Post by TheMaskedStranger on Mar 27, 2010 15:18:02 GMT -5
Alias:
Brotherhood of Steel
Leaders(s):
Roger Maxson
Maxson II
John Maxson (Fallout)
Jeremy Maxson
History:
The Brotherhood of Steel (BoS) is a techno-religious organization, with roots in the American military and government-sponsored scientific community from before the Great War. The Brotherhood is mostly composed of the descendants of those military officers, soldiers, and scientists, but aside from some outsiders among their ranks, the Brotherhood is as close to pure-strain humanity (prime normals).
The ranks of the BoS are generally recognized as being composed of the best and the brightest remaining to humanity, which means the BoS is a relatively small organization, at least compared to the New California Republic. They make up for this with their frightening arsenal of pre-and-post-Great War technology: they have laser weapons, Power Armor, surgical cybernetic enhancements, combat implants, and Brotherhood Paladins have the ability to erase an entire town from a map without a scratch. The vast majority of BoS members are born into the Brotherhood - they very rarely accept outsiders into their ranks. Those born in the Brotherhood that want to be neither Scribes, Knights nor Paladins are free to leave - the Brotherhood does not believe in forcing anyone to serve them against their will[1].
While they are generally not hostile to others without a good reason, members of the Brotherhood are not interested in justice for the obviously weaker and less fortunate Wastelanders around them. They largely focus on keeping their secrecy and preserving and developing technology, which, in many cases, they put above human life since technology is irreplaceable in the post-nuclear wastelands--but human lives are not. Their motives are often unclear, and Brotherhood members are not people to be trifled with. It is safe to say, however, that if a group of Brotherhood Paladins appears to be helping some less fortunate people, their motives are not altruistic.
Brotherhood Paladins fighting super mutants and raiders.The Brotherhood does not like to share their choicest technological bits with others, despite the obvious benefits their technology could bring to the Wasteland. It is a commonly accepted truism within the Brotherhood that the people of the Wasteland are not responsible enough to use (and maintain) all of the technology the BoS has at their disposal. They are known for trading some of their technologies with frontier communities and the states of the New California Republic in exchange for food and other resources, but they keep the more sensitive and advanced technologies to themselves.
While they have great reverence for technology, most of the Brotherhood members have little regard for non-technical fields of knowledge (and even for non-combat-related technology). Even most of the Scribes do not care about history, and some Brotherhood of Steel Initiates do not even know who Roger Maxson, the founder of the Brotherhood, was[2].
The Brotherhood's attitude towards mutants ranges from dislike (e.g. in the case of ghouls) to outright hostility (in the case of Super Mutants). Early contact with the Master's Super Mutants was mostly hostile, and the BoS helped drive the majority of the mutant armies away from California. The BoS grew angered when various salvaging operations began in the Glow, a location which the Brotherhood came to regard highly both for their fallen comrades and the pre-Great War technology located there, with Dayglow ghouls at the forefront. Most Brotherhood members see ghouls as filthy scavengers. In the years after the Master's defeat in the Core Region, many Super Mutants settled peacefully among humans and the Brotherhood was no longer hostile to them.
[edit] Mariposa
Mariposa Military BaseThe founder of the Brotherhood of Steel was Captain Roger Maxson of the United States Army. He was a member of a military team commanded by Colonel Robert Spindel, originally sent to the West-Tek research facility on January 3, 2076 by the U.S. Army to monitor the experiments being conducted there by West-Tek on behalf of the American government in the interest of national security. On January 7, 2077, all West-Tek military research was moved to the newly-constructed Mariposa Military Base, along with Spindel's team, to enhance the research's security.
On October 10, 2077 Captain Maxson and his men discovered, to their horror, that the West-Tek scientists at Mariposa were using military prisoners as involuntary test subjects in their experiments with the genetically-engineered Forced Evolutionary Virus. Morale in the base broke down, and Colonel Spindel suffered a mental breakdown, eventually committing suicide five days later. Captain Maxson's men turned to him for leadership in the midst of the crisis.
