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I just... I can't believe it. All those years of work. All of it, for what? One botched operation?Scribe Rothchild

Death From Above is a main quest and achievement/trophy in the Fallout 3 add-on Broken Steel. It is the first main quest in Broken Steel and the thirteenth main quest overall.

Background[]

The Lone Wanderer is sent to assist a Brotherhood assault on an Enclave outpost at the southwest corner of the map, west of the Dunwich Building, reached via the Rockland car tunnel. The satellite relay station is in a new area altogether and is heavily defended by Enclave soldiers.

Quick walkthrough[]

Add-on Main Quest: Death From Above 
Wake up in the Citadel and talk to Scribe Rothchild
Travel to the Rockland car tunnel and speak to Paladin Tristan
Accompany Paladin Tristan and meet Liberty Prime outside of the car tunnel. 
Assist in the assault. 
Watch the assault. 
Watch the orbital strike destroy Liberty Prime and speak with Paladin Tristan again. 
Assault the satellite relay station and get the encrypted telemetry data from the satellite uplink terminal
Return to The Citadel and report to Scribe Rothchild. 
Speak with Elder Lyons
Reward: 1300 XP
Leads to: Shock Value

Detailed walkthrough[]

Talk to Scribe Rothchild[]

The player character wakes up in the Citadel's clinic after completing the Take it Back! quest and is greeted by Elder Lyons, who promotes them to the rank of Knight and gives a short overview of what happened during the two weeks they have been unconscious. He then requests they go see Scribe Rothchild for a more detailed briefing. Rothchild explains how the Brotherhood systematically attacked Enclave camps with the help of Liberty Prime, which has proven to be far more effective than expected. The objective of the mission is to learn how the Enclave is still able to communicate and coordinate their scattered forces, even though Raven Rock has been destroyed. It is believed that the Enclave-controlled satellite relay station might be able to provide answers. The Lone Wanderer is sent there to assist in the assault.

Meet Paladin Tristan and support him during the assault[]

When arriving at the Rockland car tunnel, the player character is briefed by Paladin Tristan. As with Take it Back!, Liberty Prime will take point with the Lone Wanderer and the other knights providing support. The first phase of the assault proceeds much like that mission, as the giant robot stomps implacably down a canyon, swatting vertibirds out of the sky and crushing all "Communist" opposition in its path.

When the Brotherhood force arrives at the relay station, Liberty Prime analyzes it for weaknesses and then punches a hole in its wall, allowing entrance. Soon afterward, however, he warns that an uplink transmission has been detected and that an orbital strike is imminent. If they do not stay back or immediately retreat to a safe distance from the robot, they will be killed.

Liberty Prime is wrecked by the missile strike, managing to drag himself only a few yards with his remaining arm before shutting down. In the process, his head comes off; like Deputy Weld's when Megaton is destroyed, it can be activated to hear some of his anti-Communist phrases, now slurred and garbled.

Gather data from the Relay Station[]

The surviving Brothers regroup, and Tristan orders the Lone Wanderer to enter the base and find out what just happened. Assisted by a squad of paladins and Operations Officer Edwards, they must fight through many Enclave soldiers before finally reaching a computer room. Encrypted codes can be downloaded from the mainframe terminal.

Return the data to Scribe Rothchild[]

The player character is then told to return to the Citadel and give the codes to Scribe Rothchild for further investigation. After lamenting the robot's fate, Rothchild takes the data and directs them to Elder Lyons. Talking to him finishes Death From Above and starts the next quest, Shock Value.

Rewards[]

Quest stages[]

StageStatusDescription
10 Speak with Scribe Rothchild
15 Meet Paladin Tristan at the Rockland Car Tunnel
20 Assist Paladin Tristan during the assault
30 Retrieve data from the Satellite Relay
40 Deliver the data to Scribe Rothchild
50Quest finishedReport to Elder Lyons

Transition quotes[]

  • "What the hell happened in here... Oh, man... We've got people down in here! You, check that equipment! The two of you, over here - help me get them.." - Paladin Tristan
  • "What do you mean, comatose? I'm sorry, but that's unacceptable. After all this, to be left in a state like that..." - Elder Lyons
  • "Owyn, why do you keep torturing yourself? Coming down here isn't going to help at all. We have enough to deal with already." - Scribe Rothchild

Bugs[]

  • PCPC If you are unable to move after waking up at the beginning of the quest, try the following console command. player.setstage xx000802 20 (with XX being the load position for Broken Steel.esm) will let you stand up and walk around as usual. This might not work, so an alternative might be to let Sarah enter the code at the end of the prior quest. This however might require the command enableplayercontrols. [verified]
  • PCPC At the beginning you are to speak with Scribe Rothchild who then tells you to "go and take a good look at the map". After that he does nothing thus you can not move forward in that quest. The console command player.setstage xx000802 20 (with XX being the load position for Broken Steel.esm) will bypass this stage of the quest as complete. [verified]
  • PCPC It might happen that the Rockland tunnel is still closed and Tristan is not waiting in front of it. The console command player.setstage xx000802 0 (with XX being the load position for Broken Steel.esm) will open the gate and position Tristan inside the tunnel. [verified]
  • PCPC After being briefed by Scribe Rothchild to meet up with Paladin Tristan, you may arrive at the Rockland car tunnel only to find the door is locked and requires a key. Go back to the Citadel and speak with Scribe Rothchild again. It will then show you have completed speaking to him again and when you go back to Rockland car tunnel the door will not be locked and there will be no key to obtain. [verified]
  • PCPC After Rothchild tells you to find Elder Lyons, Elder Lyons can disappear from the Citadel altogether. The map marker pointing to him will lead to nowhere. A workable solution would be to use the movetoqt console command to move the player to where Elder Lyons is located, which will be somewhere underneath the map. Once there, he can talk to Elder Lyons, finish the quest and use the map to move to the next quest marker. [verified]
  • Xbox 360Xbox 360 The Death From Above achievement may unlock incorrectly, while the game will say you have it, your overall gamerscore will not change. To avoid this, save your game before finishing the quest. If your gamescore is still incorrect after the quest, go to the Xbox dashboard and delete your gamertag from your harddisk. Then restore your gamertag from Xbox live. Then load your savegame before the quest ends and unlock it again. [verified]
  • Xbox 360Xbox 360 After Rothchild tells you to find Elder Lyons, Elder Lyons can disappear from the Citadel altogether. The map marker will place him near the middle of a broken overpass to the north of Springvale and the South East of Big Town. Lyons will not be there nor will he be anywhere in the Citadel. Not in the Lab, A Ring, or B Ring. There is no way to fix this bug other than possibly loading a previous save. Waiting, traveling to Point Lookout, or the Pitt, nor completing other quests causes Lyons to return. Clearing System Cache and uninstalling then reinstalling DLC packs has no effect either. This effectively breaks the entire Broken Steel questline. [verified]
  • PCPC Meet Paladin Tristan: A bug may occur that places Paladin Tristan in a wall of the Citadel. On PC this is easily fixed. You can simply alter the view, use the ~ to open console commands. High-light your character and add the "placeatme" code with his Form ID. [verified]
  • Xbox 360Xbox 360 When the Lone Wanderer wakes up in the med-lab of the Citadel, Sentinel Lyons will be in the same room unconscious (if she survived this far). If she is punched several times, she will stand up and continue standing there with her eyes closed. The others may not become hostile and she can be pushed around and positioned anywhere one likes.

References[]

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