New developer diary at Bethesda

[The Dutch Ghost]

I think they did design the Super Sledge.

Ausir, I am a little stuck here, is it possible that they made it based on Pre War designs such as the things Poseidon Energy was working on?

I don't rule out that they designed and made it themselves, but I really can't envision a Brotherhood run factory.

 

[Ausir]

Unlike firearms, the super sledge doesn't seem to be that complicated, so it might have been possible for the Brotherhood to manufacture.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Just what I thought.

In general I see the Brotherhood as very experienced salvagers, they understand technology and they know how to fix and even improve on it.
They do perhaps have ideas for new technology of their own but lack the resources and the manufacturing equipment to mass manufacture.

 

[xdarkyrex]

I just read these last few pages, and repeatedly I see assumptions like "FEV was only on the west coast" and "The brotherhood is not altruistic"

These things are true to the best of our knowledge, but that seems a dramatic oversimplification of both points.

We do not know the whole story of the FEV with encyclopedic detail, we only know what your character was able to glean from specific historical logs in the game. The presence of more FEV or another similar substance, or even a back up of it, is very reasonable. I have never heard of a government research facility that does not use research mirrors incase something happens to their original facility or data, be it theft or a fire on the building or what-not. Often times research mirrors are used as a control in expirements, and a backup in case of crisis. Likely, the pentagon had a tremendous amount of stored data in servers beneath the ground (although how well that would have survived the war is iffy).

Also, regardlesss of whether the brotherhood is altruistic or not, which they clearly aren't though, when one if forced to be out amongst people and interact with them, a certain sense of connection is reached, and its both reasonable and even expected of the brotherhood to develop a link to a community they have been living very close to. Infact, their compassion has even cost them their west coast links and many of their more devout brothers, which even makes it MORE reasonable, as it paints the picture that they are clearly deviating from their norms. Thgey have been on the east coast for a long time, years, the daughter is fully grown, this isnt like six months of working around the locals, this is probably likely to be nearly 15 years worth of their mission on the east coast. It's also fair to assume that the midwest would be the least radioactive place in the country (there are not too many strategic strike points), so there should be a lot more survivors and supplies that they find upon the way, making the trip far from unreasonable. As for the reason they went, on a hunch or a mystery? Dunno what they say, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me for an order that is obsessed with technology in a world with very little of it. They certainly would not likely know that Washington DC has been levelled beyond all recognition, and if they stumbled across some old maps, or had scouts folloing the mutants to see where they are going, it's likely that would come across reason to go. Or who knows, maybe its bad intel (lol Iraq). Won't know til we get more info.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Look, there might have been samples of FEV spread throughout the various research laboratories of West Tek before the War, but all production took place at Mariposa, its stated in the game.

And now, lets for a minute think outside the box.
Why should Super Mutants be the main enemy again (because they are pretty much presented like that), they were the enemy of Fallout 1, we explored their story and in the end we defeated their leader and destroyed the source of FEV2, ending the Super Mutant threat.

In short, that part of their story is told.
Fallout Tactics and the pretty terrible Fallout Brotherhood of Steel dealt with what organised remnants of their forces there were, is there really any need to bring the Super Mutants back again as an organised army threat other than the small groups you could occasionally run into?

I for one rather liked that we explored how Super Mutants were trying to find their own place within the wasteland rather than making them again some conquering army out to take over the world.

There are plenty of other factions that could fill that place like the Enclave did and Dr Presper and his NCR army followers would have in the cancelled Van Buren.

Fallout 3 presented Bethesda the opportunity to create whole new groups and factions for the player to encounter and instead they played it save and brought back the old ones because their writers apparently didn't have a clue.
Plus Brotherhood and Super Mutants equals Fallout or so the producers think.

 

[xdarkyrex]

Tactics and BOS are non-canon
although tactics only used them as a type of enemy, they weren't the main plot device.

