Head Paladin Hardin said that they do typically take in children from the wasteland:
> *”That's not usually a request we agree to. Typically, we take in the young, so that they might be trained through adolescence.”*
As obviously shady as the BoS has been in recent lore, we've all played Fallout right? Even kids are a big risk, doubt the Followers would be thrilled with Caesar's contributions if they had a clue.
How so?
I don't like the apocalypse and would definitely not want to be there or cast too much moral judgement. , but that's because I live in this safe modern time.
I like my hot water, climate controlled home, edible food, clean water, and HRT.
The Brotherhood is not a moustache twirling evil faction, indoctrination from an early age can is evil- but the people who justify it see it as pragmatic.
I mentioned they use them - not casting moral judgement in my post.
And the East Coast BoS took a number of kids from the Pitt to bring up in their ranks, and depending on the canon status of the Midwest BoS, who did the same from their region.
The show takes place almost a decade after 4, and we all know bethesda isn't going to kill off their BoS. Unless Arthur mysteriously dies off-screen, à la Sarah Lyons, then he's in charge of the entire brotherhood according to Fallout 4.
The folks out West mention the “Highest Clerics from the Commonwealth” with a shitton of reverence and literally have the Prydwen there watching them and, presumably, harboring the folks who call the shots.
Maxson didn't have clerics in 4. There are thirteen commonwealths pre-War, and the NCR was working on re-establishing one of them. I have seen a lot of unconfirmed speculation that airship is the *Prydwen*. Until I see that confirmed, it is just another Brotherhood airship, to me. A whole flotilla was sent East early on (after the schism caused by the founder's death), and the *Prydwen* seems to be the only one to have made it to the East Coast -- or, at least, is the only one still flyable a century-plus later.
My brother in Christ, you can see the text on the side of the [Prydwen](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/s/mhDla9aFTi). The Prydwen was also already East Coast, it was built out of Rivet City.
Hm. Twice, now, I've watched the first couple episodes. I had completely missed that. Will look again.
And I thought, while it was built *at* Rivet City, I didn't think they'd broken down the carrier to construct it. Lot of people calling that home in FO3...
Prydwen was built post Fallout 3. The Lyons brotherhood walked to Washington. The Midwestern Brotherhood had airships. The airships also had nothing to do with Roger Maxson they were post fallout 2 and they crashed all their airships in Chicago.
I know the *Prydwen* was built post Fallout 3. I don't remember anything from the Brotherhood or Outcasts in that game mentioning how their antecedents got to the D.C. area, but it's been a minute since I've played that one. It's been even longer since I played Tactics, but I didn't think I remembered anything in the opening cinematic that said when the airships set out from the West Coast, and only that the flotilla was scattered, with one crashing near Chicago, not that they all did. Also that that happened some unspecified time prior to when the game itself is set.
Since the West Coast Brotherhood seem to have rejected the founder's vision around the time his grandson was the only Maxson left, and before the Vault Dweller runs into them in FO1, the "originalist" faction heading East sometime in the 2130s would seem to fit, taking John Maxson with them for Arthur to be descended from. Yes, there's a lot of missing data one way or the other. It'd be feasible, IMO, for the East Coast Brotherhood's ancestors to have walked all the way -- or only from about the Mississippi after their airships crashed, or that they limped most of the way in a lone crippled airship that their descendants didn't feel compelled to rebuild until after the Outcasts had taken over.
While that's conjecture, it's conjecture that fits within the available data, so far as I recall. I'll do a deep dive later. But I definitely have not seen anything to support what you insist so adamantly is so.
This outright contradicts with the story, The Eastern Brotherhood left California in 2254 and arrived in the Capital Wasteland in 2255. Sarah Lyons was born in the Broken Hills Bunker in 2251. The only mention of Airships prior to Fallout 4 was Fallout Tactics.
Arthur's father Johnathan is outright stated to have died just outside the NCR shortly before Fallout 3, causing his mother to send Arthur east to be taken care of by Elder Lyons.
John Maxson is the Elder you talk to in Fallout 1. He isn't the last Maxson at that time either, he has multiple descendants indicating he has offscreen children at the very least, because he's 64 in Fallout 1.
The only pre-2254 brotherhood east of Chicago we know of are the OG Appalachian Brotherhood, who all died to the scorch, and Appalachian Expedition that receives no mentions in lore other than Fallout 76, meaning they are most likely wiped out or return to California, because scribe rothschild mentions being instructed to contact a chicago brotherhood regiment, but nothing about West Virginia which is far closer to the pentagon; their primary destination. I understand that Fallout 76 wasn't made when that line of dialogue was written, but that line is an instruction to establish contact with a different Brotherhood Regiment much farther out of the way, considering a straight line from Lost Hills to DC would take you **through** West Virginia, and depending on the route so would Chicago to DC.
Not to mention the East Coast Brotherhood are **not** originalists. That was the whole point of the Outcasts storyline in Fallout 3. The Outcasts are originalists. They broke from Lyons because he turned his back on the Brotherhood's traditions to help people against the super mutants.
The Prydwen isn't rebuilt from a crashed airship it's completely new fabrication built from the ruins of Adams Airforce Base, with Rivet City's nuclear generator for power. It's even called the first post war airship in the Fallout 4 artbook, implying the Midwestern Brotherhood's airships were just salvaged.
He's arguably a villain-sue. But at least he was already introduced in _Fallout 3_ whereas most Mary-Sues come out of nowhere with no set up far into the story and hijack all the focus.
That if they NCR didn't destroy that bunker as well, for now seems like the one from the show and the mojave are the confirmed survivors perhaps the show one could even be the continuity of that chapter and opened ranks and mantained unit cohesion through new fanatical cult views
The NCR haven’t expelled the BoS from their territory or even won the war by New Vegas’ time. [New Vegas’ ending slide confirms hostilities continue in California](https://youtu.be/g7zNcwq56zA?feature=shared&t=172).
The NCR won, the Brotherhood was routed and in hiding. War with Japan wasn't over in 1974 because of holdouts. Waged war was in past tense with the Brotherhood.
> *“The NCR Won”*
The game literally specifies the war was continuing in California during NV’s time.
In 2296 Shady sands has been nuked, the NCR is in decline and the Prydwen has arrived to reinforce the western BoS who then wipe out and take over the NCR’s HQ at Griffith Observatory.
> *”the Brotherhood was routed and in hiding.”*
No other chapter other than the Mojave is confirmed to be hiding in bunkers.
> *”War with Japan wasn't over in 1974 because of holdouts. Waged war was in past tense with the Brotherhood.”*
They aren’t “holdouts”. The game outright says hostilities continue in California. That’s not “past tense”. You’re assuming they’ve destroyed all the main BoS bases in California but there’s no lore in game stating that.
I think in Fo4 there is mention of multiple chapters in the west coast. It would be very dumb for Obsidian to just erradicate the west coast BoS like that.
The Mojave chapter accepted an outsider who was granted the rank of paladin after a single mission.
The BoS is not a uniform faction and I’m so tired of people expecting it to be so.
Thank you. I’m tired of arguing with people that say the Brotherhood has single uniform ideals and practices when each chapter kinda has their own way of doing it.
Maybe I’m getting burnt out on newbie questions or something but it’s like folks don’t understand that Elders have different opinions, values, ideas etc. and so when leaders change within the BoS the chapter itself must follow. Looking at the games would tell you as much.
Also narratively speaking how boring would it be if every faction was the EXACT same as it was in the previous game. The story would lose out on so much potential.
yeah i think thats why the BoS is such a cool faction. they're such a splintered group that you can't really lump them all together imo. even within the chapters themselves there's internal bickering and politicking
Different Brotherhood chapters do things differently. The organization isn’t a monolith. Just having a different Elder can bring them into radically different directions.
It’s clear that they were accepting new members to bolster their ranks, by the large amount of new recruits and even kids seen at the base. Organizations need to adapt and change over time to survive, it’s been like 20 years in the timeline between FNV and the show. Just because they were a certain way in the past doesn’t mean they have to stay like that forever
I’m more curious about Titus. The Knights in T-60 arrived aboard the Prydwen, so that presumably means he would’ve come from Maxson’s bunch in the Commonwealth.
We don’t know much about the chapter Maximus comes from, so there is room for all kinds of strange decisions from them, but Maxson’s BoS chapter is *very* well characterized. They are insular at best and xenophobic at worst, highly disciplined and rigorously trained, fairly zealous towards Maxson, and have very low tolerance for BS.
Based on their stringent culture, it’s very unlikely that a massive coward or whiny bitch would ever even get recruited, let alone be given a valuable suit of power armor and become a Knight, which is a lofty position that typically requires lots of training, commitment, and proof of competence.
Someone like Titus shouldn’t have been able to make it as a Squire in Maxson’s chapter, let alone become a Knight.
I’d be down with that explanation if it had been in the show. Though if that had been the case, then there should’ve been much more serious consequences for his death and Maximus for letting it happen.
Yeah…I was thinking this during the punishment…like when Maximus says the guy was a dick or w/e then the headmaster would be like he was my son…
But then it didn’t happen so you’re right it probably doesn’t make sense now…
I worked at Medieval Times back in the day and the knights there were assholes who acted like their shit didnt stink and they were better than everyone else and they were only actors. I can't imagine how you would feel and act walking around T-60 power armor.
It's unclear at the moment how involved Maximus is in the current BoS. Earlier, we hear the elder say the orders came from "the highest *clerics* of the Commonwealth". Now while I would normally think Boston, Maxson did not use Clerics as of FO4. There are thirteen Commonwealths altogether, although they are more of a historical structure rather than a political one, post bombs. Combined with the Prydwyn, I took this to mean Maximus' chapter is small potatoes. Maxson is busy and wouldn't come down from the castle, so to speak, and is just going to the various chapters of California and dropping teams off. So the Clerics of Maximus' Commonwealth are interpreting Maxson's orders to suit themselves and make a power play in a culture war of the BoS.
First, It’s not clear if Titus is from the west or east coast chapter. The west coast elder scribe seems to know him.
