Enclave vs. Brotherhood

[Dapper Dan Man]

You assume that the Brotherhood has been doing nothing for the past 80 years. We can't assume that the have beend oing nothing, as they very wel could have been making contact with various other military remnants, searching out other caches and depots. The Enclave had the capability of the oil rig and what amounts to the Secret Service, as well as the ancestors of a marine detail? Power armor is great, but its effectiveness compared to normal power armor and combat armor was not as vastly overpowering as the Enclave would try to make it? Ignoring the FEV, the Brotherhood might very well have a good chance, should it break its isolationa nd dole out technology to trusted wastelanders. I call to mind that NCR seemed pretty damn powerful, what with gauss rifles, functional combat armor, and a pretty dedicated citizenry could hold out quite a bit against the Enclave. Recall that its territory basically encompasses much of the old Fallout 1 area, and theoretically could have access to the Vault in Necropolis, the Sierra Army Depot, the Mutant Base and various other locales. How would the Enclave replace its own troops, if they are unwilling to work with "mutants"? They quite literally would have to make do with the Navarro base detachment and the defenders on the oil rig. Do they have the fortitude to conquer AND hold an area encompassing all over California to wipe out the BOS? Hardly. The BOS in turn could appeal to some sort of messianic belief, rearming the wastelanders with some well needed equipment. If they have enough ammo to blow it on miniguns, surely they have other caches elsewhere of weaponry? I mean, mini energy cells and micro fusion cells were pretty plentiful, to be available on the markets for the Chosen One to purchase. That means that the defenders of the city probably had stocked up on such advanced tech, and didn't need the remnants.

 

[Lazarus Plus]

If you ask Matt who his sources are about Navarro he says

"I had an operative go and scout the base. Her reports recently stopped; I can only assume the worst. Please be careful"

So the Enclave has either captured or killed one Brotherhood operative and since they're not exactly inconspicous in their shiny new bunkers with nice banners outside it's likely the Enclave know all about them already.

The key term is "operative". THey wouldn't send in someone who knew ANYTHING about how the BoS distributed it's troops, weapons, supplies or technology, nor someone who knew where all or most of the BoS bases are. The Enclave, even if made aware of the BoS, wouldn't have sufficent knowledge to immediately consider them a threat, and even if they attacked they would have insufficent intelligence to do so right away. Both of these things give the BoS time to prepare.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

You assume that the Brotherhood has been doing nothing for the past 80 years.

Why not, they hadn't been doing a lot when we previously encountered them.

Ignoring the FEV, the Brotherhood might very well have a good chance, should it break its isolationa nd dole out technology to trusted wastelanders.

But you can't ignore the FEV since they had it and planned to use it, that would be like saying ignore the Brotherhood's power armour.

How would the Enclave replace its own troops, if they are unwilling to work with "mutants"? They quite literally would have to make do with the Navarro base detachment and the defenders on the oil rig.

Presumably the same way vault city repopulates, by auto insemination and pregnancy cycles, we don't see any children or juveniles in Vault City so they might have speeded up the maturation period. Probably why so many of the troops on the oil rig and Navarro are women. Also we don't see all of the Oil rig, nor does Navarro have to be their only base, it might be the only one up and running but they could be in the process of constructing others. They certainly never seem to run out of patrols, far more than could be catered for at Navarro.

The key term is "operative". THey wouldn't send in someone who knew ANYTHING about how the BoS distributed it's troops, weapons, supplies or technology, nor someone who knew where all or most of the BoS bases are.

All the operative needed to know is who sent her. Even if she was killed before she could talk all the Enclave needed to do is send their own operatives to the nearest communities and they would see the Brotherhood outposts. The locals might of got used to them enough to ignore them but to any stranger they'd stick out like a sore thumb. The Chosen One didn't have any trouble locating them. The Enclave would then just need to monitor the Brotherhood's transmissions and maybe make a covert entry and hack their computer.

The Enclave, even if made aware of the BoS, wouldn't have sufficent knowledge to immediately consider them a threat, and even if they attacked they would have insufficent intelligence to do so right away. Both of these things give the BoS time to prepare.

They wouldn't consider them a threat because they weren't. The Brotherhood had no way of knowing where the oil rig was or what was happening there, regarding the FEV plot. So they would of had no plans to interfere. Once the virus had been released they would of then taken out any surviving groups and the brotherhood would be pretty hampered by the virus, they wouldn't be able to leave their bunker without power armour and it's doubtful they had enough suits for all their recruits. All their outposts would probably be wiped out as the staff tended to stand around outside wearing tesla armour and unless someone stationed at one of the outposts happened to be inside (assuming they were airtight) when the virus hit their town most of them would perish without having a chance to warn the Bunker or anyone else.

 

[Lazarus Plus]

Damn, requiem, you are either a cunning linguist or a master debater.

I can't seem to beat you.