And how do you know that they are the main and organised enemy in the game?
You don't.
All you know is that they are in it. And they are fighting the brotherhood of steel, which is not your main character in the game. They may simply be a backdrop for your own personal quest. (not to say they AREN'T the main enemy, but that has yet to be show). And consider that we are not talking about the super mutant remnants that live in Cali, we are talking about Masters Army loyalists here. They are likely to be hostile as hell. What would be most fascinating, actually, is if your main characters father had in fact been able to fix the sterility of the super mutants, and they are now trying to breed and survive. THAT would be a story worth telling, and completely remove the need for more FEV. And indeed, I get the feeling that is what the story may be about. How that relates to what the brotherhood of steel think they may have found is yet to be told, but I personally think that the story sounds just fine so far. Perhaps they arent even related, maybe the hostilities between the two groups is just so intense that the war has lost all meaning, and the super mutants fight because they hate the brotherhood, while the brotherhood just wants into the pentagon which happens to be the center of the super mutant base, and there is no diplomatic action taking place (as would be appropriate).

Once again, the qualms with this story seemingly come down to pedantic nitpicking, which you canfind in just about any sequel (including fallout 2).

 

[Mord_Sith]

Umm, the final boss is the Behemoth mutie, I think we can take it for granted that the muties are going to be Beth's big evil for conquest this time around.

 

[xdarkyrex]

He's the final boss?

I thought he was a boss at the end of the beginning stage when you first meet the brotherhood?

 

[Madbringer]

He probably has clones. Soviet clones. Hey, actually, maybe the F3 supermutants are soviet supermutants. And BoS takes a stand against them out of their patriotic calling!

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Tactics and BOS are non-canon
although tactics only used them as a type of enemy, they weren't the main plot device.

No matter what the justifications, the more that is revealed about this game, it appears that Bethesda is working more from FOT's design documents than the RPGs.

Splinter group of the Brotherhood, check.

Different part of the country, check.

The new Brotherhood order has different goals, check.

Recruits taken from local populace to bolster ranks, check.

Uses different Power Armour, check.

Fights Super Mutants, check.

Super Mutants have more in common with fantasy creatures than those previously seen, check.

Town with unexploded nuke worshipping inhabitants, check.

Fight a Behemoth, check.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

You know what, I have had it.

You're exactly the type of unquestioning all absorbing fan Bethesda looks for.
Little demands, little expectation, and ready to fill in every plothole Bethesda digs along the way.

Yes, Tactics and FPOS are non canon, but this crap about Super Mutant sterility being solved so that Mutants can breed like rabbits, that was exactly what some of the plot points of Tactics and FPOS revolved around.

Hell, the it was the storyline of FPOS; Super Mutants after a cure for FEV caused sterility.

Bethesda isn't just ripping off Fallout 1, but also FPOS, a game they declared non canon and yet has all the same plot points of their steaming turd; heroic Brotherhood of Steel, defenders of the wasteland, and an evil Super Mutant army ready to continue the Master's plan for humanity.

 

[xdarkyrex]

Ad hominem much?
What gives you the gall to call me unquestioning? I am positing answers to questions and complaints clearly expressed out of largely irrelevant facts or absurd over-analyzing. The game is similar to BOS in some of the plot points? That doesn't MEAN anything. Correlation of concept is not something that you can hold against a narrative in a realistic and serious sense if your better faculties working properly. Considering that the sterile nature of super mutants and their violent search for a cure has been, and continues to be, a major driving force behind the plots and settings of all the Fallout games is hardly a reason to hate it.
Believe me, I have my own questions as well, but unlike the large majority of the posters in this and many other threads, I am finding answers to my questions, due largely in part to the fact that I am not seeking answers that justify my stance, but rather seeking answers that determine my stance.

Neither you nor I know how this game will end up before it is revealed, and until then all we can do is speculate, which I am doing. Unless you can provide evidence that my ideas are contrary to the truth (as many posters have done, in which case I thoroughly enjoyed mulling htem over and presenting either more questions, more answers, or a humble concession to defeat), I suggest you keep your insults to yourself.

 

[Brother None]

Cool it, you two.

Often times research mirrors are used as a control in expirements, and a backup in case of crisis. Likely, the pentagon had a tremendous amount of stored data in servers beneath the ground (although how well that would have survived the war is iffy).

Data? Yes, but what would you say the chances are of samples of FEV being held, get this, in the middle of Washington D.C.? Slim? You're right, the chances of a potentially dangerous virus being stored in the middle of a major city is not very large.

Could FEV be recreated with sufficient data? Sure.

I never had a problem with mutants in the east coast, myself. They're obviously not the mutants who travelled east, Bethesda has clearly hinted that's not the case. So new mutants, from new FEV. Whatever, no problem there, it makes sense within Fallout's framework, even if the look of the muties and their shiny supersledges do not.