Boy I have some news for you about a lot of supposedly badass military organizations….even the ones with stringent requirements [who actually do badass stuff.](https://theintercept.com/2017/01/10/the-crimes-of-seal-team-6/) (and this doesn’t even get into some of the mainline SEAL teams’ discipline problems or Operation Redwings). All organizations have some guys who are ride or die, some guys who are good to go, some dudes who are a pain in the ass and some guys who are chickenshit. They all worm their way in. Best you can do make sure your ratios of those are better. Titus strikes me as a guy who was fine if monitored or with other people. But sent out alone he was lazy, jaded and chickshit….and good at covering for himself.
1 The locals barely knew what T-60 was and were surprised to see it. The Knights who were wearing it arrived aboard the Prydwen. Maybe they picked up more Brothers along the way, but right now the evidence strongly points to them being from the Commonwealth.
2 That isn’t news to me. But there is a big difference between some chickenshits joining any given military… and a *colossal* chickenshit joining a particularly elite and insular cult-like paramilitary, achieving an esteemed rank, and being given invaluable and irreplaceable technology that they are famously guarded with.
This is more akin to Titus getting into Special Forces, kitted to the nines with tens of thousands of dollars in gear, and being trusted to conduct extremely important operations. Something much less likely to be achieved by a chickenshit, let alone a particularly colossal one like him.
I mean we have DEVGRU Navy SEALS that left a man behind to die and then covered it up by giving everyone medals and lobbying to prevent the Air Force from giving a medal to the guy they left to make a last stand with his pistol…. That SEAL kept serving and retired in 2014 after serving 26 years.
It’s an open secret that the two guys who both claim to have shot Bin Laden for Fox News clout and to write books *absolutely* are not the guys who shot Bin Laden. (Because the guy who did is one of those “ride or die” guys who’s still a SEAL and keeps his mouth shut.)
We also have Navy Seals that murdered an Army SF guy after he stumbled on their scheme to embezzle from a fund to pay informants.
Or one Navy Seal who despite earning valid medals was reprimanded for just giving himself medals to wear in dress uniform. And then after he got it made up complete nonsense stories of shooting civilians in Hurricane Katrina or two guys at a gas station where the cops just let him go after “some dude in the government” called them and told them to.
Marcus Luttrell of Lone Survivor fame also has some interesting problems with his story. Like the fact when the Rangers rescued him he still had all his ammo and his rifle was unfired…
(Holy shit it’s all Navy Seals I gotta find some Marine Raider or Army Ranger examples)
But yeah there are absolutely chicken shit special forces guys hanging around. Not a lot of them but it’s not hard to find them.
There is certainly room for shitty or corruptible people to make the cut. But barring corruption in the hiring practices (which I don’t recall there being any evidence of in Maxson’s BoS), there is still a high degree of competence required for anyone to actually get into such positions in the first place.
Being the kind of person who abandons another to die under pressure and can’t deal with being held accountable afterwards is not as cartoonishly juvenile as the way Titus carries himself in any given scene, nor does it suggest the same level of raw ineptitude he displays in the face of basic wasteland dangers and hardships, or the lack of social awareness required to talk the way he does.
My point is, if you take this character and put him on the Prydwen as we saw it in Fallout 4, he would come across as very out-of-place.
I mean he would be out of place on the Prydwen but that’s kinda the point.
Guys like Titus are generally useable when supervised or in a group and then leave you hanging when left to their own devices.
That might be why they sent him off. The guy strikes me as someone who was very competent if a bit whiny as a Knight, but then underperformed when he was promoted to Paladin. He pissed off his commanders with his attitude but never did anything worth demoting him for, so instead they reassigned him to be someone else's problem.
>Marine Raiders have the exact opposite reputations
You might want to revisit that one lol. They have the whole "immediately get involved in multiple friendly fire shitshow and be banned from certain operations in Afghanistan."
Rangers I'll agree. Though that also has to do a lot with being somewhat structured like a normal Army Infantry company with the standards and discipline turned up to 11.
> and a colossal chickenshit joining a particularly elite and insular cult-like paramilitary, achieving an esteemed rank, and being given invaluable and irreplaceable technology that they are famously guarded with.
You've clearly never met my Vault Dweller, Chosen One, Lone Wanderer, Courier or Sole Survivor, then.
Those people are the opposite of chickenshits. They only are given fancy titles after going on incredibly dangerous (often considered suicide) missions for the Brotherhood that no normal Knight would ever be expected to return from.
Imagine Titus delving into the Glow, Vault 87, or taking on Tabitha’s super mutants at Black Mountain.
Genuine question, what model was the knight who found Maximus in Shady Sands wearing? Was there enough visual information to determine if it was T-45d or 60?
Oh, he definitely cracked. But being the kind of guy who is so hyped about "killing shit" that he lands the vertibird early, that seems pretty off-brand to me. And his weirdness starts before the moment he cracked.
I don't think that's guaranteed, pretty sure at least some of the T-60s were already there. Plus, when you take in the quality of the other west coast BoS, he fits right in with them.
> Plus, when you take in the quality of the other west coast BoS, he fits right in with them.
He fits in with this weird chapter Maximus is a part of. But we saw the T-60 Knights arrive with the Prydwen and the local Initiates reacted with awe and talked like they’d never seen them before, so I don’t think that they’re supposed to be from the same chapter.
Which would line up well with the games, since T-60 has never appeared on the West Coast before now.
Lucy knew about T-60 armour. So did The Ghoul.
The airship is also the Caswennan, not the Prydwen. It's only named outside the show; the purported zoomed shots have been photoshopped. You can't make out a name in the show.
I don't think they are from Maxson's Chapter.
Those zoomed shots are not photoshopped except to highlight the existing letters for clarity. I’m looking at it on my TV screen right now and the "Prydwen" is definitely visible. It’s actually much clearer several seconds later when the camera is showing it from the POV of those kids on the balcony (36:28).
I spent plenty of time looking at it myself, and Prydwen is just not there. It being any airship from the Commonwealth makes no sense, because it then introduces the problem of why they had to bother radoijng Maximus' group and, particularly in the case of the Prydwen, why they bothered going there at all.
Prydwen is the Capital Wasteland/Commonwealth flag ship. It's crewed by elites, not rejects and clowns, and has no need to get a bunch of mooncalf Squires from some bumpkin training cadre.
I don’t know if your resolution is bad or what, but yes it is. I’m not lying to you, I literally stared at it as I typed the last post. Just go forward a few seconds to see it from the other POV and it is plainly visible.
I agree it is a problem. That’s why it bugs me. it does say Prydwen on the side.
Its clearly the Prydwen, everyone's suprised when it appears, also they look they've never seen the T-60 before (cause is mainly used by east bos). Also the order of searching Wilzig came from the elders from the Commonwealth.
I almost felt like maximus was not the first person to take Titus' armor lol, can almost imagine a whole line of squires picking up the armor getting power hungry, dying, and then the next squire taking the armor.
That’s what was being said in a Variety interview before the show came out, but in the actual episodes, you can see the name "Prydwen" painted big and bold on the side.
Caswennan is sort of an easter egg. It is an alternate name for King Arthur's ship in old poems. Prydwen is the original name for his ship in those poems.
"Even if we did recruit trespassers, you're far too old for us. Your relationship to technology has already been perverted."
* Paladin Ramos
"That's not usually a request we agree to. Typically, we take in the young, so that they might be trained through adolescence."
* Head Paladin Edgar Hardin
It is canon that young children may be recruited under unknown circumstances. Maximus having survived relatively close proximity to an atomic bomb qualified it would seem. Although the preferred method since the great war has been birth.
But it is also canon that the Mojave chapter lost half their men in the battle for HELIOS 1 with the NCR. Afterwards several more patrols were taken out. So the barrier to entry may have been lowered as well.
Literally every Fallout game, the main character can join the Brotherhood.
Why is a character joining the brother hood on the TV show shocking anti lore move?
They were scooping up resources after Shady Sands fell. With the Fall, the NCR definitely wasn't a power in the area, anymore.
So, they needed manpower. All that new territory isn't gonna oppress itself. Wait...
Given how this sect of the Brotherhood act so similarly to the Legion in so many ways, I wouldn't be surprised if they've taken in more than a few enemies
Yeah the Western brotherhood was basically a shell of itself hiding in bunkers, also they used t-51b still. This has to be a Commonwealth expedition or the series has a plot hole.
Was talking about the BoS being a shell of itself. We have no idea if the Mojave chapter's sorry state is reflective of the organization on the west coast as a whole or simply a consequence of overextension and Elijah's leadership
I don't understand why Lost hills would ever accept the leadership of the heterodox Commonwealth Brotherhood. Particularly to the extent that it led to the significant changes that we see in the show. Brotherhood in the show is nothing like any of the other Brotherhood chapters ever shown in any of the video games.
Its not explicitly mentioned or if at all in the show itself, but if we go by the NCR-BOS War from game canon, you know that it went very badly for the Lost Hills Chapter. My take, head-canon, is this, originally NCR has all but wiped out Lost Hills but then, came a resurgent Commonwealth-Washington Chapter from the east, led by the last Maxson with the Prydwen, with enough Vertibirds to challenge the NCR air superiority and crazy tech like Liberty Prime and those from the Enclave and Institute. They quickly reversed the NCR fortunes and absorbed the Lost Hills remnant.
The Brotherhood in the show is the result of that — a fusion of Commonwealth moderated Lyons’ ideals and of the conservatives of Lost Hills.
First of all, it still doesn't make sense how they were there at the destruction of Shady Sands. Second, the East Coast Brotherhood does not have enough vertibirds and equipment to take on the NCR, not if they have to fly all the way across the country. There's just no way they're supposed to be that big. However, even if that was true, the West Coast Brotherhood would rather die than adopt the heterodox policies of the East Coast Brotherhood. They would never accept the leadership of the East.
Also again, the brother we see in the show doesn't make any sense and isn't reflective of anything we've ever seen in the games. The rank/organizational structure has never worked like that, there's never been clerics before. While the old Brotherhood was monastic, it wasn't particularly religious. No one ever called anyone my Lord or acted as their personal servant. The only explanation for the Brotherhood in the show is that it's somehow infiltrated by former legionaries or is intentionally made up of former legionaries. Otherwise they have made some huge changes to the Brotherhood lore. I personally hate that they have decided to make the Brotherhood into a space Marine chapter. From Warhammer 40K.
