It seems you are ignoring Risewild's arguments on purpose. Not gonna argue with you from now on if you are gonna purposely ignore critical information that shits on your arguments.
Here for you to read. Read before spouting nonsense. BoS is pretty much struggling everywhere, Fallout 3 and New Vegas clearly state this.
And until Bethesda says otherwise, the NCR-BoS war happened BEFORE the expedition to the East Coast because New Vegas treats it as canon.
Exactly. Letting an entire chapter walk away while Maxson State is getting destroyed by the NCR, forcing the council of elders to retreat underground, is utterly stupid. They NEED as many heavy units as possible right now, for obvious reasons. A one year trip to the east for hypothethical rewards (that wouldn't be acquired before years anyway) would be the last of their priorities.
But even if Lyons left before the war. He didn't go back to help his only nation when he heard it was getting exterminated (but yet, goes all white knight when witnessing the problems that the DC population struggles with, by their own choice ?), and neither did the so-called "outcasts", aka fanatics and loyalists to the elders. That doesn't make sense.
As for the dangers of walking the wasteland ; 86 tribes in 4 states only. And not only backward tribals, no no no. Even Lanius, who is confident about being able to crush the freaking NCR, describes the eastern front as "difficult". In other words, the path to the east is paved with dozens, if not hundreds of hostile nations, some of them dangerous enough to make Lanius hesitate about poking them in the eye. We know that even the lowest of the lowest, the Fiends, know how to use laser weapons. 155mm Howitzers were held by tribals under Caesar's lands... Hell, Caesar's men are not afraid of the NCR because their previous wars were just as brutal. They don't exactly run away in fear and terror, screaming about a dragon in the sky, when they witness a bomber dropping death from above. That says something about what they saw, prior to the conflict in the Mojave.
We know that some tribes also don't hesitate to use their own power armors. Fallout 4 has raider power armors, Fallout 2 had tribals wearing power armors parts, and Fallout New Vegas had Lanius wearing something very close to a modern power armor, and Caesar's Legion isn't exactly good when it comes to technology. And even them can build a power armor.
And even if the brotherhood manages to slip through ; here comes the radioactive tornadoes, and even more dangerous tribes such as the beastmasters, who can tame freaking deathclaws to do their bidding.
Then... the midwest brotherhood. With its dozens of bunkers, vehicles, auxiliaries everywhere, and possibly the freaking calculator and its army of killing machines (who can also contact the council of elders now that Lyons has established a radio line, which causes HUGE problems, since they know that the NCR is killing anything remotely related to the brotherhood, on sight, and yet don't take any kind of action). Entire cities under their feudal rule, and yet, Lyons couldn't find them, unlike Caesar's freaking scouts. Spear throwing, skirt wearing runners can find the midwest scribes, yet Lyons, with an entire chapter, can't find an entire nation while walking through it. It is simply unbelievable.
And it makes Fallout 3's brotherhood impossible, since any contact with the midwest would have changed EVERYTHING. Lyons would have told them about the situation with the NCR. Or Lyons would have joined them. Or Lyons would have been exterminated, and the midwest would have sent its own troops to find Liberty Prime (they fought a war against a robot army before taking control of it, for pete's sake. They witnessed mind transfer from one of their generals to a machine. They wouldn't let Lyons take it, because if any faction in the country has a reason to care about killing machines, it's the midwest brotherhood.)
He talks like the city of Chicago is a whole state that you can't go around.
Squires from the midwest brotherhood were spotted by Caesar's scouts east of the Colorado though. The Colorado and Chicago aren't exactly close, the midwest seems to have quite a huge area of influence. By the very begining of Tactics, they were already expanding south of Chicago (isn't Macon about halfway between St.Louis and Chicago ? And it's one of the first real towns the midwest brotherhood clears). That, and the fact that entire cities are under feudal rule and would have told Lyons about the midwest, even if the old fart couldn't find them on his own.
