not have been able to get their hands on them, and they would have all been killed by Joshua." Andy listened to it and suddenly felt a little strange.

"Wait, so how do you know these things? The New Canaanites didn't have a chance to go to the Blackfoot tribe to find out the truth, did the followers of the Apocalypse flee back and tell you the news? Alexandra clenched her fists.

"Calhoun was let back by them, and he told us everything, that Joshua had broken his oath and even betrayed his morals as a man, that he had indulged in the thrill of conquest and had forgotten his mission.... The young man wasn't a linguist at all, he was also a terrible careerist. Calhoun said that the Followers of the Apocalypse sent eight people, all but the young man himself, who had been ordered to be executed, and who had supported each other along the way, and even had old acquaintances with Caesar, but he killed them all mercilessly, just because they not only refused to serve him, but also reprimanded him for being despicable. ”

What a cold-blooded man, and what was even more terrible was that Joshua was willing to follow him. Calhoun was ready to die there, but the young man let him go, asking him to tell everyone when he returned to New Canaan, not to try to interfere with him, and not to try to stop him. People really can't do it, because no one knows where they have gone, and they don't know if they will come back one day. ”

"And Joshua.... Calhoun said that he even threw away his name and listened to the young man's opinion, and now one of them is called Caesar, the other is called Malpaus, and the last time they heard from them was when NcR's Arashid Fort was breached, and even when Hoover Dam was in a state of emergency for a time, it was nearly two years ago. ”

"The NcR people haven't figured it out yet, they just think that they are some very warlike tribe in the east, and some people think they are a group of marauders, like the 215 gang. Look at Andy, if you want me to say, it was just a small branch of Caesar's Legion, and to this extent, they smashed the core of the Eastern District that the NcR had worked so hard to run for many years, and almost drove the NcR out of the Hoover Dam, making their eastward expansion a complete joke. What if one day those guys come out of the nest? At that time, there will be a catastrophe here. When Andy heard this, he couldn't help but feel depressed, Caesar's Legion was like a dark cloud hanging in the distance in the east, and he didn't know when they would ride an east wind all the way west, and a hurricane would blow over the eastern special zone operated by NcR.

But he thought about it again and thought that the future might not be so pessimistic.

"Don't worry, as far as I know, while the Legion still has a lot of influence among the tribes in the east, the major major tribes, such as the Blackfoot Tribe in the south and the Ouroboros in the north, have disassociated themselves with the Legion and are even ready to fight the Legion to the death, and with them in the lead, the Legion will not be able to absorb the population and resources here as easily as they would like."

"Not to mention the NcR-controlled city of Hoover Dam, as well as civilizations like New Canaan, people will not accept their rule at all, and will only stand against them naturally. The territory of the Republic of New California already covers the west coast of the SA, such a huge country, it must have a strong national power, and now its decline in the east is only due to the civil strife of the steel plague, if the two-headed bear turns back one day... Everything will be different. Alexandra listened to Andy's words, the sadness on her face relaxed slightly, and at this time, looking at Andy's serious expression, she suddenly smiled.

"Really? I've been to Hoover Dam to pick up bounty hunters before, but I've heard from many people that the NcR has been destroyed by the Brotherhood of Steel, and now the Hoover Dam is the last NcR in the world. Andy also smiled, he had also heard this at the Hoover Dam, it was clear that there was no basis for severing all contact with the West because of the war, but it was still rumored that there was a nose and an eye, and it could only be said that there were people behind the scenes, hoping to shake the legitimacy of the Dodge Mayor's rule, after all, if the NcR ontology fell, then the Dodge Mayor's head

The aura of "the NcR government has officially appointed the top chief executive of the Eastern Special Administrative Region" will fade.

"I don't think that's going to be true." Alexandra asked a little strangely.

"Why? I heard what they said in a conclusive way. Andy thought about it, and it seemed that he didn't have any evidence to confirm his words, so why was he so determined?

"No, maybe I think so, just because I'm an NcR....."