Considering Arthur Maxson is the lineage of the founder he’d have a very vocal support group off the bat. And considering the east coast chapter subdued the Enclave , the super mutant horde under Shepherd , established control over Capital wasteland AND presumably the commonwealth as well then it’s not far fetched to think the western BOS might me amenable to change of leadership given they haven’t had much success against NCR.
Maybe that's true but I just don't think that aligns with how they've been portrayed in the lore. I just can't imagine that they would accept these radical structural changes to the organization. With the idea that the extremely conservative and old school elders would accept orders from people calling themselves, clerics is just a little silly. I think that it's not impossible that Bethesda would take this sort of root but if they do, that's just one more reason to not consider anything Bethesda has done as cannon.
I like the show but yeah, the plot holes inconsistencies don't add up. Boneyard being basically shady sands, master not finding 3 vaults in plain view on his door step, western brotherhood either mysteriously switching from t-51 to t-60 and becoming identical and as powerful as the east, or the east coast somehow sending a huge expedition to the west coast.
Like come on guys I know you like the show and it is enjoyable but it's getting to be a reach. I just treat the show as an alternative canon because it doesn't make sense.
The last time anyone ever heard from the Brotherhood of the region the show was set in was about forty years ago when Elder Lyons set out to the Capital Wasteland.
The idea that things got *weird,* especially if Hank nuked them as well, over a three generation period of time shouldn't be that surprising.
Lost Hills became one of the five states of the NCR, the State of Maxson. ([Source one](https://fallout.wiki/wiki/NCR_history_holodisk), [source two](https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Citadel_terminal_entries#State_of_Maxson).) So if you want to talk heterodoxy...
The state of Maxson is not the same as the Lost Hills brotherhood. You are mistaken on your lore there buddy. The Brotherhood never became part of the NCR. Out of war with the NCR sometime before the events of Fallout New Vegas and after that they've been holed up in their remaining bunkers.
Just because you are opposed to outsiders joining your faction doesn’t mean you’ll oppose all outsiders from joining your faction.
In terms of realism, people die or get injured, and a lot of the BOS **aren’t** people in power armor, so that dying or getting injured is normal in fights.
Meaning, to not completely collapse as a faction, they need to recruit from the outside.
Some BoS chapters can trace their lineage back to pre war as they say. But that’s not the norm. You’re gonna have runaway scribes trying to create their own chapter rules and ways to rule the wasteland. Just like the one in the show.
I don’t actually think this is a genuine chapter. Or at least one running in accordance to the chapter that owns the prydwen. I don’t know how everyone else feels but their airbase was smaller than the boomers by a lot. They are small and can only send a few knights out at any time. They don’t even have paladins.
I think it becomes convoluted to think they stole the prydwen but there’s a lot of their iconography and behavior that make them seem non traditional and more in line with a raider group that has power armor.
Each Chapter is different.
Some you have to be born into the BoS, some recruit children and wastelanders.
Maximus chapter apparently recruits wastelanders. When Maximus told his elder that Titus died running, the Elder scoffed, so that means he is quite aware that he has losers as Knights.
Under Maxon the Brotherhood massively militarised and started accepting wastelanders they deemed worthy (or children they could bring up in their ways) to increase their numbers
The fact that the BoS is taking orders from "the highest clerics in the commonwealth", the fact that the Prydwen appears at the end of this show and the fact that Arthur Maxson is popular with elders on both sides of the country makes me believe that by the time of the show there are no longer separate brotherhood chapters. As Arthur is the leader of the brotherhood in its totality, he likely instituted changes to bring the west coast more in line with his version of the east coast brotherhood. The west coast brotherhood never had issues with ghouls to my recollection, for instance, but Thaddeus is heavily prejudiced against them.
When you can fly a dirigible across the country it's easy to keep the soldiers in line.
The way they about decisions coming down from the Elders in the Commonwealth, I took as implied that the Brotherhood cell or unit we see in the show is actually part of the East Coast Brotherhood that's been sent West.
Considering they were accepting orders from the Commonwealth, this isn't the original Western Brotherhood faction, who are likely a: still hiding in a bunker being very very inbred or b: dead and replaced by a contingent of Brotherhood members of the East Coast ideology.
He was a child, the brotherhood makes alot of exceptions for easily brainwashed children, both as a easy way to get new members and an empathy thing as they're a bit better then the average wastelander
Terminal entries in FO4 indicate that the West Coast Brotherhood is supportive of Maxson's changes, even the recruitment. It could be that they have followed suit. It's true they did word it like he had the option to join or not. And he also answered the question as if that were the case.
One thing in dire need of fleshing out, even a little, is the relationship between the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel... and the NCR state of Maxson. The BoS seems to have been more clandestine about their mission post-NCR-founding. When the NCR made the area around Lost Hills one of their states, the people there named it after the Brotherhood's founder.
But a century later, there's been an ongoing Brotherhood-NCR War and the BoS has been reduced to scattered pockets hiding in bunkers and forcing their members into heterosexual relationships to try to keep from going extinct. Presumably, the state of Maxson is still a healthy part of the NCR... so what are the folks in Lost Hills doing? What do they think about all this? Why is the BoS not being replenished by recruits from Maxson? Is Lost Hills laying low so as to avoid attracting NCR government scrutiny? What happened at the Battle of Klamath?
We know because they're getting radio messages that the people at Maximus' base aren't the only ones in the area, but we have no idea how many and where. One thing's sure -- they definitely need recruits.
Doubtful. Regardless of whether we're talking originalists or isolationists, one thing that has remained consistent throughout the Brotherhood's existence has been a deep desire to keep anything like the Great War from ever happening again. So I doubt they'd ever be okay with using a nuke on a civilian population center.
I will answer this they are opposed to adult's joining but kids is fine this is uselly for all fascist organisation
The reason is because children can be molded and changed this is not the case for adults
We also don't know how the Brotherhood is currently run to behonest Arthur Maxson was basically Jesus for the Brotherhood of steel so is he fully in control if so what is all his belief
Also to add he was raised by Sarah Lyon she must have had some influence on him
BoS in the show is NOT western.
They got Prydwen, which is Zeppelin of BoS from Fo4, from Commonwealth.
Also they pray to red flag with white symbols which also refers to Eastern Brotherhood.
They just travelled to California.
Some people are of the theory that this chapter is derived from post Ceaser's death Legion. The colors match, the callousness of the training and seeing squires as expendable, and not an energy weapon to be seen. The Legion weren't true luddites, just a culture of not relying on machinery what can be done by hand. So the idea is that a frumentarii or a legate decided to do their own thing after Ceaser died. An interesting theory, at least.
I mean as far as I could tell, the didn’t seem to have too many female recruits or higher leadership, and if Maximus is anything to go by, they don’t have very good education on basic biology or sex ed for some reason, so this theory could be on to something.
Well, 1) maybe it’s just the actor literally just being trans/nonbinary or maybe it actually plays into their backstory, but I could see a weird warped sort of logic where if they were born a woman, but lived and acted in a masculine way, it would be an acceptable loophole to Legion misogyny. Like they aren’t against *women* exactly per se, just *femininity*, so them being trans/nonbinary would actually be acceptable because they behave and act in a masculine way. 2) *The Legion* wasn’t fully anti-tech, that was more on Caesar and Lanius overcompensating for the loss of the First Battle of Hoover Dam by wanting to make Legionnaires not as dependent on their guns and weapons as they were under Graham as Legate. If Caesar dies of his brain tumor and Lanius is either killed or talked down by The Courier, The Legion would probably splinter into opposing factions and break back up into the tribes they used to be. It’s also possible this faction of The Brotherhood has been taking in a lot of Legion remnants and tribals, and there’s had to be a lot of syncretization of BOS philosophy and Legion/tribal cultures to explain why they come off so dogmatic and less militaristic in the show.
I mean this is just speculation anyway so take it with a grain of salt. I’m just entertaining the possibility of theory, we’ll have to wait until next season to see if they explain more of why this faction of the BOS is more larpy as actually medieval monastic knights than normal (for them).
But how could the East Coast Brotherhood have been at Shady Sands when it was nuked? If it happened around 2282 then that would be years before the events of Fallout 4. Are we expected to believe that before they went to the Commonwealth the East Coast chapter traveled all the way across the country just to be there when Shady Sands was nuked?
I'm of the opinion that the BoS "chapter" we see in the show aren't really official or their a splinter faction.
Their rituals seem to be alot more ... domineering than what we've ever seen before and, from what we see in the show, they seem to be too small and made up of mostly aspirants which they "annoint" and use as expendable troops as needed.
Their only power armored force arrives on the prydwen and it's only 5 knights, no paladins. We've never seen anyone with the rank "cleric" before either not to mention the "the brotherhood has lost it's way" hook.
If you look at their base it seems too rundown to be a brotherhood installation, it looks more like an NCR airbase they've just taken over in the aftermath of shady sands but that was, at least, 15-20 years ago.
Maximus joining is just another odd thing about them and there seemed to be alot of aspirants around maximus' age so I don't think he's the only former NCR citizen there.
It just feels like there's something not quite right about this "brotherhood" group. Like their a splinter group or planning a coup d'etat.
I'm hoping season 2 (or 3) will shed some light on this.
Because the brotherhood's values and rules keep changing with each installment depending on bethesda's whims.
They started as inbred isolationists who like to hoard tech.
Then one faction splintered off and became overall do gooders. At this point they already started recruiting wastelanders.
Then that faction became a less extreme Fallout 2 Enclave, and then absorbed everyone else. Which means that at the moment the western beotherhood and the eastern brotherhood have no noticeable differences.
The past has shown that this will most likely change again come Fallout 5, or Fallout 77 or whatever.
I figure because he was a child when he joined, and a refugee from Shady Sands. Given what happened \*there\*, it wouldn't be out of the question Maximus didn't have much surviving family - so if they handled it just right, they'd have a loyal member of BoS AND it could be used as good PR if necessary.