After interrogating Robert Anderson, the chief scientist on the West-Tek research team, and learning about the extent of their immoral scientific experiments on military prisoners, Maxson executed Anderson in disgust, and the other scientists soon followed their leader to the firing squad. Maxson, now in control of the entire Mariposa base, declared himself to be in full desertion from the U.S Army via radio on October 20, 2077. Strangely, he got no response from the Army chain-of-command, as the rest of the Army was too busy fighting the Chinese threat. Three days later,on October 23, 2077, the nuclear bombs and missiles of both sides were launched, and the Great War ended two hours after it started, with most of the Earth reduced to a radioactive wasteland.
[edit] ExodusThe Mariposa Military Base survived the nuclear exchange that devastated the United States, the soldiers within protected from the radiation and FEV flooding into the newly created Wasteland by the base's highly-effective nuclear, biological and chemical weapons protection protocols. Two days later at Mariposa, on October 25, 2077, an Army scout in Power Armor (Platner) was sent out to get specific readings on the atmosphere. He reported no significant amounts of radiation in the area surrounding the facility. After burying the bodies of the executed scientists in the wastes outside of Mariposa, the soldiers sealed the military base, then headed out into the desert, taking supplies and weapon schematics from the base with them. Captain Maxson led his men and their families to the government fallout bunker at Lost Hills in California, and this event was later called the Exodus. In November 2077, after a few weeks in the Wasteland, the soldiers and their families arrived at the Lost Hills bunker, suffering many casualties along the way from the terrible conditions of the Wasteland, including Maxson's wife (but not his teenage son). The Lost Hills bunker became the headquarters of the newly formed paramilitary organization that Maxson created and named the Brotherhood of Steel, intending to use its resources to eventually rebuild human civilization--no matter the cost.
[edit] Early yearsNot much is known about the early years of the Brotherhood of Steel. In 2134, a faction led by Sergeant Dennis Allen gained strength in the organization, and it urged the Brotherhood's Elders to let them explore the southeast ruins of the primary West-Tek Research Facility, now called the Glow after it was directly hit by a Chinese nuclear bomb, for technological artifacts. The Elders refused, so Sergeant Allen and his separatist faction split away from the Brotherhood of Steel, taking some advanced technology and weapons with them. Despite that, under the leadership of Roger Maxson, the Brotherhood grew in strength, further developing their technology, and the orders of Knights, Scribes, and Paladins were formed. In 2135, Roger Maxson died of cancer, and his son took over as the new High Elder of the Brotherhood.
[edit] Growing powerIn the 2150's, the Brotherhood established its control over the areas surrounding the Lost Hills bunker, becoming one of the major powers in the Core Region of the West Coast. Some time in the early 2150's a Raider group known as the Vipers began to establish a power base in the badlands to the south of the Lost Hills Bunker. Driven by a religious frenzy (and the need to provide for their much larger numbers of soldiers and disciples), they began raiding more frequently than before, eventually attracting the attention of the Brotherhood of Steel.
RhombusIn 2155, the Brotherhood sent out a few squads of scouts to track the Vipers down. This was more of a training exercise conducted by the High Elder than anything else, as the Brotherhood was convinced that a small detachment of troops in Power Armor would be sufficient to deal with a group of Raiders, no matter how large. One Brotherhood squad, led by High Elder Maxson, found the Vipers. Expecting the Raiders to break and run at the sight of soldiers in Power Armor, Maxson did not take into account the religious zeal and ferocity of the Vipers...or their poisoned weapons. A single arrow nicked him while his helmet was off, causing him to die a few short hours later. John Maxson, the grandson of Roger, took up the role of High Elder, and Rhombus became the new head of the Paladins and the order of Knights.
The Paladins, now led by Rhombus, began a full scale campaign against the Vipers, tracking them down and wiping out almost all of their members within the span of a month. Some of the Vipers were able to flee north and east into the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
During the campaign, the Brotherhood sent a few scouts and emissaries to the Hub to track down the Vipers' members, and from these beginnings, the Hub and the Brotherhood opened full trade relations (caravans had delivered to the Brotherhood before, but not long after the destruction of the Vipers, caravan trains ran directly from the Hub to the Brotherhood's headquarters at Lost Hills on a regular basis).
[edit] Super mutant threat
Harry the Super MutantSeveral years later, the Brotherhood were to face an enemy far greater than any band of Raiders. In October 2161, a Brotherhood of Steel patrol came across a dead Super Mutant in the badlands. They took the corpse back to the Scribes, and Head Scribe Vree began to study it. After several long examinations, it was shown to be completely sterile.
