The Brotherhood of Steel as a threat to an Independent Vegas

[WeissYohji]

The Mojave BoS is failing as it currently is. And Veronica can't be the only one who'd like to see them wise up and ditch their "Let's hoard all the Pre-War tech for ourselves!" mentality. She did everybody a favor by questioning their Codex. The assholes who wrote it are not infallible authorities. That considered, how long do you think it'll be before a Veronica 2.0 comes along and possibly stages a coup (assuming Veronica leaves and tries joining the Followers)? How long before even the Elder and Head Paladin see the error of their hoarding ways? How long before they throw the Codex out the window, even if it takes a coup to do it?

And that whole Chain That Binds? What an inefficient way to run a cadre of knights in power armor! If Hardin and an initiate were in the same room and the former wanted a coffee, he can't just directly ask that initiate to get him a coffee. The order has to go through the Paladins and others, flowing down the ranks to the lizard above that initiate. Remember part 2 of The Chain That Binds: Orders have to observe the flow and never skip ranks. That's a pretty lousy way of running an organization. That's probably part of what fucked them at HELIOS, and it'll fuck the BoS in the end if they keep doing business as usual.

 

[Rheios]

And that whole Chain That Binds? What an inefficient way to run a cadre of knights in power armor! If Hardin and an initiate were in the same room and the former wanted a coffee, he can't just directly ask that initiate to get him a coffee. The order has to go through the Paladins and others, flowing down the ranks to the lizard above that initiate. Remember part 2 of The Chain That Binds: Orders have to observe the flow and never skip ranks. That's a pretty lousy way of running an organization. That's probably part of what fucked them at HELIOS, and it'll fuck the BoS in the end if they keep doing business as usual.

In the context of the BOS, I do think the rule makes sense. The idea originally was probably to help prevent any repeats of the inhumane experimentation/actions taken at Mariposa. Its likely there was a lot of 'I outrank you, take X people to Y' and 'I'll handle your superior, get to soldier' about things to help maintain secrecy (nobody fully knows who did what or why at any one time. Keep the leads moving and throw out false ones).

So an established rule forcing clarity goes a long way to rooting out betrayals or cabals of the same type. Of course, as you said, its also pretty hard to police or maintain which is why the didn't actually follow it at HELIOS. It's like rules for not having donkey's in your bathtub in Kentucky or something. A rule that's on the books, can get you in trouble if you're caught doing it, probably had some reason at one point, but now is probably overlooked unless somebody brings it up to make a point or because you're causing problems with your tub donkey. Which is why the player actually has to dig it up at all, to make a point with it because the current Elder is running secret missions that are endangering BOS lives. I think he has a good reason for it, but form the wrong context it probably does come across as distrustful at best or betrayl at worst.

 

[WeissYohji]

Those blue laws and the Chain That Binds were ALWAYS irrational and NEVER had any reason at any point.

Ditto the Codex's rules about hoarding technology and keeping it away from everyone else. It clearly hasn't worked, as we can see with the Van Graffs and Big Mountain. The White Legs managed to find caches of weapons that would make the Brotherhood proud, even if it's mainly submachine guns and pistols. Sure, they had help from Ulysses and are a bunch of genocidal raiders but the White Legs at least don't go hoarding all those Pre-War goodies for themselves. Even the Fiends have laser and plasma rifles. And the Enclave has more advanced stuff than the Brotherhood does. There's also the matter of the pulse gun found in Vault 34 and sonic emitter from Old World Blues; power armor doesn't have a chance against that shit. If not that, then perhaps shotgun-wielding, re-armed Fiends and captured Legionaries using pulse slugs.

 

[Rheios]

Yeah, Blue laws had a rationale. They may not be an agreed upon rationale but they do tend to come about with reason. Whether that be religion, that one weird guy whose donkey cracked a tub and caused a black mold problem in the inn or trying to prevent the mistakes of your ancestors. They tend not to work because they tend to overlook specific contexts - whether they be societal evolution or just situational realities - but that doesn't make them mindless or inane, just ineffective.

And the Codex's rules made sense in much the same way any regulation of dangerous substances does (security over freedom, or anything really) but was always a too big a bite for the small organization (I'd argue for any organization). They were too ambitious and too fearful. Which is also why I like the idea of trying to convert them into House's secret police using those aspects. Playing upon their fears, their lack of resources, the sheer *size* of the problem, and then just offer them resources with strings. They take the bait, next thing you know they're beholden.

