Fallout 4 BoS = Enclave Lite?

[Ragsnstitches]

-Snip-

Christ man, way to jump down my throat. Probably the most condescending post someone has directed at me a quite awhile.

We're talking about a fictional video game character here. Simmer down.

To believe all those things about Ulfric you ha to ignore so much about not only Ulfric, but the entire narrative happening in front of you. It's like ignoring the NUKES ARE BAD theme in MGS. I don't know how to explain something to someone who actively ignored so much context without "condescension" (more like pointing out and illustrating a great deal of context you missed).

Well, let me give it a shot:

This is the thing I like about Skyrim, all the sources on Ulfric's racism come from... Imperial sympathizers!

'The Bear of Markarth' the big, grand, trump card Imperial supporters like to say proves Ulfric was mad, was written by Arrianus Arius, Imperial Scholar. Acknowledging authorial bias is one of the most important things in The Elder Scrolls lore, if you believed Ulfric was a racist it was probably due to the sources you were exposed to in game and not encountering a counter source. Other sources paint him (and the empire) very differently.

Ulfric not helping out the Gray Quarter:
You can argue he had a war to fight. A particularly devastating war as it was a Civil War, which means no matter how well you do, you're weakening your own country. He had no resources to give to the Gray Quarter. Not exactly virtuous but not an act of villainy either. Seems mostly pragmatic. Ulfric himself has no strong opinions of other races and even laments that it has to come to this, but he values his people and their customs over the greater empire (and who else will?).

If you were to say Ulfric is power-hungry, you'd be right of course. But here's the catch... so is everybody in the Civil War. The question is, why are they power hungry? What are their motivations? Is it all personal gain or is their an ideals that drive them? One take is he wants power so he can do what his supporters want him to, like politicians in the modern world. His supporters want to secede from the empire and restore Talos Worship.

Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A_5kBJduIg

There are some darker tones to this situation (the us or them and the serve or die mentality) but Ulfric seems to be the tempered one, who is truly weighing the costs of each of his decisions. Is it radical? Possibly, yes, but the nords are being pushed to the brink.

"But he has racist supporters!" That's just Tamriel. Superiority complexes are rife as are fear of "others". The racism of Ulfric's supporters is actually kind of low key compared to some of the other instances of racism in the lore (Argonians as slaves in Morrowind for example... those Dunmer are dicks... but now they are refugees... it's not a straightforward judgement call basically).

On the subject of regicide, Torygg wanted rebellion just as much as Ulfric did, but Torygg was weak willed. The duel was perfectly acceptable according to the traditions of Skyrim, but the Empire went ahead and decided to interfere after that. A duel is a part of Nordic politics. It's archaic, but the Nords are fiercely traditional and even Torygg agreed to the duel. It was only illegal according to Imperial law, who's ties to Skyrim were in question.

As far as fascism goes, the Thalmor are the best fit for that label (for very overt and obvious reasons). They also back the empire for the convenience of only having one enemy for the Aldmeri dominion to manipulate. The Thalmor dossier also notes that Ulfric is an "asset" which seems damning, but this just implies they use him, it doesn't mean he's an active participant (more like a pawn in a larger game, but the Altmer are known for their arrogance, so this could be an exaggeration of their influence over the nords). The Thalmor want war in Skyrim, they don't want a victory either way, they simply the empire to get bogged down and for their resources to drain so they will be easier to manage in the coming wars.

And the best part is there are valid arguments to be made from a pro-imperial standpoint. Playing both sides of that quest yields the same result but with entirely different motives... the next big bad is the Thalmor and they will be met with a united front.

The Elder Scrolls games are pretty infamous for deliberately crafting lies into the lore. It takes a lot of dedication (or wiki reading) to fully grasp the amount of subversive text there is in the lore. (See: The hidden message in the 36 Lessons of Vivec "He was not born a god. His destiny did not lead him to this crime. He chose this path of his own free will. He stole the godhood and murdered the Hortator. Vivec wrote this.")

TES lore is deceptively dense and it usually requires repeated and distinctly different passes over each installment to spot these discrepancies, as well a strong desire to seek out the lore hidden in the world. It's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about this subject.