In February 2162, the Vault Dweller came to the Brotherhood's base at Lost Hills, wanting to join them. He was not taken seriously and sent on the usual fool's errand to the ruins of the West-Tek Research Facility, which was now called the Glow, after being hit by a Chinese nuclear bomb during the Great War. He surprised everyone by not only returning alive but carrying a holodisk with the record of a lost expedition of several Brotherhood Paladins to the Glow. As a result, he was the first outsider in a very long time to be accepted as a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, even though some prominent members of the Brotherhood resisted his joining the organization.
It was from the Vault Dweller that the Brotherhood learned about the Master's mutant army and his plans to turn all human survivors into Super Mutants. With the support of High Elder John Maxson, the Vault Dweller managed to convince the Council of Elders to send a squad of Paladins to the Mariposa Base (which had been, ironically, where the Brotherhood originated, although by that time even John Maxson did not remember it), where the Master's FEV vats were located. With the help of the Brotherhood, the Vault Dweller eventually managed to defeat the Master, and was never seen again in the Lost Hills bunker. The Brotherhood at this time appears to be the most technologically advanced faction encountered in the Core Region of the West Coast. Although the Super Mutant army and the Gun Runners have access to more advanced weaponry, the Brotherhood has a monopoly on Power Armor, certain medical technologies like cybernetics, and advanced supercomputers.
[edit] Midwestern BrotherhoodMain article: Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel
The following is based on Fallout Tactics and some details might contradict canon.
Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel symbolFollowing the defeat of the Master in the mid-twenty-second century, the Brotherhood's members eventually found themselves at odds with their need to recruit new blood into the organization versus their desire to maintain their code of technological secrecy from outsiders. The internal debate went on for some time. Finally, the Brotherhood Elders ruled against sharing any advanced technology with outsiders, convinced that they would ultimately use the technology for destruction and force humanity to once more endure terrible destruction like that of the Great War. Further discussion was discouraged and the Elders ordered the minority of Brotherhood members who favored sharing technology on a mission across the wastes. The Brotherhood constructed airships and dispatched the minority faction to the East, to track down and assess the extent of the remaining Super Mutant threat. Unfortunately, a great storm damaged the main airship and flung it far off its course. The mighty Brotherhood airship had been badly damaged. Smaller sections were torn from the main craft, never to be seen again. Many of the Brotherhood expedition's leaders were lost to the storm's winds. The fraction of the crew that survived struggled to keep their ship aloft before finally crashing on the outskirts of the blasted ruins of Chicago. The survivors of the Brotherhood expedition eventually formed an organization called the Midwestern Brotherhood, which diverged greatly from the ideals of the western Brotherhood. In time, they established a harsh rule over the towns and villages in the Chicago Wasteland area.[6]
In 2198, after myriad fights with countless Raider bands, a warlike technological cult known as the Reavers, and a Super Mutant army led by the mad Paladin Latham (who was a survivor of one of the other Brotherhood airships), the Midwestern Brotherhood eventually faced their greatest enemy - a robotic army commanded by the Calculator, who was the mad Artificial Intelligence of Vault Zero. Eventually, the robots were defeated and/or absorbed into the Midwestern Brotherhood's forces thanks to the individual known in Brotherhood legend only as the Warrior. Throughout the course of the war against the Calculator, the Midwestern Brotherhood lost many of its troops but in the process gain access to Vault Zero which also happened to be a storehouse of knowledge and pre-Great War technology. The Midwestern Brotherhood established Vault Zero as their main headquarters throughout the Midwestern Region. As of 2277, the Midwestern splinter faction of the Brotherhood consists of large detachments located in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas ,and Colorado. It has come into some contact with the original, West Coast Brotherhood, but it refused to accept the authority of the Lost Hills Elders. Thus, the Midwestern Brotherhood is considered to be a "rogue" faction by the rest of the Brotherhood of Steel on both the West and East Coasts.
End of information based on Fallout Tactics.
[edit] Aftermath
Texas Brotherhood of Steel symbol The following is based on Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and has not been confirmed by canon sources.