 

[NMLevesque]

In the context of the BOS, I do think the rule makes sense. The idea originally was probably to help prevent any repeats of the inhumane experimentation/actions taken at Mariposa.

How would that stop Mariposa 2? I don't follow your reasoning here. If that was in practice at Mariposa it would have still happened as best I can tell.

 

[Rheios]

How would that stop Mariposa 2? I don't follow your reasoning here. If that was in practice at Mariposa it would have still happened as best I can tell.

It would have required every officer down the chain to be complicit with every order and everyone in the chain would have information on what exactly was done, when, where, and how - which makes it harder to hide things, which would have required an even larger number of people to be okay with the information revealed/actions taken. Which obviously they weren't and giving a hard 'no' early would have prevented the need to their revolt in the first place. At least that's the logic I was using. Like I said, its lacking in awareness of certain situational realities, like how damn cumbersome and prone to abusing people's tendency to fall by authoritative appeals, regardless of how personally appalled they may be.

 

[WeissYohji]

Yeah, Blue laws had a rationale. They may not be an agreed upon rationale but they do tend to come about with reason. Whether that be religion, that one weird guy whose donkey cracked a tub and caused a black mold problem in the inn or trying to prevent the mistakes of your ancestors. They tend not to work because they tend to overlook specific contexts - whether they be societal evolution or just situational realities - but that doesn't make them mindless or inane, just ineffective.

And the Codex's rules made sense in much the same way any regulation of dangerous substances does (security over freedom, or anything really) but was always a too big a bite for the small organization (I'd argue for any organization). They were too ambitious and too fearful. Which is also why I like the idea of trying to convert them into House's secret police using those aspects. Playing upon their fears, their lack of resources, the sheer *size* of the problem, and then just offer them resources with strings. They take the bait, next thing you know they're beholden.

1. If you think blue laws or the Codex ever had a rationale or any validity to them, I have a few defunct casinos in Atlantic City to sell you. They were ALWAYS mindless and inane no matter what time period or society it is. The morons behind them had a clear case of head-up-the-ass syndrome. Let's remember the uniformitarian principle: However we discover something worked, that's how it ALWAYS worked.

2. That's kinda what I'm getting at with the whole secret police thing. My Courier would use the BoS as her own police force by playing upon their fears, lack of resources, etc. They take the bait and she has them wrapped around her little finger knowing that any attempts to betray her would be met with attacks from Boomers, the Enclave Remnants, Le Grand Armée des Sécuritrons, the dynamic duo of Boone (with anti-materiel rifle in hand) and Raul (because snipers work in teams), perhaps some rearmed ex-Fiends or Legionaries who switched sides after Hoover Dam.

3. Related to retaliation to treason from the BoS against my Queen of Vegas in #2, consider the geography of Hidden Valley. There's two open ways in and out of the valley to the north and south, and then you also have two passes going east. One will take you northeast toward Black Mountain while the other takes you to HELIOS (if you're leaving the valley). Both passes are physically narrower, save for a wide spot at Scorpion Gulch. Those are key choke points to cut off the Brotherhood's escape routes. And again, you have Enclave vertibirds and the Boomers' bomber from above, while the Brotherhood's patterns are more consistent with two-dimensional thinking (no airships unlike the Commonwealth BoS, remember).

 

[KingArthur]

@WeissYohji you make a lot of good points; I just personally think that the flaws you pointed out about the Brotherhood are the EXACT reason they’d never follow the Courier, even if they played to their fears. They’re extremely dogmatic; the knight thing isn’t a coincidence, think medieval Christianity. They’re unflinching and even the most liberal among them are beholden to their techno-fetishist monk lifestyle.

 

[Post-War Tribal]

Is we talking original bos or Beth bos?

 

[WeissYohji]

Is we talking original bos or Beth bos?

Bethesda/Obsidian BoS.

Bear in mind that my only experience with the Fallout games is through New Vegas. I've never played any of the others. I was a kid when the Interplay Fallouts were new but wasn't even aware of them.

 

[Rheios]

1. If you think blue laws or the Codex ever had a rationale or any validity to them, I have a few defunct casinos in Atlantic City to sell you. They were ALWAYS mindless and inane no matter what time period or society it is. The morons behind them had a clear case of head-up-the-ass syndrome. Let's remember the uniformitarian principle: However we discover something worked, that's how it ALWAYS worked.

