Battle of Project Purity

Battle of Project Purity was a decisive confrontation occurring in 2278 between the Lyons' Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave, focusing on Project Purity at the Jefferson Memorial.

Background
The origins of the battle lie in the person of James, the founder of Project Purity, who, after 19 years of seclusion in Vault 101 discovered a way to bring the project online. Thanks to help from their child, James was able to reactivate the project and begin preparations for the integration of the Garden of Eden Creation Kit. However, the Enclave, led personally by Colonel Augustus Autumn immediately seized the Project. Unwilling to hand the project over to the Enclave, James committed suicide by releasing a blast of deadly radiation inside the control chamber, intent on crippling the facility and killing the Colonel. He failed at both.

The seizure of the purifier and arrival of Dr. Madison Li at the Citadel with information that the Purifier can be made functional, despite previous data to the contrary, started the chain of events that led to the battle. Elder Owyn Lyons decided that having Enclave in control of the wasteland, thanks to a stable supply of purified water from the Jefferson Memorial facility, cannot be allowed. To this end, he began to muster what little forces he had and gear them up for a campaign against the Enclave, while assigning the Lone Wanderer to retrieve the key to Project Purity: The Garden of Eden Creation Kit from Vault 87. Meanwhile, Madison Li and Scribe Rothchild set out to devise a way to make Liberty Prime operational.

The Lone Wanderer's mission did not go as planned. The Enclave managed to infiltrate Vault 87 some time prior and captured the Lone Wanderer and the G.E.C.K. However, due to President Eden and Colonel Autumn's disagreements, the Lone Wanderer escaped Raven Rock and regrouped with Lyons' forces at the Citadel. Despite having barely enough men to keep the Citadel defended, Elder Lyons ordered the freshly activated, jury rigged Liberty Prime to be deployed, covered by the Lyons' Pride, in order to prevent the Enclave from activating the purifier.

The battle
Liberty Prime was released just outside the entrance to the Citadel and begun making his way towards Project Purity over the Arlington Memorial bridge. The massive robot acted as a spearhead, destroying Vertibirds and entrenched Enclave positions with ease. The Enclave was entirely unprepared for such an offensive and could not counter such brute force, even with Vertibird strafing runs and artillery bombardment.

Lyons's Pride and the Lone Wanderer followed the robot's path of destruction, mopping up any Enclave personnel that survived the initial assault. Liberty Prime continued his assault up to the Purifier, destroying photonic resonance barriers set up around the island to deny land access. Upon arrival at the Memorial, Liberty Prime and the Pride set up a security perimeter, while Sarah Lyons and the Lone Wanderer headed inside the facility.

After eliminating the remaining Enclave defenders, the pair confronted Colonel Augustus Autumn in the purifier control chamber. After dealing with him (it is not known whether the Colonel stood his ground or was convinced to live), the purifier was activated and began the purification process of the D.C. tidal basin. The activation came none too soon, as the damage the facility sustained in the course of the battle caused pressure to build up and nearly led to the facility being destroyed.

However, the shockwave that occurred as the facility activated caused severe trauma to both Sarah Lyons and the Lone Wanderer, putting them in a comatose state. The Lone Wanderer would regain consciousness two weeks later, with Lyons several days later.

Aftermath
The battle was a crucial point in The Purifier Conflict, as the Brotherhood managed to take one of the main strongholds of the Enclave in D.C., while simultaneously destroying a large part of their military force, in terms of both manpower and ordnance. Liberty Prime also became a key element of their counter-Enclave strategy, bridging the technological power gap between them and the Enclave.

The defeat at the purifier also threw remaining Enclave forces into disarray, allowing the Pride and other Lyons units, supported by Liberty Prime, to destroy several key installations throughout the wastes, first and foremost being Raven Rock. With it lost, Enclave remnants in the Capital Wasteland became disorganized and uncoordinated, making it easier for the still weak Brotherhood to openly attack and rout them, particularly with Prime's support.

A second major change in the landscape was the appearance of water caravans. Elder Lyons made the decision to provide water to all major settlements in the wasteland, completely free of charge. Elder Lyons' insistence on providing water for free has made finding resources and funding for the operation extremely hard. So hard in fact, that they forced Scribe Bigsley, the man in charge of the entire venture, to go against his orders and sell water, in order to actually be able to accomplish what he's been ordered to do. Another problem was that bottling water had to be accomplished manually, as the Brotherhood is too preoccupied with reverse-engineering Enclave tech to devise a bottling machine. The entire operation was also severely hampered by a general lack of resources and planning.

Appearances
The Battle of Project Purity appears only in Fallout 3.