419: Fallout 3: Were the Brotherhood Outcasts Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Fallout lorecast. [SPEAKER_00]: The podcast that explores the boundaries of our knowledge about the world of Fallout. [SPEAKER_00]: With Fallout 3 remaster, just around the corner, and I'd say just around the corner not knowing exactly when it's going to drop, but I would assume within the next year, it's time to start doing some Fallout 3 specific episodes where we'll be digging into the lore and details of events [SPEAKER_00]: make sense, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm putting this at the beginning just to warn you if you're somebody who is avoiding spoilers because you haven't played through Fallout 3 and you you like kind of the broad lore, but you're expecting to play the remaster version and get fresh eyes on everything. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, then they're absolutely will be spoilers.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what's new? [SPEAKER_00]: This is a lore podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what you get, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So I just wanted to say that up front to, and that doesn't mean that I won't be continuing some of the other things I've been working on, like going through all the pre-war businesses and stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still going to make some stuff in, and like I said, we don't know when the game's going to drop. [SPEAKER_00]: So these episodes will be out there, and who knows, if the game drops next week, which I don't think it will, but if it does, then I'll have barely gotten the head start, but I'll continue to talk about Fallout 3 stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to start this off with three gunshots and three beeps and boops, because [SPEAKER_00]: So here's a question for you. [SPEAKER_00]: What do you do when your beliefs or your traditions no longer match? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the world out there, the reality of the situation, the information that you've been getting are seem to just make things worse.

[SPEAKER_00]: I pose this question because I want to start us out with seeing the situation of the capital wasteland with the brotherhood of steel through the eyes of elder lions. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, we're all familiar with the Brotherhood. [SPEAKER_00]: They have a number of tenants, things that they believe about the world, about their mission, about the things they're willing to do and the things they're not willing to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of those things is collecting technology. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, you might argue that their biggest purpose is to collect, [SPEAKER_00]: pre-war technology and to keep it out of the hands of the people that it might actually hurt, more than it will help. [SPEAKER_00]: Now following along with this is a general distrust of outsiders, if you're part of the brotherhood, then you are one of the brotherhood, but if you come from some other place and you have no connections to the brotherhood, then in a lot of different times and places, those brotherhood groups of each of those [SPEAKER_00]: time periods or locations would be very against allowing you to be part of the brotherhood of steel.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you were not a descendant of already existing members, then there was no way for you to get involved with the brotherhood outside of, say, trading partners and things like that, but you were still an outsider. [SPEAKER_00]: There's this general distrust of regular wastelanders, not because they're [SPEAKER_00]: Well, maybe they do sometimes view them as lesser than, but not as much as, say, the on-clave does.

[SPEAKER_00]: But more because they're insular. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's probably the right word describe it. [SPEAKER_00]: They keep to themselves. [SPEAKER_00]: They only trust themselves. [SPEAKER_00]: And although the general belief in this idea of gatekeeping technology is to keep [SPEAKER_00]: the people at large safer, there's definitely an insular thing going on here.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's an us and them thing, and that's kind of inherent to a lot of the brotherhood throughout time. [SPEAKER_00]: Also, similarly, there's a general version [SPEAKER_00]: to mutated abominations however you decide to define that, oftentimes that's super mutants, of course, but sometimes that extends to ghouls.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, most of the time there's a general distrust of ghouls as being both outsiders and mutants at the same time. [SPEAKER_00]: Now you can probably see where this is going. [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine you're in the shoes of elder lions, and you're dealing with a group of the [SPEAKER_00]: great difficulty from the west coast to the east coast, to the previous capital of the United States of America, where they are expecting to find all sorts of technological riches.

[SPEAKER_00]: But along the way, they've realized that this part of the wasteland and the journey getting here were both more dangerous and difficult than they would have expected, and when they get to the [SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is a group that is journeyed along distance, including through the ruins of Pittsburgh, the pit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they've had to deal with a lot of issues, but you also have to keep in mind. [SPEAKER_00]: And this might just be speculation on my part because I haven't found a specific line validating this, but as we know about Supermunes, primarily, they seem to have been a West Coast thing. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, in retrospect, with the events of Fallout 76 being added much later, we now know that they were in Appalachia as well, but at the publishing of this game, when this game came out in the lore, this would have been a surprise.