Also, regardlesss of whether the brotherhood is altruistic or not, which they clearly aren't though, when one if forced to be out amongst people and interact with them, a certain sense of connection is reached, and its both reasonable and even expected of the brotherhood to develop a link to a community they have been living very close to.

Oh really? They lived near the Hub since WW3. That's 84 years living and trading near large communities...

And was the BoS planning to help said communities with their supermutant troubles at any point? Did they lift a finger to help L.A. Boneyard in crisis? Did they care about Killian's problems in Junktown?

Well?

That's after up to 84 years of active trading and communicating with these people, and all they did was sit tight, fend off raider attacks and sell guns. They didn't care about anyone other than themselves while living closely to a community for decades.

And now you're saying it's inevitable that this'd be difference for a few BoS soldiers who hole up in the Pentagon with some stragglers in the rest of the town within a few years?

Please, try to make sense next time.

I am positing answers to questions and complaints clearly expressed out of largely irrelevant facts or absurd over-analyzing.

Absurd?

Bethesda is pulling the BoS away from their normal location and behavioural modes because they really want them in their game, and they created their own organisation with its own goals that is not like the original BoS. That's exactly what Tactics did. There's nothing absurd about it, they're doing exactly what Micro Forte did all over again, but they're even worse since MF's BoS at least weren't a bunch of holier-than-thou-art assholes.

Well, for me, "knightly order" conjures up a picture of the hypocritical Teutonic Knights scheming for power and trying to conquer Lithuania. Knightly orders don't generally have the best press in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Well, this may shock you, Ausir, but most people aren't Polish-Lithuanian, and most people don't have an accurate historical picture of knightly or monastic orders. Hell, most people don't even know who the Teutonic Knights were, or the long heritage of German overlords they gave to the Baltic states.

So clearly, calling the BoS a monastic order is more accurate than calling them a knightly order, especially if comparing them to the Knights Templar.

 

[Sorrow]

Oh really? They lived near the Hub since WW3. That's 84 years living and trading near large communities...

And was the BoS planning to help said communities with their supermutant troubles at any point? Did they lift a finger to help L.A. Boneyard in crisis? Did they care about Killian's problems in Junktown?

Well?

That's after up to 84 years of active trading and communicating with these people, and all they did was sit tight, fend off raider attacks and sell guns. They didn't care about anyone other than themselves while living closely to a community for decades.

And now you're saying it's inevitable that this'd be difference for a few BoS soldiers who hole up in the Pentagon with some stragglers in the rest of the town within a few years?

Oh, now I see what you mean.

It's even worse than FoT.

 

[Ausir]

Oh really? They lived near the Hub since WW3. That's 84 years living and trading near large communities...

And was the BoS planning to help said communities with their supermutant troubles at any point? Did they lift a finger to help L.A. Boneyard in crisis? Did they care about Killian's problems in Junktown?

By FO2, there is also the town of Maxson, which is a member of the NCR and is likely built around Lost Hills (probably originated as a bunch of trading outposts).

Well, this may shock you, Ausir, but most people aren't Polish-Lithuanian, and most people don't have an accurate historical picture of knightly or monastic orders. Hell, most people don't even know who the Teutonic Knights were, or the long heritage of German overlords they gave to the Baltic states.

BTW, not "were". Unlike the Knights Templar, the Teutonic Knights still exist (now as a purely monastic order).

 

[xdarkyrex]

Data? Yes, but what would you say the chances are of samples of FEV being held, get this, in the middle of Washington D.C.? Slim? You're right, the chances of a potentially dangerous virus being stored in the middle of a major city is not very large.

Could FEV be recreated with sufficient data? Sure.

When someone keeps a virus for research, they don't keep giant barrels of it. Likely it is in such a way that it would be frozen in vials, nothing that could do more than isolated harm if it was broken open. There are research facilities of dangerous things in DC, it is a very large city with a lot of commerce and some decent universities, and an approximate equal sector of various research facilities as any other major cities in the US. Not to say that it is there, but it is no stretch to say it is there.

