Why is a battle going on in the DC ruins?

Tiny Tim

Tiny Tim

Still Mildly Glowing
Asking questions about bethesda lore is usually only worth it for kicks , but some comments on the thread about evergreen mills made me wonder
Why the hell are the supermutants and the brotherhood of steel fighting in the DC ruins ?
I mean

1. The Super Mutants come from Vault 87 which is located nowhere near the dc ruins , in fact it's literally on the other side of the map
2. The Super Mutants' goal in the Beth universe is to kidnap people and take them back to their vault to turn them into mutants ( how or why they came up with this plan and built an army for it is admirable seeing as how they're all retarded but anyway- suspension of disbelief )
3. The Brotherhood of Steel's goal in the Beth universe is to protect the people of the wasteland from Super Mutants
4. There are literally no people in the DC ruins , no major settlements except for the underworld ( which the muties do not care about )
5. Between Vault 87 and the DC ruins there's megaton which is a major settlement and there are other settlements located around the same wide area ( not as far from vault 87 as the dc ruins ) like Paradise Falls, Tenpenny Tower , Andale , Arefu and probably others that aren't seeing any action by the super mutants. In fact , i think that the only town that is ever attacked by the super mutants is big town and maybe sometimes rivet city if we're to believe the guards, which is again on the other side of the map
6. The beth brotherhood is supposed to be protecting said settlements , but again it's never anywhere near any of them until after broken steel


So , am i missing something ? Is there a reason for all this ? Did the Brotherhood and Mutants decided to go to travel all the way to DC and fight each other off ?
I seem to recall people from all other the wasteland noting the fact that DC is packed with mutants and even wondering about it . Is there an explanation ?
 
Last edited:
If vault 87 was in DC it would completely make sence but yeah it don't make sence. However what does make sence it more raider and societys in DC. But then again where are there super mutants in side DC ?
 
You missed a couple of points.

1. The Brotherhood of Steel live in the DC ruins.
2. The BoS are trying to scavenge the ruins.
3. The Super Mutants are winning the war against the BoS.

So of course the fighting is there.

Oh and the Super Mutants are attacking the citizens of Big Town. I know most Fallout fans mentally erase everything related to Little Lamplight but the Super Mutants have that place under siege.
 
Dr Fallout said:
Super Mutants. Can't. Take. Over. A. Settlement. Of. Kids.
Click to expand...

Big Town is a settlement of teenagers. They're also kidnapping said teenagers to dip in FEV, not interested in wiping them out. I had a horribly amusing idea which makes the settlement almost work that Big Town and Little Lamplight are Supermutant Farms.

The kids grow up in LL under the protection of the Super Mutants then go on a trial on the wasteland to see if they're strong, then when they reach Bigtown, get grabbed by the Super Mutants to turn into Super Mutants.
 
Dr Fallout said:
Super Mutants. Can't. Take. Over. A. Settlement. Of. Kids.
Click to expand...

Also aren't the kids apparently as skilled fighters as the Brotherhood of Steel (Guys and gals armed with Power Armor and laser weaponry?) who have been fending off Super Mutants for quite a while as it seems the kids also may have been fending off Super Mutants for a while as well.

But then again I might be wrong considering it's been a while since I've last played 3.
 
Last edited:
CT Phipps said:
You missed a couple of points.

1. The Brotherhood of Steel live in the DC ruins.
2. The BoS are trying to scavenge the ruins.
3. The Super Mutants are winning the war against the BoS.

So of course the fighting is there.

Oh and the Super Mutants are attacking the citizens of Big Town. I know most Fallout fans mentally erase everything related to Little Lamplight but the Super Mutants have that place under siege.
Click to expand...
Hey man . We don't seem to agree on anything. Why would the Super Mutants want to fight the brotherhood? I am pretty sure it's the other way around. Also the brotherhood lives in the citadel across the river , so even if you were right the fight still wouldn't take place in the east side of the map.



And i did mention big town in my post
 
Tragos114 said:
Hey man . We don't seem to agree on anything. Why would the Super Mutants want to fight the brotherhood? I am pretty sure it's the other way around. Also the brotherhood lives in the citadel across the river , so even if you were right the fight still wouldn't take place in the east side of the map.

And i did mention big town in my post
Click to expand...

1. Uh, if someone is trying to exterminate you then you probably want to destroy them.

2. Not if the Brotherhood is able to keep the Super Mutants from reaching their home base. The Super Mutants are bunkering down and fortifying locations nearby the Citadel even if they're not there yet.