There, and the only thing lost is you sticking your finger in their face and shouting "DUNCE!" Maybe lay off the fantasy fluff and work on your people skills instead. It's vastly more useful in the long run.

But just to drive this point home, I'm going to assume that you didn't get all this info on 1 sitting through this game. I'm guessing it wasn't even entirely from the game that you built up this knowledge, but some external sources that document the lore. If you tell me you had the nailed down on your first run, I will call fucking bull. Like most "fluff buffs", you either read external sources who documented these things or made a deliberate and focused effort to understand it, both of which are beyond your average TES players commitment to these games. This is by no means something you pick up passively playing the game.

The lore is deliberately open ended for just this reason (so you can play as a character within the world and form your own opinions on things). Fappys take on things is just as valid as your rebuttal, because the narrative never says either is definitive and will fuel future canon. We won't know what is canon until the next game, in which the lore writers will just write up some complete asspull that allows the majority of outcomes to be canon, either through vagueness or some magical reality warping event.

EDIT:

Just to be OT (spoilers ahoy),

I haven't gotten far in the main quest yet, but I have seen enough of BOS to see what their shtick is.

They are a logical progression of what Lyons started (to act as more then a technological gatekeeper and try and help the people of the wastes) though maybe not to his ideal (Lyons was very much for a symbiotic relationship with local populations, the new BOS is quite content to take what they want). The Brotherhood have ALWAYS being somewhat cold towards outsiders, but now that they've been through several wars, a lot of resentment is building on the subject of "others".

Supermutants are a given... they've been a monstrous influence on the wastelands with only very RARE examples of the exception, and they are the main adversary to the Brotherhood after the Enclave. They also have had to regularly deal with Ferals, which makes them distrusting of regular Ghouls. This has sort of merged into one broad sweeping fear of mutants.

The institution represents their greatest fears: unregulated technology (something the Enclave also represented). This also doubles as xenophobia when it comes to the subject of synths (mainly the advanced synths), but the Brotherhood have always been fearful of tech that wasn't their own... or worse, superior to it.

They still believe in Elder Lyons noble intentions (to use their power to help others), but their decades of isolation has made them as much a foreign entity to the wastelanders and their customs and this breeds more fear, as well as a very obvious superiority complex.

The key difference between the BOS in 4 to the Enclave is that the Enclave were remnants of the old world trying to take power by force. The BOS, a product of the new world, want to use their power to establish order and act as custodians to technology. Their intent is noble, but their means are not. They are also fiercely fanatical.

Basically, Enclave are Nazis and BOS are cultish zealots. Make an army out of either them and you'll have problems.

 

[Redvenge]

To review, we have the pre-Enclave American army, then somewhere in their transition into the Enclave with its purist tendancies and experimenting with the Vaults and such, the Brotherhood breaks off, citing that the Enclave is a bunch of dicks.

That is an odd way of looking at it.

When soldiers at the Mariposa Military Base saw the horrors inflicted on human beings via the FEV, they executed the scientists and fled. Then, the bombs fell. Those soldiers became the Brotherhood of Steel.

The Enclave was a Nixon-esk back up plan for when China launched it's nuclear arsenal at the US. Military, political and scientific leaders would be secreted in hidden locations (like the oil rig near San Francisco). The events of Fallout 2 lead one to believe that the BoS and the Enclave had no interaction before FO2.

 

[HomuraDidNothinWrong]

Brotherhood isnt evil, its just neutral. It does what it wants and if you get in the way they show you no mercy. Which puts the brotherhood in the position to be good guys or bad guys.

No. They want to genocide innocent people. Gen 3 synths are people, plain and simple. That is not neutral, that is straight evil. Institute is not any better with their enslavement policies towards them.

 

[LetalisK]

Question about the BoS storyline: can you join them and then when you get to a certain point where they ask you to do one of these morally objectionable missions you get to tell them to sod off and start a war with them? Or is it something lame like you just don't complete the quest and it hangs around in your pip boy?

