Brotherhood of Steel

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For the computer game, see Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel.

For the video game, see Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

The Brotherhood of Steel, which is often referred to as the BoS or simply the Brotherhood, is a fictional organization present in the Fallout series of computer, video, and role-playing games. The Brotherhood worships technology, but they are not known for sharing their knowledge, even if doing so would improve the quality of life among the people of the wasteland. The Brotherhood has five different types of members: initiates, knights, paladins, scribes, and elders. Additionally, the Brotherhood has a system of ranks. The Brotherhood is slow to act when it is not directly threatened, due to its bureaucracy and unwillingness to sacrifice lives or technology for others. In Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, a split formed in the Brotherhood, creating an Eastern order that allowed outsiders to join. This stood in opposition to the position of the Brotherhood from Fallout and Fallout 2. Some consider Fallout Tactics to be non-canon, however.

[edit] History

An Elder

The Brotherhood was created from a military expedition sent to secure Mariposa Military Base at the start of 2076, less than a year before the Great War. When the soldiers discovered that the scientists were using live humans as test subjects for the Forced Evolutionary Virus, however, they committed mutiny, and killed all the scientists. The new leader, Captain Roger Maxson, declared his desertion from the army over the radio. Several days later, most of the world was destroyed in a nuclear holocaust.

After testing the air for radiation, Maxson and his men buried the scientists, sealed off the base, and left for the Lost Hills Bunker. There, the newly formed Brotherhood of Steel created its base of operations. Aside from a minor desertion, which occurred when Sergeant Dennis Allen investigated West Tek Research Facility, not much is known of the Brotherhood's early years. In 2135, Maxson died from cancer, and he was succeeded by his son. In 2055?, a small detachment, led by Maxson II, was dispatched to eliminate a raider group named the Vipers. Although thought of as a training exercise -- none of the elders thought anything could truly hurt paladins in power armor -- Maxson II fell after being hit by a poisonous dart while he had his helmet off.

A paladin

John Maxson, grandson of Roger, became the new Elder of the Brotherhood, and a paladin named Rhombus assumed command of the military. Rhombus had almost every single Viper killed, and those who survived fled into the mountains. While they were hunting Vipers, the Brotherhood sent a few scouts to The Hub. The two powers soon began regularly trading.

In 2161, Brotherhood scouts encountered a dead Super Mutant. Several months later, The Vault Dweller asked to be let into the Brotherhood. After emerging from West Tek with the log of Allen's ill-fated expedition, he became the one of the few outsiders allowed into the Brotherhood. From him, the Brotherhood learned about The Master's plans to convert the entire world into Super Mutants. The Vault Dweller, with the support of Maxson, convinced the Brotherhood to send some troops to Mariposa, where the Master's FEV vats were located. The Vault Dweller then killed The Master, and disappeared into the wilderness. The remaining Super Mutants, headed by Gammorin, fled across the mountains.

Meanwhile, a split was forming in the Brotherhood. Some elders thought outsiders should be allowed to join the Brotherhood in order to preserve the order's strength, while others wanted to keep the Brotherhood pure. The purists won, and dispatched the minority on a mission across the mountains to scout out the remains of the mutants. The airships were destroyed in a storm, and many of the expedition died. The survivors crashed outside of Chicago. After battling bandits and strengthening their forces, the new Brotherhood, which is commonly referred to as The Eastern Brotherhood in order to distinguish it from the original, encountered the Super Mutant army. A squad was dispatched to exterminate Gammorin. However, when they arrived, they discovered that Gammorin had been killed and replaced by Paladin Latham, one of the leaders of the expedition who had been lost during the storm.

A scribe

After defeating the mutant army, the Eastern Brotherhood encountered a sect of technology-worshippers called Reavers. The two battled for a short time until the Reavers were overrun by a new threat: robots. In exchange for electromagnetic pulse technology, the Brotherhood rescued the leaders of the Reaver movement from the middle of a battle with robots. The Eastern Brotherhood began fighting the mechanical scourge, but the war was going against them. In a last-ditch effort, the Brotherhood used a nuclear explosion to open the gates of Vault 0, the base of operations for the robots. Immediately after the blast, a Brotherhood team stormed through and killed The Calculator, the mechanical brain of the Robot army.

The original Brotherhood began to decline during this time. After encountering the Chosen One, the grandson of the Vault Dweller and protagonist of Fallout 2, the Brotherhood battled the Enclave. During this time, the Brotherhood asked the Chosen One to recover plans for a vertibird, a flying machine that resembles the modern V-22 Osprey. It is not known if the Brotherhood received these.

Further information comes from Van Buren, and may be no longer canon.

In 2242, the Brotherhood entered a war with the New California Republic. Although technologically superior, the Brotherhood could not replace casualties as easily. Because of this, the Brotherhood began to lose the war. To end the war quickly, the Brotherhood began using StealthBoys, cloaking devices that made the wearer invisible. The devices made the wearer paranoid, delusional, and eventually schizophrenic, however, and the Brotherhood terminated the program. This occurred too late to save the StealthBoy team from the side effects, however, and, after doubting the judgment of the Elders, they soon stole the devices and formed a new organization, the Circle of Steel.

[edit] The Brotherhood Code

The Brotherhood strives to be self-sufficient. Roger Maxson hoped the organization could be keepers of knowledge and lore, and that it would survive the end of civilization. The Brotherhood would take accountability for its actions and would expect others to do the same. The code was on a holodisk in Fallout from Roger to his son. In it he described the needless death of his father, who stayed with the wounded and disabled while his family went to safety. This action was stupid, according to Roger, and he told his son to make the organization like steel: hard and sharpened to an edge.

"We will become self-sufficient. We will become keepers of knowledge and lore. We will survive the end of civilization. We will take responsibility for our actions, and we will hold accountable the actions of others. We are a Brotherhood. We will stand back to back with those that share our convictions and beliefs. We are Steel. We are hard. We have been sharpened to an edge. Always remember the fires that we were forged in. Never forget. The motto from a previous time, and our motto now."