[SPEAKER_00]: until this group makes their way to the capital wasteland and discovers a completely different breed of super mutants overrunning the ruins. [SPEAKER_00]: And of course they expected to find ruins, they expected that D.C. would be a highly volatile and, well, bomb to hell kind of place because it was the capital during a war where bombs fell on all the major cities.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we at least know that the sheer number of supermune's the amount of infestation in this area was a surprise, not just a lion's, but the rest of the brothers. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the first time I've called the brotherhood the brothers, but you know where I'm going with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So from Elder Lion's perspective, he is in a difficult situation. [SPEAKER_00]: His numbers have been reduced. [SPEAKER_00]: and the greatest threat of the current situation that is stopping him from achieving the original goals of finding the technology that they were hoping to find here is the Super Mutant threat.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so he has to make a decision. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he makes a few different decisions. [SPEAKER_00]: First and foremost, the removal of the Super Mutants. [SPEAKER_00]: They are not just a problem for the Brotherhood, although they are a significant problem for them, but for the other people in this area, [SPEAKER_00]: And if they're going to negotiate and build trust with the people in this area, in order to get information from them or to get the technology they found from them, then it would make sense that by doing altruistic things, like clearing the super mutants and making that no longer a problem for these people, that would be a huge bargaining chip.

[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, the numbers are dwindling. [SPEAKER_00]: They are a remote group on the complete opposite side of the country from the rest of the brotherhood that they're aware of. [SPEAKER_00]: They were hoping to meet up with the Midwest brotherhood, but they seem to have disappeared, and there's rumor that they [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe when rogue, or were completely eliminated somehow.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here they are, thousands of miles across the country alone, without a reliable way to refill their numbers and dealing with a super mutant threat that they didn't expect. [SPEAKER_00]: And so another thing that Lion's does is he opens up recruitment into the brotherhood from local wastelanders.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this was an extremely contentious decision, not just among the brotherhood that was in the east coast, but the west coast as well. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, they almost decided to call this group rogue, but they decided against it, but they still weren't pleased. [SPEAKER_00]: Although they confirmed still that Elder Lions was the leader of the DC headquarters at the Citadel and the brotherhood on the east coast, [SPEAKER_00]: But due to these decisions, they would not get support from the West Coast, which seems to make sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, put the pieces together here. [SPEAKER_00]: How long would it take reinforcements from the West Coast to make it all the way across the country? [SPEAKER_00]: It would have been another difficult journey. [SPEAKER_00]: Many of them would have been killed or run across other problems along the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would have been difficult to reinforce them anyway. [SPEAKER_00]: But others saw this as a good thing. [SPEAKER_00]: They saw the decisions that Elder Lions was making as being highly rational, but also aligning with a moral agenda that the brotherhood should have always had to be more focused on the general well-being of the wasteland and the people of the wasteland.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were even some on the west coast who felt the same way. [SPEAKER_00]: And this probably kept [SPEAKER_00]: lines from being labeled as a deserter and as this group becoming outsiders themselves, and among the individuals who were underneath elder lions, things were mixed. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of the group, the majority of the group was still on board with him and his decisions and wanted to see how things played out, but there was a group that was not happy about this at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now you have to remember, the people who are here, the brotherhood members who have made it all the way [SPEAKER_00]: a number of conflicts together. [SPEAKER_00]: They've bonded over it. [SPEAKER_00]: They know each other very well, but yet there was still a portion of these people who were losing faith in lions as a leader.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paladin Henry Cazden is the one who spoke out first. [SPEAKER_00]: And he soon realized that Elder Lions wasn't going to change. [SPEAKER_00]: His decisions were final, and there was no negotiation about these things. [SPEAKER_00]: And because Cazden and a number of others believed so strongly in making technology and the acquisition of the technology, a priority, and closing the doors to outsiders joining the group.

