I would agree to that. Though I think Maxson is slightly less retarded about it then Barnaky was, with with not doing the internment camps, mutant registrations, labor gulags, and the killing even peaceful ghouls and super mutants(though there are basically no peaceful super mutants on the east coast outside Fawkes, Leo, and Strong).
SPOILERS: Hidden Brotherhood of Steel Ending Found
- Thread starter Radaway
- Start date
SaucyLad
Stuck in a Fridge
Eh that's not the point though. Maxson wasn't willing to compromise at all on that policy despite Danse being both a synth and an upstanding member of the BoS.
The Brotherhood of Steel believing all Synths are bad and must be eradicated isn't acceptable to me seeing there are good ones like Danse & Nick Valentine in the game. Sure they can become corrupt - there are cases of that in the game, but humans are really no different.
This view also applies to their policy on Super Mutants which are all kill on sight. Not all of them are bad either because after all we do have Marcus..
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Bethesda actually cut this for the better. Nice going, Emil.
I think the BOS should have stuck with the technophobia angle rather than make this about 'they are not born of a woman's womb' angle.
The Synths represent a technology the Brotherhood can not control or easily identify (the Gen 3 models), and as the Brotherhood is suspicious of all advanced technology and those who possess or manufacture it they feel they must either take control of this technology or destroy it to make sure that it can never be used against them.
That would have made an interesting ending if the BOS could actually take over the Institute, one of the endings being that the BOS starts to deploy BOS synthetic troops, making key members of their own organization upload their own minds in order to duplicate talents.
And it would be a great hook for a schism in the East Coast BOS; some members refusing having their mind copied as they feel it threatens their own individual uniqueness.
The Synths represent a technology the Brotherhood can not control or easily identify (the Gen 3 models), and as the Brotherhood is suspicious of all advanced technology and those who possess or manufacture it they feel they must either take control of this technology or destroy it to make sure that it can never be used against them.
That would have made an interesting ending if the BOS could actually take over the Institute, one of the endings being that the BOS starts to deploy BOS synthetic troops, making key members of their own organization upload their own minds in order to duplicate talents.
And it would be a great hook for a schism in the East Coast BOS; some members refusing having their mind copied as they feel it threatens their own individual uniqueness.
To be fair though, the super mutants of the east are nothing like the ones on the west.
West coast super mutants, while generally not friendly with humans, are perfectly willing to leave them alone so long as they aren't provoked.
East coast super mutants just don't give a fuck, and either don't want to, or simply can't, go into talks for peaceful coexistence. They are nothing but hostile outside of the like .01% that comprises all of Fawkes, Uncle Leo, and Strong.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Why are they so hostile though? The game makes it seem like their intelligence is to fault, but Fawkes proves that not only dumb mutants make up their armies.
Vault 87 super mutants are hostile because the transformation is so painful it drives them mad. Fakwes himself says he lost almost all of his intelligence and sanity after transformation, and it was only years of using the Vault's mainframe to learn things that he brought himself up to the level he is now.
Vault 87 FEV also makes super mutants increasingly more dumb as they age. While already stupid immediately after transformation, they get increasingly more so over time, unless they constantly work to avoid it like Fawkes did, making them even more unable to communicate and reason then they already were. Behemoths, the oldest of super mutants, are so stupid they basically only know how to make grunting noises.
Its also implied in the Fallout 3 game guide that either the FEV, or some natural human instinct to reproduce, drives them to kidnap people and make more of their kind.
So not only are they insane, and stupid, but they are driven almost solely by instinct.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
All this... so we can have orcs with guns.
KillerBee256
Still Mildly Glowing
Thought the game doesn't bring it up, the issue with Synths is they are so easily controlled, some one can be a spy and sleeper agent and never know it. Of course Bethesda never plays up this angle...
Theinnerfish
Storytelling skeleton
Because BoS doesn't want to stop agriculture or other aspects of the development. They only care for the weapons because they don't want humanity to wield these old world weapons again. Their original purpose is being a research and science center which also polices weapons technology.
However recent history showed that being that passive or strict proved inefficent way accomplish this goal. A nation they helped become what they fear(a nation hunger for resources and starts wars on demand of private corperations) and now it's simply too powerful for them to police.
Also the Enclave proved another fact that there are still pre-war factions other than BoS and they're more advanced in weapon technology.