After the death of Roger Maxson's son, Maxson II, Rhombus, the head of the Paladins and the Brotherhood's order of Knights, became the new High Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel. After the death of the Master in 2162, the Brotherhood of Steel helped the other human outposts of the Core Region on the West Coast drive the mutant armies away with minimal loss of life on both sides of the conflict. However, a Super Mutant faction under the leadership of Attis moved east and attempted to recreate the mutant army in Texas using the Secret Vault. The Brotherhood organized a crusade against this faction (the reason for this is probably a desire to gain vengeance for their losses, as Attis was known to particularly relish killing members of the Brotherhood in gruesome ways). The leader of this Brotherhood crusade was High Elder Rhombus himself.
End of information based on Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.
[edit] Decline
A Brotherhood bunker in NCRAfter the defeat of the Master in the mid-twenty-second century, the Brotherhood had become a shadow of its former self. By 2241, they are no longer the sole custodian of advanced technology in the Core Region Wasteland. After they first encountered the Enclave, they started to raise small bunkers in various cities throughout Northern California, and in 2242 they eventually came across the Chosen One, the grandchild of the Vault Dweller who, with the Brotherhood's help, had destroyed the Master in 2162. They sent him to Navarro to retrieve Vertibird plans for them, but it is not known if they eventually received them.
The Brotherhood played a much less direct role in the Chosen One's fight against the Enclave, with their only presence in Northern California being three small outposts, each with a single guard. Of these, only the San Francisco bunker contained anything of interest. No longer the most advanced faction in the Core Region with the arrival of the Enclave, the Brotherhood lost its monopoly on Power Armor as the Shi also had access to working suits. Though aside from other rare instances, only the Enclave seems to use them. Although the Brotherhood's technological levels did not seem to have advanced at all in the 80 years following the defeat of the Master, from what little can be seen, they still possessed advanced weapons and medical technology.
[edit] War with the New California Republic The following is based on Van Buren and has not been confirmed by canon sources.
In the 2250's, the Brotherhood of Steel leadership, led by High Elder Jeremy Maxson, favored a return to power in the Core Region by wresting all advanced technology from the hands of "lesser people" by any means necessary. This attitude did not win them any friends, and because many in the Brotherhood disagreed with such brutal and aggressive methods, the whole organization was on the verge of a civil war.
In the year 2242, Jeremy Maxson renamed Peterson's bunker, found by Andrea Brixley's expedition in 2231, after his famous ancestor, Roger Maxson, the founder of the Brotherhood. He then sent a full complement of Brotherhood troops to occupy the bunker. Brixley was promoted to the position of Elder, given the rank of General, and placed in charge of the occupation. The remainder of her exploratory team was given the title of Elder as well. It was not long afterward that the Brotherhood's war with the New California Republic (NCR) was announced.
For years the war waged on and was considered a victory for the Brotherhood of Steel. However, no matter how many NCR troops fell to the Brotherhood's superior technology, the NCR always seemed to have more replacements available. The Brotherhood, however, was not so fortunate. Being an elitist group, replacements for lost Brotherhood Knights were always short in arriving. It soon became obvious that the Brotherhood was doomed to lose the war to the NCR's greater numbers. Morale at the bunker began to falter as the war seemed more and more hopeless. Eventually the inevitable happened. Lower ranking members of the Brotherhood began to desert their posts.
In an effort to end the war once and for all, the Brotherhood began to use newly discovered subversive technology known as Stealth Boys. These devices could create a field of gravitic energy that would bend visible light waves around the user, thus making him virtually invisible to sight. This allowed Brotherhood operatives to penetrate deep into NCR territory for the gathering of intelligence. However, it was soon discovered that the devices had severe side effects on human cerebral tissue. Paranoia, delusions, and eventual schizophrenia were the major symptoms. The Brotherhood disallowed the use of Stealth Boys and once again fell behind in their war effort.
At the present time the Brotherhood of Steel is facing yet another major problem. The side effects of the Stealth Boys were not discovered until the team using them had already begun to feel their deleterious effect. When the team was disbanded, paranoia over the reason for the end of their mission began to set in and the team plotted against their leaders. They stole the Stealth Boys, fled the bunker as deserters, and formed a covert paramilitary group known as the Circle of Steel. The goal of the Circle of Steel is to recover lost technology and rebuild the glory of the Brotherhood in the Core Region--at any cost.