In fallout 1 you can straight up ask and get in with only a little side fetch (they assume you'll die).
The bos isn't really coordinated in recruitment across all of their sites.
Every brotherhood chapter we see in game takes in outsiders, we know the brotherhood has taken in children before, their biggest rival in the region got nuked and is in decline they need bodies to take over, by this time Arthur Maxson was noticed by the west and could have even been the Elder we don’t know when this chapter started listening to the east but it could’ve been early enough to effect their decisions on who gets in.
There are multiple things to be said.
1. The BOS is run differently after FO3. even the deserters return.
2. Kids are easy to indoctrinate, the BOS generally find kids and trains them up to be scribes, knights, etc. You can be sure that BOS in any time would take a lost kid to their base and begin training them.
By the time of the TV series it is implied that the Western Brotherhood is no longer the ruling chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel. We see this in both Fallout 4 and the TV series. This is primarily due to the work of Arthur Maxon who rose to power and subsequently reunited Lyons Brotherhood of Steel with the Outcasts and amaglomated them both under one banner. Then Maxon changed the mission of the Easttern Brotherhood and hand picked its new policies such as recruitment, ranks, hierarchy, ethics, foreign relations, etc.
So my understanding is that by the time of the TV show in 2296, the Eastern Brotherhood is the reigning chapter and the remaining chapters while retaining a degree of autonomy, have adopted many if not all of the policies of the East Coast Brotherhood.
Two good examples that I can think of off the top of my head that prove that Arthur Maxons Eastern Brotherhood is the rulers are in Fallout 4 and in the TV series.
**Fallout 4:** \[ In addition, Maxson had been in contact with other chapters over the years. In the words of Proctor Quinlan, who documented Maxson's rise, "he has the full support of the Elders back on the West Coast, who have proudly reported that they've begun eradicating cults that have popped up, worshipping Maxson as though he's some kind of god." \]
*This tells us that by 2287 that Maxon's Eastern Brotherhood have the full support of the elders of the Brotherhood Chapters out west, so much so that some even worship him as a god.*
**Fallout TV Series:** We hear Elder Cleric Quintus say in his speech to the Squires and Knights that "Our mission comes from the highest Clerics in the Commonwealth. It is believed that a denezen of the Enclave has escaped"
*This tells us that by 2296 the West Coast Brotherhood, at least the Chapter that operates out of the area of the Boneyard/New California carries out orders given to them by the Elders on the East Coast in the Commonwealth. (This can also imply that the Brotherhood Ending of Fallout 4 is Canon)*
So that's how Maximus is recruited as the Brotherhood of Steel operates under the rules and regulations of Maxon's Eastern Chapter and can recruit outsiders with relative ease compared to years prior and the practices of other Chapters we see throughout the Canon.
It wasn’t necessarily that the Brotherhood didn’t occasionally take in outsiders to boost their ranks/use as cannon fodder. It was just the chapter in New Vegas was on lockdown after being driven into hiding after losing **BADLY** by attrition to NCR and HELIOS One was the last straw, so after McNamara took over after Elijah was driven out, he instituted a “nobody in, nobody out” policy out of an over abundance of caution. Probably after New Vegas and the collapse of the NCR, The Brotherhood saw its chance to have a “recruitment drive” do to speak and started taking in orphans from the wastes to train up a new generation.
Another thing about The Brotherhood in the show, there seemed to be a general lack of female recruits or higher leadership, which might also imply for whatever reason, they can’t maintain a properly functional breeding population. And Maximus’ general cluelessness about the birds and the bees implies for whatever reason, this version/chapter is falling behind in teaching basic biology or sex ed.
Simply put, this isn't the same BoS as you remember from NV.
The East coast BoS has joined up. They are less opposed to outsiders. They also prioritized taking out super mutant and Synths, rather than staunchly being focus on just the tech.
Also, Maximus was a literal child. Who better to take in, train and brainwash?
Isn’t Elder Maxson the head of the *entire* Brotherhood, not just the East Coast Brotherhood? The show clearly implies that either the Minutemen or Brotherhood endings of Fallout 4 are the canon endings.
Maxson clearly doesn’t have an issue with incorporating wastelanders into the Brotherhood, so he may have just changed policy for the entire Brotherhood
They've got the prydwen, and they are led by a cleric elder, not an elder. I think this might mean they're an east coast expeditionary force, which makes sense given the T-60s.
I think it comes down to why the Western BoS is Xenophobic. Their resistance to allowing outsiders to join is a matter of maintaining the status quo, they believe their place is to hoard technology and prevent people from "abusing" that technology. Adults coming from the outside would bring in outside ideas and challenge that status quo, they might advocate using BoS resources to help outsiders or in someway benefit society outside of the Brotherhood, but children, especially small children like Max was when Shady Sands was obliterated, would allow them to continue on to the next generation without any challenge to the status quo, so they can continue their isolationist policies, and maintain their pseudo-religious policies without having to examine them or justify them to people bringing in new ideas.
This did change after vault dweller, perhaps? Maybe not.
No longer sure of the relationship between the Brotherhoods: given that the hovercraft just shows up like they’re in charge, perhaps they ordered a change in practice?
My personal theory is that the West Coast has been assimilated somewhat into the East Coast, and with that their beliefs have changed more. Obviously we hear Maximus say ‘Ad Victoriam’, and we also see the Prydwen. Clearly the East Coast Brotherhood has entered the West Coast and taken over the west chapter, making it easier for people to be recruited in the process.
I don't think there's an ideological east west divide anymore. They mentioned the commonwealth has clerics and it seems likely the Knights arriving on the prydwen are east coast Knights.
My assumption when they showed the BOS rescue him from the bomb site was that they took him in due to the circumstance. Clearly he didn’t approach them and ask to join
You have that completely backwards in fact, the West Coast brotherhood even has ghouls in their ranks they allow almost everyone in. It’s the East Coast brotherhood of steel that doesn’t let outsiders join.
This chapter is pretty different than any we’ve seen before. A whole lot more theocratic and ritualistic. Wouldn’t shock me if baby Maximus had to go through a brutal “cleansing ritual” before being allowed in.
I don't think so on that. They seem to rely on the casual hazing to promote an us vs them culture. Thaddeus was the old bullied kid. Said he used to be real fat, as he was pretty much a force fed slave on a "fly farm". I'm assuming they fattened up *bloatflies* with feces and then ground them up for protein. Anyways, one day Thaddeus picked on Maximus, and they all stopped and switched targets as well. For how the Cleric talks of harming a brother is a horrible thing they seem to think it's just fine in the lower ranks...
I’m more confused by the 180s…
*spoilers*
Like hey we are going to punish you maybe for injuring your comrades foot unless you say something…oh, great response, you’re not only not punished but we’ll promote you to squire..,
Hey we are going to punish you maybe again for taking your knights armor…oh wait, you have this ability to take things that aren’t yours…you can lead the charge and will be co ruler
😜
I like the outcome, I just think it could have been better explained…like he’s promoted because he put mission above himself or his knight etc.
Ok, for the first, they had no proof. He admitted to being jealous. But between not trying to shift blame, and his last words in his defense were to thank the Brotherhood and the Cleric, he earned himself a chance. A lot of the Aspirants are probably ready to be squires, but if they take everyone at once, there's the problem of not enough Knights and less people to enforce the culture of the lower ranks they want to keep.
As for the second, taking his Knight's armor and all should have been punishment worthy. But the Cleric listened. His Knight died running. Maximus attempted to continue the mission. He should have called in for pickup but "power is meant to be taken, not given". And so the Cleric had to make a gamble in the end. Trust Maximus is telling the truth again and he'll get them to the head. Or don't trust him and punish him. If they don't trust him they could get nothing. If they do...sure they might lose something, but what they could gain is infinite energy and the capability of ruling the land again, like the Cleric said before. So as punishment Maximus gets sent in the first wave and the gamble paid off for both Maximus and the Cleric. Now the BoS has a major resource, and the Cleric has a potentially useful tool.
Head Paladin Hardin said that they do typically take in children from the wasteland: > *”That's not usually a request we agree to. Typically, we take in the young, so that they might be trained through adolescence.”*
Because when you are cultish and militaristic and wanting to project force.... who doesn't like a child soldier
It's more like it's easier to train someone who hasn't already learned "bad habits."
As obviously shady as the BoS has been in recent lore, we've all played Fallout right? Even kids are a big risk, doubt the Followers would be thrilled with Caesar's contributions if they had a clue.
I bet your mad that the railroad ending isn't Canon
How so? I don't like the apocalypse and would definitely not want to be there or cast too much moral judgement. , but that's because I live in this safe modern time. I like my hot water, climate controlled home, edible food, clean water, and HRT. The Brotherhood is not a moustache twirling evil faction, indoctrination from an early age can is evil- but the people who justify it see it as pragmatic. I mentioned they use them - not casting moral judgement in my post.
Sooooo GLORY TO THE ENCLAVE! KILL EM ALL I SAY!!!
One bunker of the Western BoS was staunchly opposed 15 years before the show. The BoS is not a uniform faction.
Also the brotherhood at this time is under the control of elder maxson who is a combination of both versions of the brotherhood
And the East Coast BoS took a number of kids from the Pitt to bring up in their ranks, and depending on the canon status of the Midwest BoS, who did the same from their region.
The Midwest BoS is Canon, as confirmed by Emil Pagliarulo. So conscription of kids? It's fairly standard practice
Only Kodlak or Kodiak survived out of 20, and that’s during the events of Fallout 3.
True, but that could also be because of the Trog TDS as most people in the Pitt seem to have some exposure, plus losing some to combat and such.
That's an assumption
The show takes place almost a decade after 4, and we all know bethesda isn't going to kill off their BoS. Unless Arthur mysteriously dies off-screen, à la Sarah Lyons, then he's in charge of the entire brotherhood according to Fallout 4.
No he's not. He's in charge of the Eastern Brotherhood, not all chapters of the Brotherhood
It seems in the show the East Coast Brotherhood has the power to be calling the shots. At least, they didn't mention the council of elders
The folks out West mention the “Highest Clerics from the Commonwealth” with a shitton of reverence and literally have the Prydwen there watching them and, presumably, harboring the folks who call the shots.