So a lot of members are coming up with different ideas about how to accomplish this purpose. Elijah thinks way to go is being more agressive or even outright genocidal toward humans who reach for these technologies. Veronica believes building good relations with the very people they need to police, even teaching them the ideology of BoS. Lions thought directly saving humans from immediate dangers, bolstering their numbers and leading them to right path(righttt...) what BoS should do. Maxson Jr. believes BoS should be much more vigilant and pragmatic than Lions. According to him BoS should also look for potencial dangers and must vigilanty hunt down these dangers be it mutants or old world factions. In truth Maxson is not so different than Lions but he's being not stupid about it.
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That was like the whole point of all the synth infiltration going on in the game, and one of the main reasons the BoS goes to attack the Institute.
Spacemunkey
Vault Senior Citizen
I wouldn't have gone this route myself, but the choice would have been nice. Good on Bethesda for stopping your advancement at Sentinel, elder would of been ridiculous.
Ben Soto
Professional Salt Shaker
Bethesda ain't all bad when it comes to writing. Maxson is the first Elder since John who wasn't a total moron. Elijah was fanatical, McNamara was rather cowardly, Hardin was too trigger-happy, and Lyons was just lame. Maxson has his faults, but I kinda like him.
Maybe because he is extremely two-dimensional? Save for his hardheadedness, he has no flaws and a shitload of virtues plastered all over him.
He is a prodigy, killed a deathclaw 1 on 1 at the age of 12, everybody believes every word he says, every decision he makes is the right one yadda yadda yadda.
He is such a shallow character it's hard to not see him as a great guy when all the characters can't stop but praise him and gush over how awesome he is. Too bad pretty much all his actions in the actual game reek of complete idiocy, shortsightedness and huge ego.
And it really shows the difference in writing when you compare him to McNamara, who has a balance of both virtues and flaws, as a real human being would have.
I wanted to like Maxson for not being Lyons, but I can't, he is just too shallow a character.
Ben Soto
Professional Salt Shaker
McNamara is a complete and utter moron. Instead of evolving, he just hides in a hole in the ground, waiting for everyone else to die. It's sad.
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
That's more a problem of the Brotherhood than just McNamara.
More like The Elders, rather then the whole Brotherhood.
They already carted off several chapters worth of dissenters in Tactics. Then Lyons went native, and lots of people followed him. And even after Lyons died, and Maxson took over, making it more like it was out west coast BoS, the Maxson BoS are still far more open, inclusive, and helpful then the Western BoS is, and no one in the Maxson BoS seems to have a problem with that. And even in the Western BoS, you have people like Elijah going totally off the rails, and Veronica trying to get them to open up.
At this point, I think theres been more non-isolationist BoS members then there have been isolationist ones, and I think the only reason the BoS on the west stays the way it is is because its basically just a giant echo chamber, due to their self imposed isolation, and few people are really willing to go against the grain even if they don't think whats going on is smart.
Or as Ricardo Gonzalez put it
They already carted off several chapters worth of dissenters in Tactics. Then Lyons went native, and lots of people followed him. And even after Lyons died, and Maxson took over, making it more like it was out west coast BoS, the Maxson BoS are still far more open, inclusive, and helpful then the Western BoS is, and no one in the Maxson BoS seems to have a problem with that. And even in the Western BoS, you have people like Elijah going totally off the rails, and Veronica trying to get them to open up.
At this point, I think theres been more non-isolationist BoS members then there have been isolationist ones, and I think the only reason the BoS on the west stays the way it is is because its basically just a giant echo chamber, due to their self imposed isolation, and few people are really willing to go against the grain even if they don't think whats going on is smart.
Or as Ricardo Gonzalez put it
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Put yourself in his place, your chapter was almost wiped out by an enemy that pretty much surrounds you now and the only reason you and your people are still alive is the fact that said enemy doesn't know where you are. Given the circumstances, his isolationism is perfectly reasonable. The only thing I would change in his place would be the degree in which the chapter would isolate itself. More patrols and search parties, but definitely no open operations. The chapter is too weak to risk being discovered by the NCR.
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
McNamara is a leader in name only. His people lead him more than he leads them, he is aware of the failings of the Brotherhood but he can do nothing for them as they are not even willing to change themselves. He only administers to the basic logistics, they don't have the numbers for any glorious operation of conquest, he is not interested in leading them to a new path he just wants to take them to the next day.
Indeed. If there is a club called "Let's sit in the sand untill we die", and you become leader, why would you urge everyone to not sit in the sand?
It is the Brotherhood Codex that is flawed - the Brotherhood of Steel itself. It is super-heavily armed, it looks awesome, it has cool bunkers - but it is inherently flawed (and inbred)
That said, I'm not proposing to sit in sand, so to suggest that the BoS change their ways is not bad per se - it is just understandable that a leader wouldn't be eager to change the central principles of the organization.