Brotherhood of Steel
Leaders(s):
Roger Maxson
Maxson II
John Maxson (Fallout)
Jeremy Maxson
History:
The Brotherhood of Steel (BoS) is a techno-religious organization, with roots in the American military and government-sponsored scientific community from before the Great War. The Brotherhood is mostly composed of the descendants of those military officers, soldiers, and scientists, but aside from some outsiders among their ranks, the Brotherhood is as close to pure-strain humanity (prime normals).
The ranks of the BoS are generally recognized as being composed of the best and the brightest remaining to humanity, which means the BoS is a relatively small organization, at least compared to the New California Republic. They make up for this with their frightening arsenal of pre-and-post-Great War technology: they have laser weapons, Power Armor, surgical cybernetic enhancements, combat implants, and Brotherhood Paladins have the ability to erase an entire town from a map without a scratch. The vast majority of BoS members are born into the Brotherhood - they very rarely accept outsiders into their ranks. Those born in the Brotherhood that want to be neither Scribes, Knights nor Paladins are free to leave - the Brotherhood does not believe in forcing anyone to serve them against their will[1].
While they are generally not hostile to others without a good reason, members of the Brotherhood are not interested in justice for the obviously weaker and less fortunate Wastelanders around them. They largely focus on keeping their secrecy and preserving and developing technology, which, in many cases, they put above human life since technology is irreplaceable in the post-nuclear wastelands--but human lives are not. Their motives are often unclear, and Brotherhood members are not people to be trifled with. It is safe to say, however, that if a group of Brotherhood Paladins appears to be helping some less fortunate people, their motives are not altruistic.
Brotherhood Paladins fighting super mutants and raiders.The Brotherhood does not like to share their choicest technological bits with others, despite the obvious benefits their technology could bring to the Wasteland. It is a commonly accepted truism within the Brotherhood that the people of the Wasteland are not responsible enough to use (and maintain) all of the technology the BoS has at their disposal. They are known for trading some of their technologies with frontier communities and the states of the New California Republic in exchange for food and other resources, but they keep the more sensitive and advanced technologies to themselves.
While they have great reverence for technology, most of the Brotherhood members have little regard for non-technical fields of knowledge (and even for non-combat-related technology). Even most of the Scribes do not care about history, and some Brotherhood of Steel Initiates do not even know who Roger Maxson, the founder of the Brotherhood, was[2].
The Brotherhood's attitude towards mutants ranges from dislike (e.g. in the case of ghouls) to outright hostility (in the case of Super Mutants). Early contact with the Master's Super Mutants was mostly hostile, and the BoS helped drive the majority of the mutant armies away from California. The BoS grew angered when various salvaging operations began in the Glow, a location which the Brotherhood came to regard highly both for their fallen comrades and the pre-Great War technology located there, with Dayglow ghouls at the forefront. Most Brotherhood members see ghouls as filthy scavengers. In the years after the Master's defeat in the Core Region, many Super Mutants settled peacefully among humans and the Brotherhood was no longer hostile to them.
[edit] Mariposa
Mariposa Military BaseThe founder of the Brotherhood of Steel was Captain Roger Maxson of the United States Army. He was a member of a military team commanded by Colonel Robert Spindel, originally sent to the West-Tek research facility on January 3, 2076 by the U.S. Army to monitor the experiments being conducted there by West-Tek on behalf of the American government in the interest of national security. On January 7, 2077, all West-Tek military research was moved to the newly-constructed Mariposa Military Base, along with Spindel's team, to enhance the research's security.
On October 10, 2077 Captain Maxson and his men discovered, to their horror, that the West-Tek scientists at Mariposa were using military prisoners as involuntary test subjects in their experiments with the genetically-engineered Forced Evolutionary Virus. Morale in the base broke down, and Colonel Spindel suffered a mental breakdown, eventually committing suicide five days later. Captain Maxson's men turned to him for leadership in the midst of the crisis.