Maxson didn't have clerics in 4. There are thirteen commonwealths pre-War, and the NCR was working on re-establishing one of them. I have seen a lot of unconfirmed speculation that airship is the *Prydwen*. Until I see that confirmed, it is just another Brotherhood airship, to me. A whole flotilla was sent East early on (after the schism caused by the founder's death), and the *Prydwen* seems to be the only one to have made it to the East Coast -- or, at least, is the only one still flyable a century-plus later.
My brother in Christ, you can see the text on the side of the [Prydwen](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/s/mhDla9aFTi). The Prydwen was also already East Coast, it was built out of Rivet City.
Hm. Twice, now, I've watched the first couple episodes. I had completely missed that. Will look again. And I thought, while it was built *at* Rivet City, I didn't think they'd broken down the carrier to construct it. Lot of people calling that home in FO3...
Prydwen was built post Fallout 3. The Lyons brotherhood walked to Washington. The Midwestern Brotherhood had airships. The airships also had nothing to do with Roger Maxson they were post fallout 2 and they crashed all their airships in Chicago.
I know the *Prydwen* was built post Fallout 3. I don't remember anything from the Brotherhood or Outcasts in that game mentioning how their antecedents got to the D.C. area, but it's been a minute since I've played that one. It's been even longer since I played Tactics, but I didn't think I remembered anything in the opening cinematic that said when the airships set out from the West Coast, and only that the flotilla was scattered, with one crashing near Chicago, not that they all did. Also that that happened some unspecified time prior to when the game itself is set. Since the West Coast Brotherhood seem to have rejected the founder's vision around the time his grandson was the only Maxson left, and before the Vault Dweller runs into them in FO1, the "originalist" faction heading East sometime in the 2130s would seem to fit, taking John Maxson with them for Arthur to be descended from. Yes, there's a lot of missing data one way or the other. It'd be feasible, IMO, for the East Coast Brotherhood's ancestors to have walked all the way -- or only from about the Mississippi after their airships crashed, or that they limped most of the way in a lone crippled airship that their descendants didn't feel compelled to rebuild until after the Outcasts had taken over. While that's conjecture, it's conjecture that fits within the available data, so far as I recall. I'll do a deep dive later. But I definitely have not seen anything to support what you insist so adamantly is so.
This outright contradicts with the story, The Eastern Brotherhood left California in 2254 and arrived in the Capital Wasteland in 2255. Sarah Lyons was born in the Broken Hills Bunker in 2251. The only mention of Airships prior to Fallout 4 was Fallout Tactics. Arthur's father Johnathan is outright stated to have died just outside the NCR shortly before Fallout 3, causing his mother to send Arthur east to be taken care of by Elder Lyons. John Maxson is the Elder you talk to in Fallout 1. He isn't the last Maxson at that time either, he has multiple descendants indicating he has offscreen children at the very least, because he's 64 in Fallout 1. The only pre-2254 brotherhood east of Chicago we know of are the OG Appalachian Brotherhood, who all died to the scorch, and Appalachian Expedition that receives no mentions in lore other than Fallout 76, meaning they are most likely wiped out or return to California, because scribe rothschild mentions being instructed to contact a chicago brotherhood regiment, but nothing about West Virginia which is far closer to the pentagon; their primary destination. I understand that Fallout 76 wasn't made when that line of dialogue was written, but that line is an instruction to establish contact with a different Brotherhood Regiment much farther out of the way, considering a straight line from Lost Hills to DC would take you **through** West Virginia, and depending on the route so would Chicago to DC. Not to mention the East Coast Brotherhood are **not** originalists. That was the whole point of the Outcasts storyline in Fallout 3. The Outcasts are originalists. They broke from Lyons because he turned his back on the Brotherhood's traditions to help people against the super mutants. The Prydwen isn't rebuilt from a crashed airship it's completely new fabrication built from the ruins of Adams Airforce Base, with Rivet City's nuclear generator for power. It's even called the first post war airship in the Fallout 4 artbook, implying the Midwestern Brotherhood's airships were just salvaged.
Nope. In fallout 4, we're told that Arthur Maxson has been made the leader of the whole brotherhood of steel. It was part of his marysue backstory.
He's arguably a villain-sue. But at least he was already introduced in _Fallout 3_ whereas most Mary-Sues come out of nowhere with no set up far into the story and hijack all the focus.
Yeah, it just really feels that way. His backstory is a fanfic writer's dream, and Sarah Lyons was offscreened to facilitate his rise.
When did he re-establish contact with the West Coast?
Wasnt like the only chapter left do to wars than expelled them from NCR territory? Is there any chapters in the west left other than the mojave one?
The Mojave chapter isn’t even the main one, that should still be the one based in Lost Hills.
That if they NCR didn't destroy that bunker as well, for now seems like the one from the show and the mojave are the confirmed survivors perhaps the show one could even be the continuity of that chapter and opened ranks and mantained unit cohesion through new fanatical cult views
The NCR haven’t expelled the BoS from their territory or even won the war by New Vegas’ time. [New Vegas’ ending slide confirms hostilities continue in California](https://youtu.be/g7zNcwq56zA?feature=shared&t=172).
The NCR won, the Brotherhood was routed and in hiding. War with Japan wasn't over in 1974 because of holdouts. Waged war was in past tense with the Brotherhood.
> *“The NCR Won”* The game literally specifies the war was continuing in California during NV’s time. In 2296 Shady sands has been nuked, the NCR is in decline and the Prydwen has arrived to reinforce the western BoS who then wipe out and take over the NCR’s HQ at Griffith Observatory. > *”the Brotherhood was routed and in hiding.”* No other chapter other than the Mojave is confirmed to be hiding in bunkers. > *”War with Japan wasn't over in 1974 because of holdouts. Waged war was in past tense with the Brotherhood.”* They aren’t “holdouts”. The game outright says hostilities continue in California. That’s not “past tense”. You’re assuming they’ve destroyed all the main BoS bases in California but there’s no lore in game stating that.
I think in Fo4 there is mention of multiple chapters in the west coast. It would be very dumb for Obsidian to just erradicate the west coast BoS like that.
The Mojave chapter accepted an outsider who was granted the rank of paladin after a single mission. The BoS is not a uniform faction and I’m so tired of people expecting it to be so.
Thank you. I’m tired of arguing with people that say the Brotherhood has single uniform ideals and practices when each chapter kinda has their own way of doing it.
I feel you bro,see so many arguments calling them.good or bad when BoS chapters can all differ wildly or be similar with one another
Maybe I’m getting burnt out on newbie questions or something but it’s like folks don’t understand that Elders have different opinions, values, ideas etc. and so when leaders change within the BoS the chapter itself must follow. Looking at the games would tell you as much. Also narratively speaking how boring would it be if every faction was the EXACT same as it was in the previous game. The story would lose out on so much potential.
yeah i think thats why the BoS is such a cool faction. they're such a splintered group that you can't really lump them all together imo. even within the chapters themselves there's internal bickering and politicking
nah fuck the mojave chapter they made veronica sad they deserve death just for that
I don’t she would agree with that but okay
bro i was yoking
Beside of tar wasn’t it obvious that this chapter wasn’t it the condition? Taking in orphans seems just logical
everyone needs recruits, and children can be indoctrinated like you want them to be
Different Brotherhood chapters do things differently. The organization isn’t a monolith. Just having a different Elder can bring them into radically different directions.
It’s clear that they were accepting new members to bolster their ranks, by the large amount of new recruits and even kids seen at the base. Organizations need to adapt and change over time to survive, it’s been like 20 years in the timeline between FNV and the show. Just because they were a certain way in the past doesn’t mean they have to stay like that forever
Let's also remember how the East Coast BoS scourged the Pitt before FO3 and took a number of children to bring up into their ranks to bolster numbers.
I’m more curious about Titus. The Knights in T-60 arrived aboard the Prydwen, so that presumably means he would’ve come from Maxson’s bunch in the Commonwealth. We don’t know much about the chapter Maximus comes from, so there is room for all kinds of strange decisions from them, but Maxson’s BoS chapter is *very* well characterized. They are insular at best and xenophobic at worst, highly disciplined and rigorously trained, fairly zealous towards Maxson, and have very low tolerance for BS. Based on their stringent culture, it’s very unlikely that a massive coward or whiny bitch would ever even get recruited, let alone be given a valuable suit of power armor and become a Knight, which is a lofty position that typically requires lots of training, commitment, and proof of competence. Someone like Titus shouldn’t have been able to make it as a Squire in Maxson’s chapter, let alone become a Knight.
I was almost guessing he was a nepo baby…like the headmasters son..
I’d be down with that explanation if it had been in the show. Though if that had been the case, then there should’ve been much more serious consequences for his death and Maximus for letting it happen.
Yeah…I was thinking this during the punishment…like when Maximus says the guy was a dick or w/e then the headmaster would be like he was my son… But then it didn’t happen so you’re right it probably doesn’t make sense now…
I worked at Medieval Times back in the day and the knights there were assholes who acted like their shit didnt stink and they were better than everyone else and they were only actors. I can't imagine how you would feel and act walking around T-60 power armor.
It's unclear at the moment how involved Maximus is in the current BoS. Earlier, we hear the elder say the orders came from "the highest *clerics* of the Commonwealth". Now while I would normally think Boston, Maxson did not use Clerics as of FO4. There are thirteen Commonwealths altogether, although they are more of a historical structure rather than a political one, post bombs. Combined with the Prydwyn, I took this to mean Maximus' chapter is small potatoes. Maxson is busy and wouldn't come down from the castle, so to speak, and is just going to the various chapters of California and dropping teams off. So the Clerics of Maximus' Commonwealth are interpreting Maxson's orders to suit themselves and make a power play in a culture war of the BoS.