[SPEAKER_00]: They decided to leave, and with them went stockpiles of ammunition, weapons, armor, enough people left that the losses were greater to the dissenting group separating from this group than the number of people they had lost making their way to the east coast, and in their fighting with the supermune's up to this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's view this from Casten and the Outcast's perspective. [SPEAKER_00]: Elder Lions is going against in their minds the main point of the brotherhood, the acquisition of technology, and he's wasting their time and their lives and their ammunition and their equipment fighting the super mutants.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Cassin's mind, they should be closed to the outsiders, they shouldn't worry so much about any of the wastelanders out there dealing with the super mutant threat, although that's a problem, and they should reprioritize around getting the technology. [SPEAKER_00]: And Cassin knows that there's locations where there is technology that he thinks would be a lot easier to get to.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would imagine the equation's kind of like this. [SPEAKER_00]: you get enough new technology that bolsters the power of the brotherhood members who are still there and then they can deal with whatever threats they need to to get even more powerful technology. [SPEAKER_00]: So you make that the priority.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas Lyons is thinking the other way around, you remove the dangers that are in the way you bolster your numbers with wastelanders and then eventually the [SPEAKER_00]: Other than the fact that he's opening up the doors to people in the wasteland joining the brotherhood, the priorities are still the same.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're just in a different order. [SPEAKER_00]: So the next thing that Kazden and the Outcast do is to take fork independence. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is a location that they were aware of that they haven't put the work into actually acquiring yet. [SPEAKER_00]: And so this becomes the Outcast base of command.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now in order to take this, they have to [SPEAKER_00]: Destroy the Raiders who are already there, but this goes as planned, and they acquire the location, the technology at the location, and set up their new headquarters. [SPEAKER_00]: They also make some other changes. [SPEAKER_00]: You can clearly tell who is a brotherhood outcast because of the color of their armor.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have painted black and red on their T-45 power armor. [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember playing this game when it came out, and the first time I came across some of these brotherhood members, wondering why they looked so different, and they seemed more sinister, they made fun of my character when I first talked to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And although they didn't attack right off the bat, although I do think I'm pretty sure I came into some conflict with them at some point. [SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, if you respond negatively back to them, sometimes that's enough for them to attack you on site. [SPEAKER_00]: But I remember finding them to not only be rude, but just more intimidating and wondering what their deal was at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, when you find them walking around the wasteland, and this is one of those details that's really interesting, often times you'll find them near locations that seem to have technology in them. [SPEAKER_00]: They may not actually be [SPEAKER_00]: at those locations, but they're more likely to spawn into the game as these random encounters when you are near these types of locations, and sometimes you'll find them with not just three brotherhood members, which is usually the number you come across, but sometimes it's two and a robot.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then the reason they do that is because they can't bolster their ranks without ciders, with wastelanders, so they have been using the robots that they've been finding to fill out their ranks and to keep their numbers up. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, they're at 100% hostile towards wastelanders either, they tend to [SPEAKER_00]: at least treat them neutrally, unless I guess they get insulted, but they do trade with them at times and will make trades in order to get technology that they find valuable away from those wastelanders.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for the most part, they tend to follow general, more traditional, brotherhood tenants. [SPEAKER_00]: If they come across super mutants or other dangers in the wasteland, they'll open fire. [SPEAKER_00]: They do not avoid a fight necessarily, but they also don't prioritize going after super mutants.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another thing that they're doing is that they're trying to reconnect with the Lost Hills chapter over on the West Coast, because that is the primary command still. [SPEAKER_00]: They see themselves as being true members of the Brotherhood, and as lions in his group as being the outcasts.

[SPEAKER_00]: and they believe that if they can get back in contact with the main brotherhood they can convince them to court martial lions and eventually get back control of running the brotherhood on the east coast and in the DC area. [SPEAKER_00]: Now you might ask why don't they just travel back to the west coast?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a long journey, it's dangerous, but if they can't seem to get in contact with them from a distance then why not just go back to the west coast? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, remember, their main priority is the acquisition and protection of technology. [SPEAKER_00]: And when they took fort independence, they came across a stash of technology that they can't leave behind.

[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have the means to take it with them. [SPEAKER_00]: And if they leave it here, then it will either fall into the bands of lions in his brotherhood or worse. [SPEAKER_00]: somebody else, wastelanders, be on-clave, super mutants, so instead of leaving, they decide to stay. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's an interesting detail because they do consider themselves still true to the beliefs of the Brotherhood and yet they have made some changes which seem to differentiate them from the Brotherhood and maybe this was necessary so that they weren't confused as part of Lion's group with the area that they're in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did I say area? [SPEAKER_00]: I've been hanging out with the Lotus of Doom on the Elder Scrolls lore cats too much, he's from Boston. [SPEAKER_00]: But from that area, including the way their symbols look. [SPEAKER_00]: The original Brotherhood, of course, has the sword and the three gears and the wings and their symbol.