The battle is taking place in the Washington Mall because that's as close as they can get and both sides have territory there.
 
the entire concept of the Super Mutants and Vault 87 makes the whole 'they're winning the war' idiotic. The places the Super Mutants attack are either desolate, empty regions with not a soul around, or they're attacking a low-populated settlement (Big Town) and not taking captives, but actually eating the fucking humans. Because apparently, they want to make more..but their diet consist of humans...how fucking stupid can you get? Meanwhile, the BoS apparently have stockpiles of Power Armor ready for use and are welcoming any Wastelander that can hold a fucking gun properly (or at least swing a Super Sledge about). So there's no way Super Mutants would win with such an already low population, yet they...are..somehow? Magic?
 
Zerginfestor said:
the entire concept of the Super Mutants and Vault 87 makes the whole 'they're winning the war' idiotic. The places the Super Mutants attack are either desolate, empty regions with not a soul around, or they're attacking a low-populated settlement (Big Town) and not taking captives, but actually eating the fucking humans. Because apparently, they want to make more..but their diet consist of humans...how fucking stupid can you get? Meanwhile, the BoS apparently have stockpiles of Power Armor ready for use and are welcoming any Wastelander that can hold a fucking gun properly (or at least swing a Super Sledge about). So there's no way Super Mutants would win with such an already low population, yet they...are..somehow? Magic?
Click to expand...

Humans are a delicacy and there's always more! :) Besides, they're running out of FEV so they don't need to capture as many humans as they used to.

As for why Super Mutants are winning, they've had 200 years to build up their numbers and the Brotherhood of Steel is led by an idealistic imperialist who thinks he's the Vault Dweller. So much so that eventually half his soldiers got up and left.
 
But they aren't winning, they are fighting every damn time you reload that area. Fighting and fighting and fighting, eternally fighting. Shouldn't they retreat and regroup or something? Shouldn't the Brotherhood retreat and regroup, maybe come up with a better strategy than fighting in the same goddamn locations for days on end? Looks like street fighting in Monrovia (where they did indeed fight for the same dumb street corners, bridges and gates, over and over and over, mostly because they were high as kites most of the time)
 
It's not worth arguing over to me because there's no evolution to those encounters. They're completely static. Bethesda just set them up, but there are no scripts that change any of it depending on quests you do. There should have been a evolution of course, at least with Broken Steel, but this is all moot to me because I don't consider the Vault 87 super mutants canon and by extension, the main quest and a lot of the setting of Fallout 3.
 
Last edited:
"-Yo dogs, what if there was like, a fight between the BOS and the Orcs in the Capitol ruins?
-So like a quest where you help the BOS fight them off by weakening their hold on the region through quests?
-W---what? Fuck that, just drop some randomly generated Orcs and BOS and set them as enemies of each other.
-So would you be able to end the fight if you kill the orcs?
-Nah too complicated, just have them respawn like all the other NPCs.
-But that's stupid
-So?"
 
zegh8578 said:
But they aren't winning, they are fighting every damn time you reload that area. Fighting and fighting and fighting, eternally fighting. Shouldn't they retreat and regroup or something?
Click to expand...

Because it's a video game. That's like asking why no one does the fetch quest in your journal in Dragon Age.

Shouldn't the Brotherhood retreat and regroup, maybe come up with a better strategy than fighting in the same goddamn locations for days on end? Looks like street fighting in Monrovia (where they did indeed fight for the same dumb street corners, bridges and gates, over and over and over, mostly because they were high as kites most of the time)
Click to expand...

My sneering imperialist essay goes into this. The whole point is the situation is FUBAR. Elder Lyons has royally fucked over the Brotherhood of Steel by getting them involved in a quest for GLORIOUS JUSTICE against a foe which is more powerful than than them and refuses to back down even when it's militarily unsustainable. I think the fact Elder Lyons is a terrible leader is what makes the character interesting.

It's also basically confirmed in canon by Fallout 4 given how much the BoS comes to think of him as a failure.
 
CT Phipps said:
Because it's a video game. That's like asking why no one does the fetch quest in your journal in Dragon Age.
Click to expand...

Yeah, why DO these people sit around waiting for some ultimate hero to fetch some book from the library or something?

CT Phipps said:
It's also basically confirmed in canon by Fallout 4 given how much the BoS comes to think of him as a failure.
Click to expand...

That I DO think is the video game! Bethesda realized FO3 BoS made no sense, and did several fixes, including depicting them much more totalitarian in behavior, and having them regard "Lyons Pride" as a failure

What you describe though, joking aside, I think is just bad writing, rather than a deep character with deliberate flaws.
 
I think the assumption Fallout 3 had bad writing is kind of cartoonishly exaggerated. I think they did a really good job with the world-building with some glaring exceptions. Personally, the idea Elder Lyons is a good man trying to do good things and not very good at it isn't that difficult of a character to write and is also backed up by the text in-game.

It also works out for Elder Lyons in the end. It's just because you save his ass.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top