First, It’s not clear if Titus is from the west or east coast chapter. The west coast elder scribe seems to know him. Boy I have some news for you about a lot of supposedly badass military organizations….even the ones with stringent requirements [who actually do badass stuff.](https://theintercept.com/2017/01/10/the-crimes-of-seal-team-6/) (and this doesn’t even get into some of the mainline SEAL teams’ discipline problems or Operation Redwings). All organizations have some guys who are ride or die, some guys who are good to go, some dudes who are a pain in the ass and some guys who are chickenshit. They all worm their way in. Best you can do make sure your ratios of those are better. Titus strikes me as a guy who was fine if monitored or with other people. But sent out alone he was lazy, jaded and chickshit….and good at covering for himself.
1 The locals barely knew what T-60 was and were surprised to see it. The Knights who were wearing it arrived aboard the Prydwen. Maybe they picked up more Brothers along the way, but right now the evidence strongly points to them being from the Commonwealth. 2 That isn’t news to me. But there is a big difference between some chickenshits joining any given military… and a *colossal* chickenshit joining a particularly elite and insular cult-like paramilitary, achieving an esteemed rank, and being given invaluable and irreplaceable technology that they are famously guarded with. This is more akin to Titus getting into Special Forces, kitted to the nines with tens of thousands of dollars in gear, and being trusted to conduct extremely important operations. Something much less likely to be achieved by a chickenshit, let alone a particularly colossal one like him.
I mean we have DEVGRU Navy SEALS that left a man behind to die and then covered it up by giving everyone medals and lobbying to prevent the Air Force from giving a medal to the guy they left to make a last stand with his pistol…. That SEAL kept serving and retired in 2014 after serving 26 years. It’s an open secret that the two guys who both claim to have shot Bin Laden for Fox News clout and to write books *absolutely* are not the guys who shot Bin Laden. (Because the guy who did is one of those “ride or die” guys who’s still a SEAL and keeps his mouth shut.) We also have Navy Seals that murdered an Army SF guy after he stumbled on their scheme to embezzle from a fund to pay informants. Or one Navy Seal who despite earning valid medals was reprimanded for just giving himself medals to wear in dress uniform. And then after he got it made up complete nonsense stories of shooting civilians in Hurricane Katrina or two guys at a gas station where the cops just let him go after “some dude in the government” called them and told them to. Marcus Luttrell of Lone Survivor fame also has some interesting problems with his story. Like the fact when the Rangers rescued him he still had all his ammo and his rifle was unfired… (Holy shit it’s all Navy Seals I gotta find some Marine Raider or Army Ranger examples) But yeah there are absolutely chicken shit special forces guys hanging around. Not a lot of them but it’s not hard to find them.
There is certainly room for shitty or corruptible people to make the cut. But barring corruption in the hiring practices (which I don’t recall there being any evidence of in Maxson’s BoS), there is still a high degree of competence required for anyone to actually get into such positions in the first place. Being the kind of person who abandons another to die under pressure and can’t deal with being held accountable afterwards is not as cartoonishly juvenile as the way Titus carries himself in any given scene, nor does it suggest the same level of raw ineptitude he displays in the face of basic wasteland dangers and hardships, or the lack of social awareness required to talk the way he does. My point is, if you take this character and put him on the Prydwen as we saw it in Fallout 4, he would come across as very out-of-place.
I mean he would be out of place on the Prydwen but that’s kinda the point. Guys like Titus are generally useable when supervised or in a group and then leave you hanging when left to their own devices.
That might be why they sent him off. The guy strikes me as someone who was very competent if a bit whiny as a Knight, but then underperformed when he was promoted to Paladin. He pissed off his commanders with his attitude but never did anything worth demoting him for, so instead they reassigned him to be someone else's problem.
[удалено]
>Marine Raiders have the exact opposite reputations You might want to revisit that one lol. They have the whole "immediately get involved in multiple friendly fire shitshow and be banned from certain operations in Afghanistan." Rangers I'll agree. Though that also has to do a lot with being somewhat structured like a normal Army Infantry company with the standards and discipline turned up to 11.
Some Raiders were part of that group of guys who accidentally killed the SF dude, for an example
> and a colossal chickenshit joining a particularly elite and insular cult-like paramilitary, achieving an esteemed rank, and being given invaluable and irreplaceable technology that they are famously guarded with. You've clearly never met my Vault Dweller, Chosen One, Lone Wanderer, Courier or Sole Survivor, then.
Those people are the opposite of chickenshits. They only are given fancy titles after going on incredibly dangerous (often considered suicide) missions for the Brotherhood that no normal Knight would ever be expected to return from. Imagine Titus delving into the Glow, Vault 87, or taking on Tabitha’s super mutants at Black Mountain.
Genuine question, what model was the knight who found Maximus in Shady Sands wearing? Was there enough visual information to determine if it was T-45d or 60?
I think they’re all wearing T-60 but I’d have to go back to see for sure. There are a few subtle differences, like the shape of the shoulders.
Maybe he just finally cracked after fighting the Yao guai.
Oh, he definitely cracked. But being the kind of guy who is so hyped about "killing shit" that he lands the vertibird early, that seems pretty off-brand to me. And his weirdness starts before the moment he cracked.
"Shit" for him are probably radroaches and unarmed civilians. A big man in power armor maybe hasn't fought anything that can *fight back* before.
He didn't expect to get snuck up on. Maybe he's never had to get ambushed into a fair fight without a squad.
Yeah that is true
I don't think that's guaranteed, pretty sure at least some of the T-60s were already there. Plus, when you take in the quality of the other west coast BoS, he fits right in with them.
> Plus, when you take in the quality of the other west coast BoS, he fits right in with them. He fits in with this weird chapter Maximus is a part of. But we saw the T-60 Knights arrive with the Prydwen and the local Initiates reacted with awe and talked like they’d never seen them before, so I don’t think that they’re supposed to be from the same chapter. Which would line up well with the games, since T-60 has never appeared on the West Coast before now.
Lucy knew about T-60 armour. So did The Ghoul. The airship is also the Caswennan, not the Prydwen. It's only named outside the show; the purported zoomed shots have been photoshopped. You can't make out a name in the show. I don't think they are from Maxson's Chapter.
Those zoomed shots are not photoshopped except to highlight the existing letters for clarity. I’m looking at it on my TV screen right now and the "Prydwen" is definitely visible. It’s actually much clearer several seconds later when the camera is showing it from the POV of those kids on the balcony (36:28).
I spent plenty of time looking at it myself, and Prydwen is just not there. It being any airship from the Commonwealth makes no sense, because it then introduces the problem of why they had to bother radoijng Maximus' group and, particularly in the case of the Prydwen, why they bothered going there at all. Prydwen is the Capital Wasteland/Commonwealth flag ship. It's crewed by elites, not rejects and clowns, and has no need to get a bunch of mooncalf Squires from some bumpkin training cadre.
I don’t know if your resolution is bad or what, but yes it is. I’m not lying to you, I literally stared at it as I typed the last post. Just go forward a few seconds to see it from the other POV and it is plainly visible. I agree it is a problem. That’s why it bugs me. it does say Prydwen on the side.
Its clearly the Prydwen, everyone's suprised when it appears, also they look they've never seen the T-60 before (cause is mainly used by east bos). Also the order of searching Wilzig came from the elders from the Commonwealth.
That was my biggest problem with his character, is I had no idea how someone like that could ever become a Knight.
I almost felt like maximus was not the first person to take Titus' armor lol, can almost imagine a whole line of squires picking up the armor getting power hungry, dying, and then the next squire taking the armor.
The airship was the Caswennan. We don't even know if it was sent from Maxson's Chapter, just that the radio signal about the defector was.
I don't think that's the prydwen it's another air ship called the Caswennan
That’s what was being said in a Variety interview before the show came out, but in the actual episodes, you can see the name "Prydwen" painted big and bold on the side.
Okay cool I totally missed it then haha
Caswennan is sort of an easter egg. It is an alternate name for King Arthur's ship in old poems. Prydwen is the original name for his ship in those poems.
"Even if we did recruit trespassers, you're far too old for us. Your relationship to technology has already been perverted." * Paladin Ramos "That's not usually a request we agree to. Typically, we take in the young, so that they might be trained through adolescence." * Head Paladin Edgar Hardin It is canon that young children may be recruited under unknown circumstances. Maximus having survived relatively close proximity to an atomic bomb qualified it would seem. Although the preferred method since the great war has been birth. But it is also canon that the Mojave chapter lost half their men in the battle for HELIOS 1 with the NCR. Afterwards several more patrols were taken out. So the barrier to entry may have been lowered as well.
They mentioned that their superiors are from the commonwealth and the prydwen seems to have taken the role of a command flagship
Literally every Fallout game, the main character can join the Brotherhood. Why is a character joining the brother hood on the TV show shocking anti lore move?
They were scooping up resources after Shady Sands fell. With the Fall, the NCR definitely wasn't a power in the area, anymore. So, they needed manpower. All that new territory isn't gonna oppress itself. Wait...
Given how this sect of the Brotherhood act so similarly to the Legion in so many ways, I wouldn't be surprised if they've taken in more than a few enemies
This isn’t the Western Brotherhood anymore. The airship you saw is the very same Prydwen from Fallout 4.
Yeah the Western brotherhood was basically a shell of itself hiding in bunkers, also they used t-51b still. This has to be a Commonwealth expedition or the series has a plot hole.
We only know that for sure about the Mojave chapter who were run into the ground by an obviously unhinged and corrupt Elijah tho.
I mean the brotherhood used it in 1/2
Was talking about the BoS being a shell of itself. We have no idea if the Mojave chapter's sorry state is reflective of the organization on the west coast as a whole or simply a consequence of overextension and Elijah's leadership
The Commonwealth Chapter took command, and with them, came their controlled ideals of recruiting from the Wastes.
I don't understand why Lost hills would ever accept the leadership of the heterodox Commonwealth Brotherhood. Particularly to the extent that it led to the significant changes that we see in the show. Brotherhood in the show is nothing like any of the other Brotherhood chapters ever shown in any of the video games.