 

[IceForce]

Question about the BoS storyline: can you join them and then when you get to a certain point where they ask you to do one of these morally objectionable missions you get to tell them to sod off and start a war with them? Or is it something lame like you just don't complete the quest and it hangs around in your pip boy?

It's just like New Vegas. If you go too far down the quest line with one faction, then it fails all the quests of the other factions. (Don't worry, you get an "Are you sure?" message on your screen when you reach the point-of-no-return.) Or alternatively, one faction will ask you to completely wipe out another, thereby obviously failing all their quests, (you won't get a notification with this alternative, but it should be obvious what quests you're about to fail when some other person asks you to kill the quest giver).

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Brotherhood isnt evil, its just neutral. It does what it wants and if you get in the way they show you no mercy. Which puts the brotherhood in the position to be good guys or bad guys.

No. They want to genocide innocent people. Gen 3 synths are people, plain and simple. That is not neutral, that is straight evil. Institute is not any better with their enslavement policies towards them.

What do they actually know about synths? Nobody knows anything about synths except for the secretive railroad and the hidden institute. The brotherhood know nothing but the paranoid rumours flowing from the commonwealth and they just see a bunch of murderous sleeper agents akin to super mutants in intent towards humanity.

Uniformed, not malicious.

 

[IceForce]

Brotherhood isnt evil, its just neutral. It does what it wants and if you get in the way they show you no mercy. Which puts the brotherhood in the position to be good guys or bad guys.

No. They want to genocide innocent people. Gen 3 synths are people, plain and simple. That is not neutral, that is straight evil. Institute is not any better with their enslavement policies towards them.

What do they actually know about synths? Nobody knows anything about synths except for the secretive railroad and the hidden institute. The brotherhood know nothing but the paranoid rumours flowing from the commonwealth and they just see a bunch of murderous sleeper agents akin to super mutants in intent towards humanity.

Uniformed, not malicious.

Yeah but, BoS's first instinct is to kill them, not study them or find out more about them.
At best it's bigoted, at worst it's genocidal.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Brotherhood isnt evil, its just neutral. It does what it wants and if you get in the way they show you no mercy. Which puts the brotherhood in the position to be good guys or bad guys.

No. They want to genocide innocent people. Gen 3 synths are people, plain and simple. That is not neutral, that is straight evil. Institute is not any better with their enslavement policies towards them.

What do they actually know about synths? Nobody knows anything about synths except for the secretive railroad and the hidden institute. The brotherhood know nothing but the paranoid rumours flowing from the commonwealth and they just see a bunch of murderous sleeper agents akin to super mutants in intent towards humanity.

Uniformed, not malicious.

Actually, Maxton's main concern with Synth's seems to be the possibility (Or, in his mind, the inevitability) that Synths would start self manufacturing more Synths, and would soon after undermine and eventually replace humankind. He doesn't actually seem to care too much about what the Institute does with Synths (And most of the rumors end up being true); he comes at the Institute because they're morons playing with things they shouldn't (Namely, Terminators).

 

[FalloutJack]

Snippity-doo

I feel they must have been. You mentioned Maripose and the FEV. While the FEV has been the leading creator in super mutants, Deathclaws, and - in fact - The Master himself...it was originally a bio-weapon designed to wipe out the Chinese. Those scientists were likely the of the pre-war Enclave and those men of the soon-to-be Brotherhood killed them and split from the people that put them there, the pre-war Enclave. Consider the Enclave's purist doctorine and their willingness to perform experiments on Vault Dwellers, the American survivors o the war. An amoral scientific and militaristic group such as that? Oh yes, it all lines up.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Snippity-doo

I feel they must have been. You mentioned Maripose and the FEV. While the FEV has been the leading creator in super mutants, Deathclaws, and - in fact - The Master himself...it was originally a bio-weapon designed to wipe out the Chinese. Those scientists were likely the of the pre-war Enclave and those men of the soon-to-be Brotherhood killed them and split from the people that put them there, the pre-war Enclave. Consider the Enclave's purist doctorine and their willingness to perform experiments on Vault Dwellers, the American survivors o the war. An amoral scientific and militaristic group such as that? Oh yes, it all lines up.