[SPEAKER_00]: The outcast symbol removes the wings and leaves just one gear by sected by a sword. [SPEAKER_00]: This is clearly no longer the traditional Brotherhood insignia, and my guess is that if they were reconnected with the Western Brotherhood, they would give up their new symbol and take back the original symbol for themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, you could make the argument that the East Coast and the West Coast symbols are inverted. [SPEAKER_00]: They're kind of flipped. [SPEAKER_00]: horizontally from each other so they're not identical and so they're still just differentiating themselves from the east coast version but then why not take back the west coast version and flip the symbol but then again on a flag flying or on a symbol you may not notice it's kind of a minor detail but that's not the only detail they've changed they changed the ranks [SPEAKER_00]: Traditionally the brother it has its different groups, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: There's the combat and operations order. [SPEAKER_00]: The Knights, the Paladins, even the Lancers. [SPEAKER_00]: There's the intellectuals among them, the scribes who are scientists and researchers, or they're the ones who got an explore things in order to find what's there and less about clearing out the bad things and shooting stuff and more about discovery and uncovering history and technology.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's, of course, the leaders, elders, [SPEAKER_00]: And the outcasts get rid of all of that. [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, you have defenders. [SPEAKER_00]: These are the common soldiers of the group. [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's the highest level, the leadership, which are called protectors.

[SPEAKER_00]: And instead of scribes, you have specialists, these are the scientists and the engineers. [SPEAKER_00]: So similar, less types of different definitions, and you have to remember, they had less people. [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe this was all they needed. [SPEAKER_00]: So we've taken this from two different perspectives.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's lines perspective and why he was doing what he was doing, which by the way, by the time you're at the end of Fallout 3, seems to be working out, at least with the help of the player character, in fighting back against the on-clave, in supporting project purity for the wasteland, and in utilizing the most important technology that the brotherhood has found to this point, Liberty Prime.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you might take issue with lines kind of refocusing the ideology a little bit and letting in wastelanders, but it works, at least it works this time, so there has to be something there, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Now, not everything's perfect. [SPEAKER_00]: You can't say everything worked perfectly, but it worked out in the end, and that's got to be worth something, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately, this schism is another way to [SPEAKER_00]: But it seems to have been solved by a number of just things that happened as situations as they played out. [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, Elder Lions is up there in years, and after the on-clave brotherhood war on the east coast, he passes away in 2279.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, he leaves his daughter Sarah Lyons in charge, but she dies in battle not too long after that. [SPEAKER_00]: And interestingly, the next person who takes charge is Arthur Maxim, who you can meet in Fallout 3 as a ten-year-old boy, while by this point he's grown and has become a formidable combatant, and he takes care of something that Lyons was never able to achieve.

[SPEAKER_00]: He destroys the Super Mutants by taking out their leader, Super Mutant Warlord Shepard in 2282. [SPEAKER_00]: And I find it interesting that he is continuing along with Lions Legacy fighting against the Super Mutants and eventually solves the problem. [SPEAKER_00]: But as we know, Maxine isn't completely in line ideologically with elder lions.

[SPEAKER_00]: He does have some different perspectives. [SPEAKER_00]: And because of that, he's able to reunite the outcasts with the greater brotherhood, because his heroic defeat of the supermunes means that he becomes the new leader of the East Coast Brotherhood. [SPEAKER_00]: So with the supermute and problem solved for the most part, [SPEAKER_00]: And with a new leader who is much more in touch with the traditional priorities, the outcasts are no longer outcasts, and the east coast brotherhood begins to thrive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think of it like this. [SPEAKER_00]: You have the less super mutants as a problem. [SPEAKER_00]: You have project purity, being a actual legitimate thing, people of the wasteland, actually getting clean water, [SPEAKER_00]: access to all the technology that both the main brotherhood and the outcasts have acquired during this time, and you have a situation where they're able to thrive.

[SPEAKER_00]: So much so, that by 2287, the beginning of Fallout 4. [SPEAKER_00]: The Brotherhood on the East Coast is able to not only hold on to their location in the DC area, the Citadel, and protect it. [SPEAKER_00]: They've beaten the Enclave. [SPEAKER_00]: They've beaten the Supermunes, but they can send it an expeditionary force to Boston, led directly by Elder Maxim.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it seems like everything works out in the end, right? [SPEAKER_00]: The brotherhood's doing well. [SPEAKER_00]: They're going back to their main traditions. [SPEAKER_00]: The schism is ended. [SPEAKER_00]: There's reunification. [SPEAKER_00]: They're thriving. [SPEAKER_00]: But if you've played Fallout 4, you know that things aren't just peachy keen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Things aren't just okay and everything's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: Under Max and the Brotherhood becomes, there's that word again, more insular again, willing to kill ghouls on site. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you ask them, their memory of lions is that of somebody who, for all of the accomplishments, [SPEAKER_00]: was a flawed leader.