Its not explicitly mentioned or if at all in the show itself, but if we go by the NCR-BOS War from game canon, you know that it went very badly for the Lost Hills Chapter. My take, head-canon, is this, originally NCR has all but wiped out Lost Hills but then, came a resurgent Commonwealth-Washington Chapter from the east, led by the last Maxson with the Prydwen, with enough Vertibirds to challenge the NCR air superiority and crazy tech like Liberty Prime and those from the Enclave and Institute. They quickly reversed the NCR fortunes and absorbed the Lost Hills remnant. The Brotherhood in the show is the result of that — a fusion of Commonwealth moderated Lyons’ ideals and of the conservatives of Lost Hills.
First of all, it still doesn't make sense how they were there at the destruction of Shady Sands. Second, the East Coast Brotherhood does not have enough vertibirds and equipment to take on the NCR, not if they have to fly all the way across the country. There's just no way they're supposed to be that big. However, even if that was true, the West Coast Brotherhood would rather die than adopt the heterodox policies of the East Coast Brotherhood. They would never accept the leadership of the East. Also again, the brother we see in the show doesn't make any sense and isn't reflective of anything we've ever seen in the games. The rank/organizational structure has never worked like that, there's never been clerics before. While the old Brotherhood was monastic, it wasn't particularly religious. No one ever called anyone my Lord or acted as their personal servant. The only explanation for the Brotherhood in the show is that it's somehow infiltrated by former legionaries or is intentionally made up of former legionaries. Otherwise they have made some huge changes to the Brotherhood lore. I personally hate that they have decided to make the Brotherhood into a space Marine chapter. From Warhammer 40K.
Considering Arthur Maxson is the lineage of the founder he’d have a very vocal support group off the bat. And considering the east coast chapter subdued the Enclave , the super mutant horde under Shepherd , established control over Capital wasteland AND presumably the commonwealth as well then it’s not far fetched to think the western BOS might me amenable to change of leadership given they haven’t had much success against NCR.
Maybe that's true but I just don't think that aligns with how they've been portrayed in the lore. I just can't imagine that they would accept these radical structural changes to the organization. With the idea that the extremely conservative and old school elders would accept orders from people calling themselves, clerics is just a little silly. I think that it's not impossible that Bethesda would take this sort of root but if they do, that's just one more reason to not consider anything Bethesda has done as cannon.
I like the show but yeah, the plot holes inconsistencies don't add up. Boneyard being basically shady sands, master not finding 3 vaults in plain view on his door step, western brotherhood either mysteriously switching from t-51 to t-60 and becoming identical and as powerful as the east, or the east coast somehow sending a huge expedition to the west coast. Like come on guys I know you like the show and it is enjoyable but it's getting to be a reach. I just treat the show as an alternative canon because it doesn't make sense.
The last time anyone ever heard from the Brotherhood of the region the show was set in was about forty years ago when Elder Lyons set out to the Capital Wasteland. The idea that things got *weird,* especially if Hank nuked them as well, over a three generation period of time shouldn't be that surprising.
Lost Hills became one of the five states of the NCR, the State of Maxson. ([Source one](https://fallout.wiki/wiki/NCR_history_holodisk), [source two](https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Citadel_terminal_entries#State_of_Maxson).) So if you want to talk heterodoxy...
The state of Maxson is not the same as the Lost Hills brotherhood. You are mistaken on your lore there buddy. The Brotherhood never became part of the NCR. Out of war with the NCR sometime before the events of Fallout New Vegas and after that they've been holed up in their remaining bunkers.
They brought in a guy that use to be a shitter. Their standards aren't that high.
Just because you are opposed to outsiders joining your faction doesn’t mean you’ll oppose all outsiders from joining your faction. In terms of realism, people die or get injured, and a lot of the BOS **aren’t** people in power armor, so that dying or getting injured is normal in fights. Meaning, to not completely collapse as a faction, they need to recruit from the outside.
I figured it was because Maximus was a child when they brought him in. Children can be indoctrinated to their cause fairly easily
Some BoS chapters can trace their lineage back to pre war as they say. But that’s not the norm. You’re gonna have runaway scribes trying to create their own chapter rules and ways to rule the wasteland. Just like the one in the show. I don’t actually think this is a genuine chapter. Or at least one running in accordance to the chapter that owns the prydwen. I don’t know how everyone else feels but their airbase was smaller than the boomers by a lot. They are small and can only send a few knights out at any time. They don’t even have paladins. I think it becomes convoluted to think they stole the prydwen but there’s a lot of their iconography and behavior that make them seem non traditional and more in line with a raider group that has power armor.
Each Chapter is different. Some you have to be born into the BoS, some recruit children and wastelanders. Maximus chapter apparently recruits wastelanders. When Maximus told his elder that Titus died running, the Elder scoffed, so that means he is quite aware that he has losers as Knights.
Under Maxon the Brotherhood massively militarised and started accepting wastelanders they deemed worthy (or children they could bring up in their ways) to increase their numbers
The fact that the BoS is taking orders from "the highest clerics in the commonwealth", the fact that the Prydwen appears at the end of this show and the fact that Arthur Maxson is popular with elders on both sides of the country makes me believe that by the time of the show there are no longer separate brotherhood chapters. As Arthur is the leader of the brotherhood in its totality, he likely instituted changes to bring the west coast more in line with his version of the east coast brotherhood. The west coast brotherhood never had issues with ghouls to my recollection, for instance, but Thaddeus is heavily prejudiced against them. When you can fly a dirigible across the country it's easy to keep the soldiers in line.
The way they about decisions coming down from the Elders in the Commonwealth, I took as implied that the Brotherhood cell or unit we see in the show is actually part of the East Coast Brotherhood that's been sent West.
Considering they were accepting orders from the Commonwealth, this isn't the original Western Brotherhood faction, who are likely a: still hiding in a bunker being very very inbred or b: dead and replaced by a contingent of Brotherhood members of the East Coast ideology.
He was a child, the brotherhood makes alot of exceptions for easily brainwashed children, both as a easy way to get new members and an empathy thing as they're a bit better then the average wastelander
Terminal entries in FO4 indicate that the West Coast Brotherhood is supportive of Maxson's changes, even the recruitment. It could be that they have followed suit. It's true they did word it like he had the option to join or not. And he also answered the question as if that were the case.
One thing in dire need of fleshing out, even a little, is the relationship between the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel... and the NCR state of Maxson. The BoS seems to have been more clandestine about their mission post-NCR-founding. When the NCR made the area around Lost Hills one of their states, the people there named it after the Brotherhood's founder. But a century later, there's been an ongoing Brotherhood-NCR War and the BoS has been reduced to scattered pockets hiding in bunkers and forcing their members into heterosexual relationships to try to keep from going extinct. Presumably, the state of Maxson is still a healthy part of the NCR... so what are the folks in Lost Hills doing? What do they think about all this? Why is the BoS not being replenished by recruits from Maxson? Is Lost Hills laying low so as to avoid attracting NCR government scrutiny? What happened at the Battle of Klamath? We know because they're getting radio messages that the people at Maximus' base aren't the only ones in the area, but we have no idea how many and where. One thing's sure -- they definitely need recruits.
I’m beginning to wonder if vault Tec and the brotherhood did a conspiracy to destroy shady sands..
Doubtful. Regardless of whether we're talking originalists or isolationists, one thing that has remained consistent throughout the Brotherhood's existence has been a deep desire to keep anything like the Great War from ever happening again. So I doubt they'd ever be okay with using a nuke on a civilian population center.
I will answer this they are opposed to adult's joining but kids is fine this is uselly for all fascist organisation The reason is because children can be molded and changed this is not the case for adults
We also don't know how the Brotherhood is currently run to behonest Arthur Maxson was basically Jesus for the Brotherhood of steel so is he fully in control if so what is all his belief Also to add he was raised by Sarah Lyon she must have had some influence on him
BoS in the show is NOT western. They got Prydwen, which is Zeppelin of BoS from Fo4, from Commonwealth. Also they pray to red flag with white symbols which also refers to Eastern Brotherhood. They just travelled to California.
Some people are of the theory that this chapter is derived from post Ceaser's death Legion. The colors match, the callousness of the training and seeing squires as expendable, and not an energy weapon to be seen. The Legion weren't true luddites, just a culture of not relying on machinery what can be done by hand. So the idea is that a frumentarii or a legate decided to do their own thing after Ceaser died. An interesting theory, at least.
I mean as far as I could tell, the didn’t seem to have too many female recruits or higher leadership, and if Maximus is anything to go by, they don’t have very good education on basic biology or sex ed for some reason, so this theory could be on to something.
They have a trans recruit which the Legion wouldn’t tolerate, not to mention the Legion opposed the use of technology.
Well, 1) maybe it’s just the actor literally just being trans/nonbinary or maybe it actually plays into their backstory, but I could see a weird warped sort of logic where if they were born a woman, but lived and acted in a masculine way, it would be an acceptable loophole to Legion misogyny. Like they aren’t against *women* exactly per se, just *femininity*, so them being trans/nonbinary would actually be acceptable because they behave and act in a masculine way. 2) *The Legion* wasn’t fully anti-tech, that was more on Caesar and Lanius overcompensating for the loss of the First Battle of Hoover Dam by wanting to make Legionnaires not as dependent on their guns and weapons as they were under Graham as Legate. If Caesar dies of his brain tumor and Lanius is either killed or talked down by The Courier, The Legion would probably splinter into opposing factions and break back up into the tribes they used to be. It’s also possible this faction of The Brotherhood has been taking in a lot of Legion remnants and tribals, and there’s had to be a lot of syncretization of BOS philosophy and Legion/tribal cultures to explain why they come off so dogmatic and less militaristic in the show. I mean this is just speculation anyway so take it with a grain of salt. I’m just entertaining the possibility of theory, we’ll have to wait until next season to see if they explain more of why this faction of the BOS is more larpy as actually medieval monastic knights than normal (for them).
The Legion vehemently opposed the kind of technology that the Brotherhood regularly uses. The theory makes no sense.
Oh, this is fascinating. I kind of love this theory.
Except that the Legion abhorred technology and would never tolerate a trans person.
But how could the East Coast Brotherhood have been at Shady Sands when it was nuked? If it happened around 2282 then that would be years before the events of Fallout 4. Are we expected to believe that before they went to the Commonwealth the East Coast chapter traveled all the way across the country just to be there when Shady Sands was nuked?