2. That's kinda what I'm getting at with the whole secret police thing. My Courier would use the BoS as her own police force by playing upon their fears, lack of resources, etc. They take the bait and she has them wrapped around her little finger knowing that any attempts to betray her would be met with attacks from Boomers, the Enclave Remnants, Le Grand Armée des Sécuritrons, the dynamic duo of Boone (with anti-materiel rifle in hand) and Raul (because snipers work in teams), perhaps some rearmed ex-Fiends or Legionaries who switched sides after Hoover Dam.

3. Related to retaliation to treason from the BoS against my Queen of Vegas in #2, consider the geography of Hidden Valley. There's two open ways in and out of the valley to the north and south, and then you also have two passes going east. One will take you northeast toward Black Mountain while the other takes you to HELIOS (if you're leaving the valley). Both passes are physically narrower, save for a wide spot at Scorpion Gulch. Those are key choke points to cut off the Brotherhood's escape routes. And again, you have Enclave vertibirds and the Boomers' bomber from above, while the Brotherhood's patterns are more consistent with two-dimensional thinking (no airships unlike the Commonwealth BoS, remember).

1. I tend to think all laws have a reason and a source. It's just not always a good reason. Sometimes the reason's even to have a law to use against people. I don't agree with the practice or concept but it does exist. Alternatively, sometimes the reason is good and the implementations are terrible. Until I have all the information about such laws I'm inclined to act as if there was a good and logical reason for their creation that's become outdated and go from there. Maybe they never worked, but I think you go a lot farther assuming there was a reason if only to respect the tradition. Which *is* vital if you want to convince anyone to change their traditions.

2-3. Hey, I'm on board with it. I'd do it for House, who I prefer, but NCR/House/Courier could all use such a force for a lot of good, and you might not even need the choke points. Remember they stuck a bomb collar on you. I think some underhanded turn-about's fair play. Put kill-bombs in everything you update for them. They revolt? You don't even get out of your chair. You say 'Command override: Flanders' and boom go the knights.


And yeah, the BOS in Fallout had an ending where they started disseminating farming tech, iirc, and in general being helpful to the early NCR. In some ways, I'd argue Veronica is of that old school BOS (many who got sent east, although I that may have been a Beth retcon - I got my start in F3 and have been playing lore catchup ever since, trying to avoid the taint in my own memory and the wiki). The BOS leaders eventually decided against sharing and closed off, and have grown increasingly puritanical and inflexible as time went on. According to the wiki, for Van Buren: Jeremy Maxson was the one who would have started the aggressive tech control and eastward expansion of the aging BOS. Regardless, there was a time when it looked like the BOS had hope but caution, tradition, bad politics, and isolationist compounding of zealousness lead them to their vestigle and dying state in New Vegas. I won't even give the F4 suggestion that they've all come out of hiding in the West now any creadance. It makes no sense.

 

[WeissYohji]

@Rheios Tradition is never a valid reason for any policy, law, or ANYTHING. "We've always done it this way" is never a legitimate argument and never will be. That mentality doesn't deserve to exist. Progress is never to be challenged or opposed, and conservative forces don't deserve a voice in the matter.

Tradition and heritage are nothing but dead people's baggage. Quit carrying it. Did YOU make it up? NO? It was PASSED TO YOU? PASS IT BACK!

The Brotherhood doesn't stick that bomb collar on my Courier because she always enters the bunker with Veronica in tow, bypassing that quest. Only in my first two complete (any %) playthroughs did I have to go through the bomb collar thing, and that was because I had Boone in my party by the time I got acquainted with the Brotherhood. Those runs were also vanilla; I now have a fat stack of mods active.

 

[Rheios]

Progress should *ALWAYS* be questioned. Always vetted and opposed when found lacking or foolhardy. Otherwise, you get shit like what's happened to the Fallout franchise, all delightfully packaged as unquestioned 'progress'. (EDIT: Or 'change', I guess, because arguments always seem to conflate the two and I might be doing that here. What's progress/regress in regards to change, and its rapidity, can still be destructive) Only applied to everything. Some things will get better, but improvement's hard, most things will just get worse. So, I'll acknowledge your opinion up to the point where you're allowed to have it, but that attitude is far more destructive than keeping to a functioning standard. One is stagnation, which is often unhealthy, but your way is outright destruction. Change unopposed reduces everyone to the basics of a savage survivalism because it inevitably sways rapidly between whatever group has the power to enact it. A lashing between extremes like a dog worrying the neck of civilization. But I think we're about to go off on a tangent between two fundamentally different worldviews that are entirely irreconcilable.