[SPEAKER_00]: This new updated, well, back to tradition Brotherhood was still more open to including other people from the wasteland in their numbers that seems to be something that they were okay with because otherwise they realized that they would eventually go extinct. [SPEAKER_00]: And even though that was one of Lyons' policies, they look at him as a flawed leader, a mistake in the leadership of the Brotherhood that caused the schism and focused on the wrong things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So with all of these things, [SPEAKER_00]: They're often not exactly black and white. [SPEAKER_00]: There are a lot of grays on purpose. [SPEAKER_00]: That's why they're written this way. [SPEAKER_00]: And I ask you, because I think this is the kind of thing that we all need to make these decisions on our own, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We get all the facts. [SPEAKER_00]: We get all the information. [SPEAKER_00]: We get all the different perspectives, which aren't always grounded in facts. [SPEAKER_00]: But we get all that together. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the most I can provide you is a story. [SPEAKER_00]: And I can share some of my perspectives on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what do you think? [SPEAKER_00]: Did Lions make a mistake? [SPEAKER_00]: or was that a necessary decision, even though it led to the schism? [SPEAKER_00]: And what about the outcasts? [SPEAKER_00]: Were they too rash? [SPEAKER_00]: Were they too willing to desert? [SPEAKER_00]: Was there a middle ground that could have been found where lions could have taken that group from his organization and made them the specialists who were focused on acquiring the technology while the rest of the people who were more focused on dealing with supermins did that?

[SPEAKER_00]: or would that have divided them too much and neither thing would have been accomplished? [SPEAKER_00]: What about once we get to fall out for? [SPEAKER_00]: Elder Maxon seems to have, although he served underneath lions, a perspective on him that he was a flawed leader, somebody who made the wrong decision.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when is any decision you have to make in a leadership environment with the lives at stake in the future of your organization as a whole, [SPEAKER_00]: When is it ever not a rock and a hard place? [SPEAKER_00]: Was there a decision lines could have made that was the right decision? [SPEAKER_00]: If he had focused on the acquisition of technology, what would have happened with the super mutants would they have become an even greater problem and it would have kept them from getting that technology anyway?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the most interesting moral question of all of this is where do you land in regard to treating wastelanders and prioritizing their needs or not? [SPEAKER_00]: If the Brotherhood is supposed to be the protectors of the people in their own belief, [SPEAKER_00]: that they need to acquire that technology to keep it in their hands because they're the ones who know how to use it correctly, then does that imply that it's also their job to protect the people who can't use that technology for themselves, especially if those are the people they're taking the technology from.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if that's not the case, then at what point does the brotherhood [SPEAKER_00]: Where is that boundary? [SPEAKER_00]: What would you do in the situation? [SPEAKER_00]: Would you as a regular member of the brotherhood in the situation have stayed with lions or would you have sided with the outcasts?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me know what you think. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to take quick break. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be right back. [SPEAKER_00]: This was a fun one to put together and I can't wait to play through Fallout 3 in a remastered version again and get to re-experience all these things in higher fidelity and hopefully with some bugs squashed because that is a hard game to get running on a PC these days and thanks for being here and thanks for helping support the show by sharing with your friends or leaving a five star review on whatever platform you listen to this on if you leave one on apple podcasts, I'll read it out on a future episode.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, thanks to everybody who supports the show on Patreon, you can get ad free episodes, you can join us for Patreon chats, and man, we're going to have some fun discussions once we get a follow-up three remaster on the Patreon, but I've got a shout out our newest patron, Jay Nomad. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for your support, and all of our Sentry bots, germinator, Nova, Maine Monkey, and here, thank you for your support as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to do it for this episode. [SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to hear some of the details from Fallout 3 that you'd like me to dig a little bit further into. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, comment on this episode. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're listening on Spotify or whatever, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, stay safe in the wasteland and let me know. [SPEAKER_00]: Would you have sided with Lions or would you have sided with the Outcast? [SPEAKER_00]: Or was there a third option? [SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you next time. [SPEAKER_00]: To plug into everything else we're doing, check out robotsradio.net, reach out to me on Twitter at robots underscore radio, check out the robots radio rocket club where you can join me and a bunch of our other creators creating your podcast starting a new podcast or helping your current podcast grow.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's more information about that on RobotsReady.net as well and you can always talk with us and the entire community over 2,000 people on the RobotsReady Discord. [SPEAKER_00]: Come join us. [SPEAKER_00]: We'd love to chat with you. [SPEAKER_00]: See you guys next time.

419: Fallout 3: Were the Brotherhood Outcasts Right?

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