Is Elder Lyons a sneering Imperialist?

[mithrap]

My interpretation of Arthur Maxson is that he's a puppet who skipped his leash. He was a guy who the Elders of Lost Hills (having apparently made peace with the New Republic--possibly by not being IDIOTS and surrendering) put into power once they got their radios working. However, he's an obnoxious blowhard for much of his career, which can be explained by the fact he was a teenager when he came to power.

Danse is mentioned to be responsible for burying a lot of Arthur's bodies and I wouldn't be surprised if Arthur's legend is as much Danse's doing as anyone else's.

That would make sense. I also liked the idea of Danse being some sort of henchman, which also justifies why Maxson is so eager to get rid of him at the first opportunity. I could buy that he did something similar with the Lyons girl, who may have threatened the succession line, but I really don't see how the lone wanderer could be a problem for him. The guy is a free asset who actually left the ranks, not a threat.

While we're on it, I still don't understand how on earth the Californian brotherhood was suddenly able to contact the eastern's. If they had the capacity to do that, they'd have the capacity to contact the midwest's brotherhood, for obvious reasons. And if they did have this possibility, well... many things would be very different. For them, for the NCR, for the east, for everyone. The midwest makes pretty clear that they have zero contact with their former leaders. Caesar himself also points that out, when he says that the midwest scribes don't even remember who Maxson is.

If they had contact, they could have intervened before/during the civil war with the outcasts. Which they didn't, according to the outcasts themselves. Radio silence.

And if they had the capacity of contacting other chapters, why didn't they order to come back immediately, and help them in the war they are loosing against the NCR? Surely, the survival of the brotherhood is more important than the protection of a foreign DJ in a mostly abandonned wasteland.

If they had the capacity, how come the NCR itself, which shared the BoS' technology for years, had zero idea about what was at the next state east, and had to send scouts to find out? Especially after taking over most of the brotherhood's facilities?

The sudden capacity of contact messes many things up, in my mind. And using radio would force them to rebuild radio towers every 300km or so from the east to the west, in the middle of Legion's territory, the midwest brotherhood's territory, tribal territory etc. Unlikely. Bethesda should have taken the road of a Maxon backed by the midwest brotherhood, not the Californian. It would have been way more interesting, and it would have been an opportunity for Todd Howard to lie about a reunion that would never happen, but that would give his fans wet, rusty dreams.

 

[CT Phipps]

For all the shit Bethesda get for world-building, both they and Obsidian both addressed the contact issue. The Lyons Brotherhood had contact with the Lost Hills Brotherhood for most of their activities in Washington D.C. Remember, the Outcasts actually complained to the Lost Hills Brotherhood about Lyons activities before they defected.

The Lost Hills Elders gave the response, "Well, we're not going to send Elder Lyons any more support but he's still the Elder and you have to do what he says." Which actually means the BOS had the means of sending support and reinforcements to the Lyons Brotherhood. Fallout 3's terminals also state they lost contact with them, though.

Obsidian elaborated on this with New Vegas, talking about the war between NCR and the Brotherhood. Which, nicely I think, explains why the Lost Hills Brotherhood stopped talking with the Lyons Brotherhood. We also get a statement from the Mojave BOS that their SOP right now is they and the other BOS chapters were supposed to go to ground and do radio silence. Which is why they don't know if the Lost Hills Chapters even exist anymore.

In Fallout 4, we get it confirmed the Lost Hills Chapters were NOT destroyed but are still active and once more in contat with the Lyons (Now Maxson) Brotherhood.

I think they did it this way so the BOS wasn't constantly up in each others' business.

Sarah Lyons

It's possible the Loyalists and Fundamentalists in the BOS assassinated her because Sarah was able to take down Superhuman Behemoths and had her own Elite Squadron watching her back. Real life is rarely so kind but I'm inclined to think the timing was suspicious. I don't think Arthur was involved because he strikes me as more Robb Stark (overly hot blooded Boy King) than Boy Tywin.

Also, he loved Sarah from what it seemed as she was his Obi-Wan.

Mid-West BOS

They send Elder Lyons to make contact with them and they had none so there's obviously something going on. I'm inclined to think the MW BoS are probably still around since they were a lot more liberal than the other factions of the BOS so them going extinct is unlikely. Still, I'm inclined to think SOMETHING has happened which has really hit them hard and caused them to go underground or retreat from their original Empire-Building plans.

Maybe a civil war or conflict with Calculator.

Whatever the case, they clearly either missed Lyons group (it's possible--it's a big country) or didn't want to talk with him.

 

[mithrap]

Hm, I might have missed the dialogs where they explain that in Fallout 3. My bad.
I remember the outcasts saying that Lyons would be executed as soon as they'd regain radio contact with California, but that's pretty much it.

It still poses the logistical issue though. How could the brotherhood rebuild the infrastructure for radio contact from the west to the east? That would be quite an amazing project (if seized by any external force on the way, that would give them quite an advantage over the entire continent. Yet, the NCR doesn't know what's east of its borders.) that would require repairing dozens of radio towers in the middle of hostile territories, including the midwest chapter's and Caesar's Legion. Which, by all means, seems impossible, especially by the hands of a single chapter on the move. The contact with the midwest would have been made before the events of Fallout 3 if that was the case, and that would have changed... well, everything about the brotherhood. And we know it didn't happen, since the midwest scribes captured by Caesar in the Colorado don't even know the name of the original brotherhood's leader.
Don't get me wrong, your explanation makes sense, and I'm okay with it. I just try to make sense about how they could actually have any form of contact in the first place, without causing a huge mess with the forces between them.

In my mind, two things would repair this problem:
A - Maxson and Lyons lied about being backed by the Californian brotherhood. They never heard from them. Would actually be an interesting subplot, that would justify a coup against the high elder, at the risk of provoking another outcast situation.
B - Maxson is only backed by the midwest brotherhood, which sees the Institute as a legitimate threat considering the Calculator's technology. They'd use Maxson as a puppet and the commonwealth as a proxy war state to deal with the problem.

 

[CT Phipps]

I imagine instead of radio towers, they simply have access to a still functioning satelite in orbit. They'd only need to have one which would orbit around but there's plenty of space junk left up there according to canon. Even so, it's probably not a military satellite because the Enclave lost contact with the Vaults.

I'm humorously now imagining them using the Nuka Cola satellite to do their military communications.



But yes, the whole "there's no radio contact between groups" thing is kind of important. The radios play a big role in the game but only regionally.

 

[BigGuyCIA]

My interpretation of Arthur Maxson is that he's a puppet who skipped his leash. He was a guy who the Elders of Lost Hills (having apparently made peace with the New Republic--possibly by not being IDIOTS and surrendering) put into power once they got their radios working. However, he's an obnoxious blowhard for much of his career, which can be explained by the fact he was a teenager when he came to power.

Danse is mentioned to be responsible for burying a lot of Arthur's bodies and I wouldn't be surprised if Arthur's legend is as much Danse's doing as anyone else's.

Oh wow. Where is this mentioned [the bit about Danse burying bodies for Maxson]. I didn't know this detail about Maxson's uprising.