After interrogating Robert Anderson, the chief scientist on the West-Tek research team, and learning about the extent of their immoral scientific experiments on military prisoners, Maxson executed Anderson in disgust, and the other scientists soon followed their leader to the firing squad. Maxson, now in control of the entire Mariposa base, declared himself to be in full desertion from the U.S Army via radio on October 20, 2077. Strangely, he got no response from the Army chain-of-command, as the rest of the Army was too busy fighting the Chinese threat. Three days later,on October 23, 2077, the nuclear bombs and missiles of both sides were launched, and the Great War ended two hours after it started, with most of the Earth reduced to a radioactive wasteland.
[edit] ExodusThe Mariposa Military Base survived the nuclear exchange that devastated the United States, the soldiers within protected from the radiation and FEV flooding into the newly created Wasteland by the base's highly-effective nuclear, biological and chemical weapons protection protocols. Two days later at Mariposa, on October 25, 2077, an Army scout in Power Armor (Platner) was sent out to get specific readings on the atmosphere. He reported no significant amounts of radiation in the area surrounding the facility. After burying the bodies of the executed scientists in the wastes outside of Mariposa, the soldiers sealed the military base, then headed out into the desert, taking supplies and weapon schematics from the base with them. Captain Maxson led his men and their families to the government fallout bunker at Lost Hills in California, and this event was later called the Exodus. In November 2077, after a few weeks in the Wasteland, the soldiers and their families arrived at the Lost Hills bunker, suffering many casualties along the way from the terrible conditions of the Wasteland, including Maxson's wife (but not his teenage son). The Lost Hills bunker became the headquarters of the newly formed paramilitary organization that Maxson created and named the Brotherhood of Steel, intending to use its resources to eventually rebuild human civilization--no matter the cost.
[edit] Early yearsNot much is known about the early years of the Brotherhood of Steel. In 2134, a faction led by Sergeant Dennis Allen gained strength in the organization, and it urged the Brotherhood's Elders to let them explore the southeast ruins of the primary West-Tek Research Facility, now called the Glow after it was directly hit by a Chinese nuclear bomb, for technological artifacts. The Elders refused, so Sergeant Allen and his separatist faction split away from the Brotherhood of Steel, taking some advanced technology and weapons with them. Despite that, under the leadership of Roger Maxson, the Brotherhood grew in strength, further developing their technology, and the orders of Knights, Scribes, and Paladins were formed. In 2135, Roger Maxson died of cancer, and his son took over as the new High Elder of the Brotherhood.
[edit] Growing powerIn the 2150's, the Brotherhood established its control over the areas surrounding the Lost Hills bunker, becoming one of the major powers in the Core Region of the West Coast. Some time in the early 2150's a Raider group known as the Vipers began to establish a power base in the badlands to the south of the Lost Hills Bunker. Driven by a religious frenzy (and the need to provide for their much larger numbers of soldiers and disciples), they began raiding more frequently than before, eventually attracting the attention of the Brotherhood of Steel.
RhombusIn 2155, the Brotherhood sent out a few squads of scouts to track the Vipers down. This was more of a training exercise conducted by the High Elder than anything else, as the Brotherhood was convinced that a small detachment of troops in Power Armor would be sufficient to deal with a group of Raiders, no matter how large. One Brotherhood squad, led by High Elder Maxson, found the Vipers. Expecting the Raiders to break and run at the sight of soldiers in Power Armor, Maxson did not take into account the religious zeal and ferocity of the Vipers...or their poisoned weapons. A single arrow nicked him while his helmet was off, causing him to die a few short hours later. John Maxson, the grandson of Roger, took up the role of High Elder, and Rhombus became the new head of the Paladins and the order of Knights.
The Paladins, now led by Rhombus, began a full scale campaign against the Vipers, tracking them down and wiping out almost all of their members within the span of a month. Some of the Vipers were able to flee north and east into the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
During the campaign, the Brotherhood sent a few scouts and emissaries to the Hub to track down the Vipers' members, and from these beginnings, the Hub and the Brotherhood opened full trade relations (caravans had delivered to the Brotherhood before, but not long after the destruction of the Vipers, caravan trains ran directly from the Hub to the Brotherhood's headquarters at Lost Hills on a regular basis).
[edit] Super mutant threat
Harry the Super MutantSeveral years later, the Brotherhood were to face an enemy far greater than any band of Raiders. In October 2161, a Brotherhood of Steel patrol came across a dead Super Mutant in the badlands. They took the corpse back to the Scribes, and Head Scribe Vree began to study it. After several long examinations, it was shown to be completely sterile.