Even then, my point was that if you don't agree with what was passed down to someone else? You still treat it with the deference it is due or barring that the deference the other group treats it with, if you want to get anywhere. Any other action will be met with offense, and offense is met with resistance. You couldn't convince the BOS without first showing their laws respect and maybe even admiration, and then arguing them with their intent as a foundation. You'd need to show how the current laws have lead to destruction but that they don't need to be abandoned, merely reforged, just as Steel can be. Just as a broken Brotherhood can be.

Fair point, I often do the same since Veronica is awesome, but my point was more that their actions tend to give one all the justification they need to be cautious enough to enable a killswitch.

 

[WeissYohji]

@Rheios One of many proofs that tradition =/= good: Joseph Lister, Ignaz Semmelweis, and their pioneering work on antisepsis. Their work saved many lives, but the medical establishment of the day fucked them both over and cost many more by clinging to tradition. And what tradition, do you ask? That of having blood from multiple patients on doctors' hands as a sign that they'd been doing their jobs. That "tradition" CROSS-CONTAMINATED MULTIPLE PATIENTS AND EXPOSED THEM TO BLOODBORNE DISEASES!

Then we have imperial China's civil service exams. They were a good idea at first but then the correct answers ultimately became wrong and several centuries out of date because the exam never changed. Promotion within the ranks could be gained by simply parroting the "right" answer, which was, again, wrong as hell after many centuries.

Under that logic, would you say we should resurrect bloodletting because it was used for thousands of years? Tobacco was part of tribal American medicine for thousands of years; does that make it healthy? And then there's the pedophilia apologists (wouldn't put it past any in Caesar's Legion to have such sick views in-universe) who beat the drum of ancient Greece when pushing their sick agenda.

There's a saying: People have rights and deserve respect, ideas don't. All traditions are nothing but ideas held at least mostly by the members of a given culture, religion, society, etc. The moment your pet traditions are to be shielded from criticism and question, you're living in tyranny. No idea is true because "we've always done it this way" or because someone says so.

Recall the farming technology option in Veronica's quest. As I stated before, the Brotherhood can't fight if they're dead from starvation. You can't eat power armor and energy weapons. They're armor and guns; not Bighorner steaks, carrots, taters, and Fancy Lads snack cakes. And then there's the pulse gun found in Vault 34. That's an equalizer against anyone using a shotgun loaded with pulse slugs. It's also an asset against robot enemies (not that I ever used it). As for Euclid's C-Finder, I don't really consider it worthwhile because you can only use it 1) once a day, and 2) outdoors. And what of HELIOS One after powering up the C-Finder? It won't make a difference if the Mojave is still in need of all the electricity it can get. Hoover Dam can only provide so much alone. Better to leave the C-Finder be and just power the whole region equally (versus upgrading the C-Finder or sending power to a select few people). As the genius Courier once said to Arcade: "If Caesar takes the dam and cuts off power, it'll be chaos all over New Vegas."

 

[Rheios]

I've never said ideas shouldn't change, or that things couldn't improve. Just that anything being billed as an improvement, as progress, should be vetted and reviewed and slowly and modularly instituted until long-term problems can be identified and corrected. We know better methods than bloodletting and tobacco now, there's no need to bring them back. But until proven carefully, some new medical progress - to continue the medical trend - should be used with caution. Because to do otherwise is like a Northfield Lab artificial blood-test. Equally disrespectful to people's rights.

Frankly, even that saying is an idea. Maybe an idea that's survived the test of time, but would it survive an apocalypse? The BOS might not think so, so convincing them of it involves diplomacy. Rarely does diplomacy work with insults to heritage, to what makes you the person you are, constructed from past ideas, sold to you or elected to believe in yourself. Because even if you don't agree with an idea or respect it, the lives and effort contributed to that idea give it a value in human lives. The lives of the BOS's ancestors, in this specific case. Doesn't mean they shouldn't change, but doesn't mean that just calling those values stupid will benefit anything either. You have to convince them its the next step - not a replacement but a continued construction on the foundations of their own identity. Just like how modern medicine is built from people who were once bleeding others in a desperate attempt to save them. The values and goals haven't changed, merely the methods.