I never had a problem with mutants in the east coast, myself. They're obviously not the mutants who travelled east, Bethesda has clearly hinted that's not the case. So new mutants, from new FEV. Whatever, no problem there, it makes sense within Fallout's framework, even if the look of the muties and their shiny supersledges do not.

That is actually new to me, I will have to mull it over, but that does pose a problem with me, I would prefer that this was the Masters Army given the current situation. New muties coming from a new identical incident is pretty ridiculous, given the complete luck involved in making the original super mutants. They're gonna have to pose a damn good explanation to make that one believable. Once I did suggest though that maybe the Master himself had lieutenants with the knowledge of how the vats worked, and/or transmitted knowledge to a remote super mutant base, or even perhaps sent his own scouts to a base with FEV in it that he found on/in some map or computer in the army base.

Oh really? They lived near the Hub since WW3. That's 84 years living and trading near large communities...

And was the BoS planning to help said communities with their supermutant troubles at any point? Did they lift a finger to help L.A. Boneyard in crisis? Did they care about Killian's problems in Junktown?

Well?

That's after up to 84 years of active trading and communicating with these people, and all they did was sit tight, fend off raider attacks and sell guns. They didn't care about anyone other than themselves while living closely to a community for decades.

And now you're saying it's inevitable that this'd be difference for a few BoS soldiers who hole up in the Pentagon with some stragglers in the rest of the town within a few years?

Please, try to make sense next time.

This is different, instead of being turtled up inside of a bunker where they can create a physically enabled caste system of BoS and non-BoS, they are forced to live among them. Perhaps even to recruit them if their numbers are dwindling and they need to bolster their ranks (you know, as cannon fodder). I find it even reasonable to assume that some of the BoS paladins have even developed romantic connections amongst the common folk that they have begun essentially living with. It is harder to ignore the plight of people when you don't have a safe spot to retreat to for 15 years that lets you resolidify your convictions to the upper caste of the privileged. Not to say that this is unanimously true for them all, or inevitable for any of them, but it certainly seems reasonable, even for a callous BoS paladin. It takes no stretch of the imagination to imagine that his human empathy has gotten the better of his convictions over time, given the situation.

 

[Brother None]

This is different, instead of being turtled up inside of a bunker where they can create a physically enabled caste system of BoS and non-BoS, they are forced to live among them.

Wrong. They're dug into the Pentagon's sub-levels, they could easily recreate the same situation there, since they were apparently intact.

They didn't mingle or recruit until the Elder had his sudden change of heart. It's not even clear why they were fighting the supermutants to begin with.

I quote:
Lyons accepted his new post gladly, and founded the Citadel, built into and beneath the ruins of the Pentagon. It was a fortress the Brotherhood of Steel desperately needed, and one they rushed to fortify, thanks to their other great discovery – Super Mutants.

So...wrong? Identical situation, but sudden change of heart = Inconsistency

 

[Mord_Sith]

Has anyone given thought to the fact that maybe, when separated, they're faking it to make it through the rough and get back home with whatever spoils they have?

It is an attempt to fill the plothole I know, but at the same time, a BoS pally is not oath-bound to the truth, and if he forms a symbiotic relationship with a town or two until the BoS are more stabilized or ready to move out again.

But that would be depth and subterfuge, Beth's stories have the subtlety of a sack of wet gophers over the head if the past is anything to go on.

 

[Brother None]

Sure, we can hope for any number of plot-twists. Including a reveal that Lyons was actually sent cross-coast to get rid of him because he has the wrong ideas, and the "Outcasts" are actually a sub-team of people sent out to actually do the job, while Lyons can stay and die for all they care.

But again, one would've expected such subterfuge and subtleties in Oblivion's plot, too, after hearing the early summaries. But the early summaries were pretty much it. No complexities, no hidden shades

 

[xdarkyrex]

I remain optimistic til release day, its in my nature, but I must have forgot reading about the citadel, and the idea of NEW muties that have no connection to the old ones really bothers me. There better be some relation, because that is just not doable.

In any case, hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. I imagine that someone making a game would do well to consult a forum like NMA for plot concepts and proof reading, since the best and worst of us can be pretty pedantic about consistency (me included, I'm just an optimist).


As for Oblivions plot...

God damn that game felt like it had so much potential when I was playing it, and at first it was pretty sweet... but what a flop. Morrowinds plot was infinitely better, even if some of the actual storytelling in Morrowind was shit.