In February 2162, the Vault Dweller came to the Brotherhood's base at Lost Hills, wanting to join them. He was not taken seriously and sent on the usual fool's errand to the ruins of the West-Tek Research Facility, which was now called the Glow, after being hit by a Chinese nuclear bomb during the Great War. He surprised everyone by not only returning alive but carrying a holodisk with the record of a lost expedition of several Brotherhood Paladins to the Glow. As a result, he was the first outsider in a very long time to be accepted as a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, even though some prominent members of the Brotherhood resisted his joining the organization.
It was from the Vault Dweller that the Brotherhood learned about the Master's mutant army and his plans to turn all human survivors into Super Mutants. With the support of High Elder John Maxson, the Vault Dweller managed to convince the Council of Elders to send a squad of Paladins to the Mariposa Base (which had been, ironically, where the Brotherhood originated, although by that time even John Maxson did not remember it), where the Master's FEV vats were located. With the help of the Brotherhood, the Vault Dweller eventually managed to defeat the Master, and was never seen again in the Lost Hills bunker. The Brotherhood at this time appears to be the most technologically advanced faction encountered in the Core Region of the West Coast. Although the Super Mutant army and the Gun Runners have access to more advanced weaponry, the Brotherhood has a monopoly on Power Armor, certain medical technologies like cybernetics, and advanced supercomputers.
[edit] Midwestern BrotherhoodMain article: Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel
The following is based on Fallout Tactics and some details might contradict canon.
Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel symbolFollowing the defeat of the Master in the mid-twenty-second century, the Brotherhood's members eventually found themselves at odds with their need to recruit new blood into the organization versus their desire to maintain their code of technological secrecy from outsiders. The internal debate went on for some time. Finally, the Brotherhood Elders ruled against sharing any advanced technology with outsiders, convinced that they would ultimately use the technology for destruction and force humanity to once more endure terrible destruction like that of the Great War. Further discussion was discouraged and the Elders ordered the minority of Brotherhood members who favored sharing technology on a mission across the wastes. The Brotherhood constructed airships and dispatched the minority faction to the East, to track down and assess the extent of the remaining Super Mutant threat. Unfortunately, a great storm damaged the main airship and flung it far off its course. The mighty Brotherhood airship had been badly damaged. Smaller sections were torn from the main craft, never to be seen again. Many of the Brotherhood expedition's leaders were lost to the storm's winds. The fraction of the crew that survived struggled to keep their ship aloft before finally crashing on the outskirts of the blasted ruins of Chicago. The survivors of the Brotherhood expedition eventually formed an organization called the Midwestern Brotherhood, which diverged greatly from the ideals of the western Brotherhood. In time, they established a harsh rule over the towns and villages in the Chicago Wasteland area.[6]
In 2198, after myriad fights with countless Raider bands, a warlike technological cult known as the Reavers, and a Super Mutant army led by the mad Paladin Latham (who was a survivor of one of the other Brotherhood airships), the Midwestern Brotherhood eventually faced their greatest enemy - a robotic army commanded by the Calculator, who was the mad Artificial Intelligence of Vault Zero. Eventually, the robots were defeated and/or absorbed into the Midwestern Brotherhood's forces thanks to the individual known in Brotherhood legend only as the Warrior. Throughout the course of the war against the Calculator, the Midwestern Brotherhood lost many of its troops but in the process gain access to Vault Zero which also happened to be a storehouse of knowledge and pre-Great War technology. The Midwestern Brotherhood established Vault Zero as their main headquarters throughout the Midwestern Region. As of 2277, the Midwestern splinter faction of the Brotherhood consists of large detachments located in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas ,and Colorado. It has come into some contact with the original, West Coast Brotherhood, but it refused to accept the authority of the Lost Hills Elders. Thus, the Midwestern Brotherhood is considered to be a "rogue" faction by the rest of the Brotherhood of Steel on both the West and East Coasts.
End of information based on Fallout Tactics.
[edit] Aftermath
Texas Brotherhood of Steel symbol The following is based on Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and has not been confirmed by canon sources.