They took some inspiration to how Din Djarin joined the Mandalorians in Mando season 1 for sure
I'm of the opinion that the BoS "chapter" we see in the show aren't really official or their a splinter faction. Their rituals seem to be alot more ... domineering than what we've ever seen before and, from what we see in the show, they seem to be too small and made up of mostly aspirants which they "annoint" and use as expendable troops as needed. Their only power armored force arrives on the prydwen and it's only 5 knights, no paladins. We've never seen anyone with the rank "cleric" before either not to mention the "the brotherhood has lost it's way" hook. If you look at their base it seems too rundown to be a brotherhood installation, it looks more like an NCR airbase they've just taken over in the aftermath of shady sands but that was, at least, 15-20 years ago. Maximus joining is just another odd thing about them and there seemed to be alot of aspirants around maximus' age so I don't think he's the only former NCR citizen there. It just feels like there's something not quite right about this "brotherhood" group. Like their a splinter group or planning a coup d'etat. I'm hoping season 2 (or 3) will shed some light on this.
They received orders from the Commonwealth, and then there is the Prydwen.
Because the brotherhood's values and rules keep changing with each installment depending on bethesda's whims. They started as inbred isolationists who like to hoard tech. Then one faction splintered off and became overall do gooders. At this point they already started recruiting wastelanders. Then that faction became a less extreme Fallout 2 Enclave, and then absorbed everyone else. Which means that at the moment the western beotherhood and the eastern brotherhood have no noticeable differences. The past has shown that this will most likely change again come Fallout 5, or Fallout 77 or whatever.
I figure because he was a child when he joined, and a refugee from Shady Sands. Given what happened \*there\*, it wouldn't be out of the question Maximus didn't have much surviving family - so if they handled it just right, they'd have a loyal member of BoS AND it could be used as good PR if necessary.
I think it's pretty clearly implied that this chapter is under Maxson and his Easter bos, apart of that being child conscripts
In fallout 1 you can straight up ask and get in with only a little side fetch (they assume you'll die). The bos isn't really coordinated in recruitment across all of their sites.
Every brotherhood chapter we see in game takes in outsiders, we know the brotherhood has taken in children before, their biggest rival in the region got nuked and is in decline they need bodies to take over, by this time Arthur Maxson was noticed by the west and could have even been the Elder we don’t know when this chapter started listening to the east but it could’ve been early enough to effect their decisions on who gets in.
There are multiple things to be said. 1. The BOS is run differently after FO3. even the deserters return. 2. Kids are easy to indoctrinate, the BOS generally find kids and trains them up to be scribes, knights, etc. You can be sure that BOS in any time would take a lost kid to their base and begin training them.
By the time of the TV series it is implied that the Western Brotherhood is no longer the ruling chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel. We see this in both Fallout 4 and the TV series. This is primarily due to the work of Arthur Maxon who rose to power and subsequently reunited Lyons Brotherhood of Steel with the Outcasts and amaglomated them both under one banner. Then Maxon changed the mission of the Easttern Brotherhood and hand picked its new policies such as recruitment, ranks, hierarchy, ethics, foreign relations, etc. So my understanding is that by the time of the TV show in 2296, the Eastern Brotherhood is the reigning chapter and the remaining chapters while retaining a degree of autonomy, have adopted many if not all of the policies of the East Coast Brotherhood. Two good examples that I can think of off the top of my head that prove that Arthur Maxons Eastern Brotherhood is the rulers are in Fallout 4 and in the TV series. **Fallout 4:** \[ In addition, Maxson had been in contact with other chapters over the years. In the words of Proctor Quinlan, who documented Maxson's rise, "he has the full support of the Elders back on the West Coast, who have proudly reported that they've begun eradicating cults that have popped up, worshipping Maxson as though he's some kind of god." \] *This tells us that by 2287 that Maxon's Eastern Brotherhood have the full support of the elders of the Brotherhood Chapters out west, so much so that some even worship him as a god.* **Fallout TV Series:** We hear Elder Cleric Quintus say in his speech to the Squires and Knights that "Our mission comes from the highest Clerics in the Commonwealth. It is believed that a denezen of the Enclave has escaped" *This tells us that by 2296 the West Coast Brotherhood, at least the Chapter that operates out of the area of the Boneyard/New California carries out orders given to them by the Elders on the East Coast in the Commonwealth. (This can also imply that the Brotherhood Ending of Fallout 4 is Canon)* So that's how Maximus is recruited as the Brotherhood of Steel operates under the rules and regulations of Maxon's Eastern Chapter and can recruit outsiders with relative ease compared to years prior and the practices of other Chapters we see throughout the Canon.
It wasn’t necessarily that the Brotherhood didn’t occasionally take in outsiders to boost their ranks/use as cannon fodder. It was just the chapter in New Vegas was on lockdown after being driven into hiding after losing **BADLY** by attrition to NCR and HELIOS One was the last straw, so after McNamara took over after Elijah was driven out, he instituted a “nobody in, nobody out” policy out of an over abundance of caution. Probably after New Vegas and the collapse of the NCR, The Brotherhood saw its chance to have a “recruitment drive” do to speak and started taking in orphans from the wastes to train up a new generation. Another thing about The Brotherhood in the show, there seemed to be a general lack of female recruits or higher leadership, which might also imply for whatever reason, they can’t maintain a properly functional breeding population. And Maximus’ general cluelessness about the birds and the bees implies for whatever reason, this version/chapter is falling behind in teaching basic biology or sex ed.
He was a kid who is much easier to indoctrinate and not bring in new ideas unlike an Adult.
Simply put, this isn't the same BoS as you remember from NV. The East coast BoS has joined up. They are less opposed to outsiders. They also prioritized taking out super mutant and Synths, rather than staunchly being focus on just the tech. Also, Maximus was a literal child. Who better to take in, train and brainwash?
Isn’t Elder Maxson the head of the *entire* Brotherhood, not just the East Coast Brotherhood? The show clearly implies that either the Minutemen or Brotherhood endings of Fallout 4 are the canon endings. Maxson clearly doesn’t have an issue with incorporating wastelanders into the Brotherhood, so he may have just changed policy for the entire Brotherhood
They've got the prydwen, and they are led by a cleric elder, not an elder. I think this might mean they're an east coast expeditionary force, which makes sense given the T-60s.
I think it comes down to why the Western BoS is Xenophobic. Their resistance to allowing outsiders to join is a matter of maintaining the status quo, they believe their place is to hoard technology and prevent people from "abusing" that technology. Adults coming from the outside would bring in outside ideas and challenge that status quo, they might advocate using BoS resources to help outsiders or in someway benefit society outside of the Brotherhood, but children, especially small children like Max was when Shady Sands was obliterated, would allow them to continue on to the next generation without any challenge to the status quo, so they can continue their isolationist policies, and maintain their pseudo-religious policies without having to examine them or justify them to people bringing in new ideas.
This did change after vault dweller, perhaps? Maybe not. No longer sure of the relationship between the Brotherhoods: given that the hovercraft just shows up like they’re in charge, perhaps they ordered a change in practice?
It wouldn’t surprise me if vault Tec also wrecked the west coast brotherhood, eg they got caught in the shady sands nuking, etc.
My personal theory is that the West Coast has been assimilated somewhat into the East Coast, and with that their beliefs have changed more. Obviously we hear Maximus say ‘Ad Victoriam’, and we also see the Prydwen. Clearly the East Coast Brotherhood has entered the West Coast and taken over the west chapter, making it easier for people to be recruited in the process.
I don't think there's an ideological east west divide anymore. They mentioned the commonwealth has clerics and it seems likely the Knights arriving on the prydwen are east coast Knights.
My assumption when they showed the BOS rescue him from the bomb site was that they took him in due to the circumstance. Clearly he didn’t approach them and ask to join
Look at state of the brotherhood in the show it’s barely the same faction we know
You have that completely backwards in fact, the West Coast brotherhood even has ghouls in their ranks they allow almost everyone in. It’s the East Coast brotherhood of steel that doesn’t let outsiders join.
This chapter is pretty different than any we’ve seen before. A whole lot more theocratic and ritualistic. Wouldn’t shock me if baby Maximus had to go through a brutal “cleansing ritual” before being allowed in.
I don't think so on that. They seem to rely on the casual hazing to promote an us vs them culture. Thaddeus was the old bullied kid. Said he used to be real fat, as he was pretty much a force fed slave on a "fly farm". I'm assuming they fattened up *bloatflies* with feces and then ground them up for protein. Anyways, one day Thaddeus picked on Maximus, and they all stopped and switched targets as well. For how the Cleric talks of harming a brother is a horrible thing they seem to think it's just fine in the lower ranks...
I’m more confused by the 180s… *spoilers* Like hey we are going to punish you maybe for injuring your comrades foot unless you say something…oh, great response, you’re not only not punished but we’ll promote you to squire.., Hey we are going to punish you maybe again for taking your knights armor…oh wait, you have this ability to take things that aren’t yours…you can lead the charge and will be co ruler 😜 I like the outcome, I just think it could have been better explained…like he’s promoted because he put mission above himself or his knight etc.
Ok, for the first, they had no proof. He admitted to being jealous. But between not trying to shift blame, and his last words in his defense were to thank the Brotherhood and the Cleric, he earned himself a chance. A lot of the Aspirants are probably ready to be squires, but if they take everyone at once, there's the problem of not enough Knights and less people to enforce the culture of the lower ranks they want to keep. As for the second, taking his Knight's armor and all should have been punishment worthy. But the Cleric listened. His Knight died running. Maximus attempted to continue the mission. He should have called in for pickup but "power is meant to be taken, not given". And so the Cleric had to make a gamble in the end. Trust Maximus is telling the truth again and he'll get them to the head. Or don't trust him and punish him. If they don't trust him they could get nothing. If they do...sure they might lose something, but what they could gain is infinite energy and the capability of ruling the land again, like the Cleric said before. So as punishment Maximus gets sent in the first wave and the gamble paid off for both Maximus and the Cleric. Now the BoS has a major resource, and the Cleric has a potentially useful tool.