Though most likely the soldiers that would go on to become the Brotherhood of Steel had no idea they were actually deployed to guard an enclave experiment and the Enclave had no idea that those soldiers would eventually form a faction that would work against them some 150 years later. That is, if Mariposa even was an Enclave facility, which seems doubtful (more on that below).

Outside of game lore, it is well worth remembering that the Enclave and the Vault Experiments are retconned into existence in Fallout 2, as is the Enclave's interest in FEV research (nothing in Fo1 leads you to believe that the Mariposa experiments are anything but the US military being unethical as fuck, which is consistent with the Glow/West-Tec which is a private company being equally shady). In fact, in the game lore, Fallout 2 suggests that the Enclave did not operate openly prior to the nuclear exchange and that their research into FEV might not be related at all to what went on in Mariposa (judging by the Holotapes found on Enclave corpses in the Mariposa ruins) but is rather something they took interest in after the nuclear exchange and the realization that "impure" humans had survived in greater numbers then they had anticipated, which called for a solution to get rid of them.

 

[FalloutJack]

Shortening

Well, if by retconned you mean 'plot thickened in the sequel', then sure. The Enclave is a shadowy government organization that did things on the sly, of course. Given their position, though, it would make sense for them to be in the know and be behind it. Thing is, though, the Brotherhood knows who the Enclave are. In Fallout 2, you don't get the story really until you talk to the BoS...once they feel like actually talking to you. For the Brotherhood to know them in so-detailed a manner, they would...well...have to know them. As in, know their history. They had to have people who knew what they were breaking from to know who the Enclave are in the latter portion of Fallout 2. It IS up there and ambiguous in some areas, but this is how I've taken to it, myself.

 

[Major_Tom]

Shortening

Well, if by retconned you mean 'plot thickened in the sequel', then sure. The Enclave is a shadowy government organization that did things on the sly, of course. Given their position, though, it would make sense for them to be in the know and be behind it. Thing is, though, the Brotherhood knows who the Enclave are. In Fallout 2, you don't get the story really until you talk to the BoS...once they feel like actually talking to you. For the Brotherhood to know them in so-detailed a manner, they would...well...have to know them. As in, know their history. They had to have people who knew what they were breaking from to know who the Enclave are in the latter portion of Fallout 2. It IS up there and ambiguous in some areas, but this is how I've taken to it, myself.

I don't really buy the whole "Enclave was secretly controlling everything", I think you are underestimating how much of a douchebag the regular US Government was in the Fallout universe. Even though the Enclave had existed before the war, all evidence shows they only rose to power after the bombs fell. It's always said they discovered Mariposa, implying they originally had nothing to do with it.

Oh, and to all posters in this thread: It's Maxson.

 

[FalloutJack]

Zip

Everything states that the Enclave IS part of the US Government, including remains of its political structure (Though I feel that was always the reason for its downfall). 'Rose to power' just means 'The remains of the government became the Enclave'. I did say pre-war Enclave with this in mind. Suffice to say, they did do things. I wouldn't worry too much about it, althought it IS interesting that this discussion about the BoS should be so-troubled by what the Enclave itself is. Makes it hard to actually come to a solution on the subject at hand. doesn't it?

 

[Major_Tom]

Snippity-snip

I always assumed that, while many Enclave members were high-ranking government officials, the organisation itself wasn't actually part of the .gov. Kinda like Skull and Bones or some shit like that. But, yeah, we should probably stop now.

 

[Elfgore]

I say it mostly because they have the purist and more radical ideas in the Wasteland, not to mention they want copious amounts of nuclear weapons.... so extremely warlike and power hungry. This reminds me a lot of the Enclave who seem to have many of the similar viewpoints. Purity, radical views, and a shit ton of tech to back up those views.

It makes sense anyway, since they both come from similar origins.