I agree with you about HELIOS, I never get the C-Finder. It's just not necessary and doesn't match the improved capabilities that power can provide in medical care to manufacturing for a New Vegas army. The Pulse Gun could be valuable to prevent others from getting their hands on for the BOS but I tend to not turn it in either. End of the day you're right that self-sufficient food could be more valuable, although I don't actually think its beneficial but more dangerous. Which seems right up the alley of the BOS, to be fair. Some of the info may be valuable and unrelated to 34's ultimate self-destruction, but without knowing how much it's sortof a crapshoot.

 

[NMLevesque]

It would have required every officer down the chain to be complicit with every order and everyone in the chain would have information on what exactly was done, when, where, and how - which makes it harder to hide things, which would have required an even larger number of people to be okay with the information revealed/actions taken. Which obviously they weren't and giving a hard 'no' early would have prevented the need to their revolt in the first place. At least that's the logic I was using. Like I said, its lacking in awareness of certain situational realities, like how damn cumbersome and prone to abusing people's tendency to fall by authoritative appeals, regardless of how personally appalled they may be.

Where does it stipulate that everyone down the chain has the full story? Also, where do they have the right to refuse an order?

 

[Rheios]

Where does it stipulate that everyone down the chain has the full story? Also, where do they have the right to refuse an order?

It doesn't say, so far as I know, they get the full story or even can refuse an order, but the entire BOS is founded on the principle of revolution for the defense of humanity, the mere concept that a lower ranked officer - someone you trust - couldn't raise questions or resistance (You do actually watch Veronica do this, she just gets rebuffed for the same reasons the BOS is dying) against an order would go against the very foundations of their creation. Its actually one of my problems with Fallout 4's treatment of Maxson and the main character once he declares you a Paladin. No half-decent or sane military commander ignores all input or concern from subordinate officers. Not every commander is half decent or sane, to be fair, but that'd fall under the concept not meeting the eventualities of reality. I'm not necessarily arguing that the 'Chain that binds' is in any way a good law. Just that I can see a rational reason their ancestors might have constructed a law like that, only for it to quickly crumble into disuse and obscurity in the face of pragmatism. Particularly since I think the first generation BOS was probably pretty idealistic.

 

[NMLevesque]

It doesn't say, so far as I know, they get the full story or even can refuse an order, but the entire BOS is founded on the principle of revolution for the defense of humanity, the mere concept that a lower ranked officer - someone you trust - couldn't raise questions or resistance (You do actually watch Veronica do this, she just gets rebuffed for the same reasons the BOS is dying) against an order would go against the very foundations of their creation.

Note that virtually all of the Paladins in the Mojave chapter told Elijah not to dig in at Helios.

 

[Rheios]

Note that virtually all of the Paladins in the Mojave chapter told Elijah not to dig in at Helios.

And I think he's pretty well regarded as a shit Elder even by the failing BOS standards. Which is honestly pretty impressive. That man's obsessions really should have been a warning sign for miles, because of his apparent genius if not in spite of it. (And his failures and his mentat addiction later don't make him any more personable.) I like the BOS's hope to protect humanity, its a noble goal, but its pretty much impossible to argue that they aren't rubbish at achieving it to a cavalcade of reasons - from numbers, to PR, to bad leadership, they really can't protect anyone at this rate.

 

[CT Phipps]

And I think he's pretty well regarded as a shit Elder even by the failing BOS standards. Which is honestly pretty impressive. That man's obsessions really should have been a warning sign for miles, because of his apparent genius if not in spite of it. (And his failures and his mentat addiction later don't make him any more personable.) I like the BOS's hope to protect humanity, its a noble goal, but its pretty much impossible to argue that they aren't rubbish at achieving it to a cavalcade of reasons - from numbers, to PR, to bad leadership, they really can't protect anyone at this rate.

Elijah got virtually his entire chapter killed for a bunch of tech that didn't work. I'd daresay he is an enormously shitty Elder. Mind you, I think he's probably not alone among Elders who tried to fight NCR directly only to get slaughtered.