After the death of Roger Maxson's son, Maxson II, Rhombus, the head of the Paladins and the Brotherhood's order of Knights, became the new High Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel. After the death of the Master in 2162, the Brotherhood of Steel helped the other human outposts of the Core Region on the West Coast drive the mutant armies away with minimal loss of life on both sides of the conflict. However, a Super Mutant faction under the leadership of Attis moved east and attempted to recreate the mutant army in Texas using the Secret Vault. The Brotherhood organized a crusade against this faction (the reason for this is probably a desire to gain vengeance for their losses, as Attis was known to particularly relish killing members of the Brotherhood in gruesome ways). The leader of this Brotherhood crusade was High Elder Rhombus himself.
End of information based on Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.
[edit] Decline
A Brotherhood bunker in NCRAfter the defeat of the Master in the mid-twenty-second century, the Brotherhood had become a shadow of its former self. By 2241, they are no longer the sole custodian of advanced technology in the Core Region Wasteland. After they first encountered the Enclave, they started to raise small bunkers in various cities throughout Northern California, and in 2242 they eventually came across the Chosen One, the grandchild of the Vault Dweller who, with the Brotherhood's help, had destroyed the Master in 2162. They sent him to Navarro to retrieve Vertibird plans for them, but it is not known if they eventually received them.
The Brotherhood played a much less direct role in the Chosen One's fight against the Enclave, with their only presence in Northern California being three small outposts, each with a single guard. Of these, only the San Francisco bunker contained anything of interest. No longer the most advanced faction in the Core Region with the arrival of the Enclave, the Brotherhood lost its monopoly on Power Armor as the Shi also had access to working suits. Though aside from other rare instances, only the Enclave seems to use them. Although the Brotherhood's technological levels did not seem to have advanced at all in the 80 years following the defeat of the Master, from what little can be seen, they still possessed advanced weapons and medical technology.
[edit] War with the New California Republic The following is based on Van Buren and has not been confirmed by canon sources.
In the 2250's, the Brotherhood of Steel leadership, led by High Elder Jeremy Maxson, favored a return to power in the Core Region by wresting all advanced technology from the hands of "lesser people" by any means necessary. This attitude did not win them any friends, and because many in the Brotherhood disagreed with such brutal and aggressive methods, the whole organization was on the verge of a civil war.
In the year 2242, Jeremy Maxson renamed Peterson's bunker, found by Andrea Brixley's expedition in 2231, after his famous ancestor, Roger Maxson, the founder of the Brotherhood. He then sent a full complement of Brotherhood troops to occupy the bunker. Brixley was promoted to the position of Elder, given the rank of General, and placed in charge of the occupation. The remainder of her exploratory team was given the title of Elder as well. It was not long afterward that the Brotherhood's war with the New California Republic (NCR) was announced.
For years the war waged on and was considered a victory for the Brotherhood of Steel. However, no matter how many NCR troops fell to the Brotherhood's superior technology, the NCR always seemed to have more replacements available. The Brotherhood, however, was not so fortunate. Being an elitist group, replacements for lost Brotherhood Knights were always short in arriving. It soon became obvious that the Brotherhood was doomed to lose the war to the NCR's greater numbers. Morale at the bunker began to falter as the war seemed more and more hopeless. Eventually the inevitable happened. Lower ranking members of the Brotherhood began to desert their posts.
In an effort to end the war once and for all, the Brotherhood began to use newly discovered subversive technology known as Stealth Boys. These devices could create a field of gravitic energy that would bend visible light waves around the user, thus making him virtually invisible to sight. This allowed Brotherhood operatives to penetrate deep into NCR territory for the gathering of intelligence. However, it was soon discovered that the devices had severe side effects on human cerebral tissue. Paranoia, delusions, and eventual schizophrenia were the major symptoms. The Brotherhood disallowed the use of Stealth Boys and once again fell behind in their war effort.
At the present time the Brotherhood of Steel is facing yet another major problem. The side effects of the Stealth Boys were not discovered until the team using them had already begun to feel their deleterious effect. When the team was disbanded, paranoia over the reason for the end of their mission began to set in and the team plotted against their leaders. They stole the Stealth Boys, fled the bunker as deserters, and formed a covert paramilitary group known as the Circle of Steel. The goal of the Circle of Steel is to recover lost technology and rebuild the glory of the Brotherhood in the Core Region--at any cost.