“ I bring you good news! We stand at the dawn of a new golden age. Where others merely survive, we thrive! And while I have led your efforts, it has been by your own strength that you have earned all the envy of the world. And most of all, they envy our victories in the struggle for freedom. Because, yes, freedom is what we all work towards.” —Ishmael Ashur |
Ishmael Ashur, known as Lord Ashur to The Pitt's inhabitants, is the overlord of The Pitt and leader of the Pitt raiders in 2277.
[edit] Background
Ashur reveals his personal history and motives, as well as much of the history of The Pitt, in a series of holotapes found in his personal safe, addressed to his daughter Marie. He tells he was once a paladin of the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel, and participated in their assault on The Pitt twenty years ago, what would come to be known as the Scourge. During the fight, Ashur was caught in an explosion and was presumed dead, so the Brotherhood left him within the mill. After being pulled out of the rubble by scavengers trying to steal his armor, Ashur impressed them, some even considering him a god (Midea sarcastically calls him the "God-King"). He then brought together the scavengers in the area, starting a new settlement which would quickly grow to be at the height of industrialization across all the wasteland.
He chose to start the city in The Pitt because he was touched by the tenacious locals, and the fact that it contained the only operational steel mill the Brotherhood had ever run into. He recruited everyone in the area, killed raider leaders and made the rest follow him. When that wasn't enough, he resorted to using slaves (whom he insists on calling "workers" to remind them that they all have a chance at freedom, no matter how slim); he admits he hates to do this, but claims "it has to be done" since citizens of The Pitt are unable to have children due to the Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion. His ultimate goal is to create the first city that is "producing" once again, and he claims that every other post-War community (including the Brotherhood of Steel) has lived off of leftovers and has been unable to create things anew.
[edit] Daily schedule
Ashur is found in his office at the top of Haven, and gives speeches to the slaves of The Pitt every once in a while. He also runs The Pitt's radio station.
[edit] Interactions with the player character
[edit] Interactions overview
| General |
Services |
Quests |
|
| Merchant: |
No |
| Repairman: |
No |
| Doctor: |
No |
| Rents bed/room: |
No |
|
| Starts quests: |
Yes |
|
|
| Involved in quests: |
Yes |
|
|
|
[edit] Quests
- Free Labor: After you're done fighting in The Hole, he will ask to meet you and talk to you about becoming a Pitt raider. You can then choose to side with him or Wernher, and if you side with him you fight to stop the slaves revolt, and if you side with Wernher you kill him.
- Unsafe Working Conditions: Your first interaction with Ashur is when he gives a speech to the slaves to pick a fighter for The Hole.
[edit] Effects of player action
- If the player lets Ashur live at the conclusion of the Free Labor quest, the player can come back and kill Ashur and loot his body for negative karma. Sandra and The Pitt raiders inside Haven (assuming they're alive) will attack you. However, The Pitt raiders outside of Haven will not attack you.
[edit] Inventory
- Despite his insistence that the residents of Downtown be called "workers", he still refers to them as "slaves" a few times in dialogue.
[edit] Appearances
Ashur appears only in the Fallout 3 add-on The Pitt.
[edit] Behind the scenes
- Both Ishmael and Ashur are Biblical names. Ishmael was the son of Abraham, who was exiled by his own parents. Ashur was the second son of Shem, the son of Noah. Ashur was also the name of the capital of Assyria, an ancient Mesopotamian empire in what is now modern-day Iraq.
- Sometimes when you kill Ashur, only the Pitt raiders in the immediate vicinity (and Sandra) will become hostile, and all other Pitt Raiders in other areas will not.
- Xbox 360
Sometimes after the initial meeting dialog with Ashur he will repeat the words "Don't let me keep you" a few times to before leaving. This appears to be a bug, supposedly caused by speaking to others in Haven before speaking to Ashur or by skipping through too much of Ashur's dialog.
- Ashur will sometimes fall down (exactly like Harkness if you tell Zimmer about him) at random moments. You can also loot him while he is in this state and guards will not be hostile when he gets back up.
- Xbox 360 After accessing the computer in the room with Marie, Ashur's corpse is very likely to disappear if you have killed him, so be sure to loot his body before using it.
- If you choose not to kill Ashur at first, continue the game and after turning off the flood lights and coming back to the surface, Ashur will confront you and tell you he should have killed you. If you once again choose not to kill him and sneak away, he will sometimes die standing up if killed by trogs.
- Usually, after finishing the main quest, and regaining entry to Haven, Ashur will be waiting for you on his floor, alive but having only what was left after looting his corpse. He is marked essential hereafter, and cannot be killed. However, unusual glitches have been reported (e.g. Dismembered limbs floating near their appropriate areas, and Ashur walking weirdly, as if skating. Also, if you remove Ashur's head, when you return it will be at his feet and on his body. When you enter V.A.T.S., you can target the one at his feet but the one still attached to his head won't register. When talked to, the head at his feet will speak.)
- In the above case, Ashur cannot be killed, nor looted for any possessions. He will simply go unconscious repeatedly with no XP gain, and no Loss or Gain of Karma. In addition, if he still has his combat shotgun, he may shoot it at you while he is on the ground, even if it is not pointed at you.
- Sometimes Ashur stops in the middle of his speech and nothing happens when you are chosen to fight in the Hole. This forces you to reload to your last save and try it again.
- PC
Ashur's speech prior to entering the arena is bugged. In the PC version of the game, he may skip every other text block, causing the speech to be much shorter (the skipped portions of the speech can be heard in the background playing at the same time as the heard portions). The full speech plays in the Xbox and PlayStation version of the game.
