Ishmael Ashur

Ishmael Ashur is one of two primary antagonists in Fallout 3's downloadable expansion, The Pitt. Ashur is a former member of the midwestern installment of the Brotherhood of Steel, who was separated from his deployment long ago, and settled in the ruins of Pittsburgh after discovering a fully operational steel mill, with local populations eager to produce new goods to help rebuild their fallen country.

Ashur played a prominent role in organizing locals, eliminating hostile raider groups, and establishing a functional workforce to meet the shared goals of the community. Unfortunately, due to a degenerative mutation which afflicted Pitt residents and inhibited reproduction, Ashur resorted to slavery as a means of maintaining a stable workforce. Ishmael ordered his raider underlings to keep the slaves in line and squealch any signs of rebellion, but minimized chances of rebellion by offering his slaves a chance at freedom, if they could win his gladiatory games in the Pitt arena.

Though conditions were cruel in the Pitt, and Ashur ordered strict and heavily enforced discipline towards uncooperative slaves, he regretted the conditions which he forced them to work under and live in. He refused to refer to them as slaves, and always called them workers instead, because he was opposed to the use of forced labor, and viewed it as a necesarry evil. Also, because of the games, he gave each slave a chance to become free, though he knew that few would ever achieve such freedom.

Ashur does work actively to produce a cure for the horrible disease that plagues his citizens, and is willing to allow his wife to conduct research on their infant daughter Marie, the only living human known to have immunity to the afliction. Ashur truly wishes to create a cure which he can offer to the residents of the Pitt in hope that he will one day no longer have to resort to slavery, and that he will be able to build a force that can unite the wasteland and eventually rebuild the United States.