 

[FalloutJack]

I say it mostly because they have the purist and more radical ideas in the Wasteland, not to mention they want copious amounts of nuclear weapons.... so extremely warlike and power hungry. This reminds me a lot of the Enclave who seem to have many of the similar viewpoints. Purity, radical views, and a shit ton of tech to back up those views.

It makes sense anyway, since they both come from similar origins.

If they're really that extreme, I think we have to wonder something. I've been watching the BoS throughout the games. They were distinctly secretive and reserved, but with good intentions for both people and the country in Fallout 2, more-so than the Enclave had been, who seem to regard humans as a commodity, disposable if they're wastelanders. True, they has a certain disdain for wastelanders in the BoS, less so for Vault Dwellers, but they didn't hate them. The New Vegas era Brotherhood seemed to be more like "The NCR isn't ready to wield the power of pre-war tech properly." than hating anyone. East Coast Outcasts regarded the Lone Wanderer as a doofus with their condescending attitude, but they would still do business with me.

The point I'm making is that perhaps what this discussing is proving is that either generations of Brotherhood members are getting more bitter...or that they're slowly going Winter Soldier here.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

If they're really that extreme, I think we have to wonder something. I've been watching the BoS throughout the games. They were distinctly secretive and reserved, but with good intentions for both people and the country in Fallout 2, more-so than the Enclave had been, who seem to regard humans as a commodity, disposable if they're wastelanders. True, they has a certain disdain for wastelanders in the BoS, less so for Vault Dwellers, but they didn't hate them. The New Vegas era Brotherhood seemed to be more like "The NCR isn't ready to wield the power of pre-war tech properly." than hating anyone. East Coast Outcasts regarded the Lone Wanderer as a doofus with their condescending attitude, but they would still do business with me.

The point I'm making is that perhaps what this discussing is proving is that either generations of Brotherhood members are getting more bitter...or that they're slowly going Winter Soldier here.

Keep in mind that the Brotherhood in Fallout were massive douche bags, who didn't hesitate to try and off the PC by sending them on a suicide mission to ground zero of a nuclear explosion. When the PC somehow survives they grudgingly keep their promise but still retain their asshole attitude, right up until the point where the PC turns out to be a great asset.
The BoS are more of a side note in Fo2, with their only presence being listening posts, and their main interaction with the PC is to use the PC as a proxy to try and bring down the Enclave without having to do the dirty work themselves.

The BoS has consistently been portrayed as elitist douches, who might not be hating anyone but has absolutely no quarrels about killing anyone who gets between them and their pre-war tech or just uses tech that the BoS feels rightfully belong to them. New Vegas shows whats happens when this claim to any tech from the pre-war period meets the inevitable return of civilization, forcing the BoS to either be more proactive (and thus more confrontational) or meet their slow demise withering away in their hideouts. So I wouldn't say more bitter as the BoS in Fallout 4 is the logical end point of a proactive Brotherhood, just as the BoS in New Vegas was the logical end point of a Brotherhood that remained isolationist.

 

[FalloutJack]

Zoop

I wouldn't say to the extent that you portray is how it's been. I would not be surprised by its current behavior if it were so severe. As for suicide missions, main characters get sent on such things for varied reasons all the time, in or out of this series. Snobbish behavior or not, the BoS has always been about dealing with threats and keeping an eye on all the pre-war tech. The clash here comes from the threat being people, people who aren't raiders where it becomes more ambiguous and black-and-gray morality. Remember, it was cruelty to humans that drove them from their posts in the old days. The BoS being very much sticklers for their rules and guidelines, it has not been their way to become that. So...if they have...the organization has been corrupted in some manner. I say that this is a serious mood shift if they are starting to think as Elfgore does. Not any chapter in the Brotherhood of Steel has been what Elfgore describes.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Id just like to chime in once again I think the BOS is a neutral organisation capable of doing both good and evil by adding it seems to entirely depend on who is at charge at the time. The Brotherhoods core tenant is just to scavenge pre-war tech, thats not inherently evil. Once you get to the question "Okay now what do we do with the tech?" It seems to fall entirely to the Elders discretion. So Maxon did bad, Lyons did good. But you could argue Maxon just charged in to save the human race without doing his homework.