Fallout Lore - Episode 1 - The Origins of the Brotherhood of Steel

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[00:01:03] Hello and welcome to the Radioactive Ramblings podcast. I am your host, Aaron.

[00:01:53] Today we're going to be doing something a little bit different. This is going to be our first episode

[00:01:58] of a new fallout lore series. By popular demand, people wanted to know a little bit more about

[00:02:04] the franchise, the origins of some of the factions. So here we are. In addition to the

[00:02:10] new series, I have a new co-host joining me. So without further ado, I would like to

[00:02:16] introduce my co-host and your other guide to the wasteland, Richard, a great friend of mine.

[00:02:22] Hey guys, as Aaron said, my name is Richard. I am a bit of a fallout nerd too and I'll be,

[00:02:29] well again, the co-host of this podcast and I am super excited to get going and start spreading

[00:02:36] the info that we've gathered for you guys. Awesome. And so if you've been listening

[00:02:42] to Radioactive Ramblings for a little while, we wrapped up covering the fallout series on

[00:02:47] Amazon Prime Video that was covered by me and Chase. And for that podcast, I knew a bit about

[00:02:53] the lore and Chase was coming into it blind. Richard, you're somewhere in between right?

[00:02:58] Yeah, I'd say I'm about like if you're at like a 10 for how much you know and Chase is

[00:03:04] at a one, I'd say I'm about a five maybe a six on a good day, but you know that that

[00:03:09] general range. I appreciate that you put me at a 10 in my fallout lore. I don't know if I'm as

[00:03:14] confident as you are in that number, but I appreciate it nonetheless. You're the fallout

[00:03:19] lore master, bro. Of course you're at a 10. I mean, how up where else would you go? You know what,

[00:03:25] I'll take that title. I'll take the fallout lore master title. So the point of this podcast,

[00:03:30] like we said earlier, is to give an idea of some of the background information in fallout.

[00:03:36] If you've ever played one of the games, you know that a lot of the lore is sort of in journal entries

[00:03:42] or within terminals in the games. And unless you wanted to go either digging through those

[00:03:47] or digging through the fallout wiki, which is let's be honest, it's a little bit hard to navigate

[00:03:52] that information. Richard, have you been on the fallout wiki? I have had the, I don't know

[00:03:58] if pleasure is the right word, but I've been on there and it is worse to navigate than

[00:04:03] most of the other like lore wikis I've taken a look at. And I get too lost, so I go to YouTube if I

[00:04:10] need some lore. Yeah, it's quite confusing. And the Lorehounds bring this up on their podcast

[00:04:17] a few times they've brought it up lately with their House of the Dragon coverage that these

[00:04:21] wikis are both hard to navigate. And to be honest, the amount of ads that are present

[00:04:26] on the wiki pages make it also very difficult to know what's going on. Yeah, I feel like

[00:04:31] they take up like half the screen. I was looking at some, you know, some Elden Ring lore for

[00:04:36] some later projects. And I mean, holy shit, the amount of ads just on the first page I was looking at

[00:04:44] was insane. I couldn't find the info I was looking for. So it was just, I don't know,

[00:04:48] it depends on what website they use, I guess, but a lot of them are just super disorganized

[00:04:52] and super full of ads. Yeah, the people who put those together doing great work and are

[00:04:58] yeah, they're awesome for compiling that information in one place. But if you're new to the

[00:05:03] franchise and just want to learn a little bit more, it can definitely be disorienting. So

[00:05:07] that's why we're here to give you a little bit of a more directed idea and keep it organized in

[00:05:13] a way that will tell a bit more of a clear story rather than just throwing information at you guys.

[00:05:19] We want to make this more, we want this to feel more like you guys are going to be listening

[00:05:24] to a story about the Fallout universe than listening to someone lecturing at you. Because

[00:05:29] I think that it's very easy for a podcast like this to go off the rails and have it feel like we're

[00:05:33] teaching a class on Fallout, which I don't think either of us want. No, not too much. But I mean,

[00:05:40] I'd love to obviously discuss the lore because I always thought that Fallout had a pretty deep

[00:05:46] complex, I don't know, web, I guess, of different lore. And I just think it's incredible that

[00:05:52] they did all of that. They made the show, which not only like didn't break Canada at all, woohoo,

[00:05:57] but it also expanded on what we knew and also gave us more questions that hopefully season two is

[00:06:03] going to answer or another Fallout game, whatever comes first, probably the show. But yeah, I definitely

[00:06:10] agree that we don't want to just be lecturing people for sure. All right. And with all of

[00:06:14] that said, I think that we should jump right in. The topic of today's episode is going to be

[00:06:20] the origins of the Brotherhood of Steel. So if you were watching the Fallout show or played the games

[00:06:27] and you want to know about where this order of technologically obsessed warrior monks comes from,

[00:06:34] we've got you covered in this episode, we're going to get into a little bit of the origins

[00:06:38] before the war and leading up to the eventual founding of the Brotherhood of Steel. So Richard,

[00:06:44] what is your background with the Brotherhood of Steel? What do you generally side with them as

[00:06:48] a faction? Are you are you pro or anti Brotherhood? Okay. So in three and four, I do side with them.

[00:06:55] And in 76, I mean, I guess you kind of side with every faction. I side with them, but I tend to

[00:07:00] like them more in those games because they're cool. I love them. They've got the whole like

[00:07:05] night aesthetic down. They aren't absolutely well, they aren't insane, but everyone after the

[00:07:10] Wasteland started up that everyone's insane. So it's okay. But yeah, what about you,

[00:07:15] Aaron? So in my earlier playthroughs of like Fallout 4, I would side with the Brotherhood pretty often.

[00:07:22] I find myself being more of a Brotherhood hater these days though. Wow. Yeah. I know. I'm sorry.

[00:07:30] We can't be friends. That's it. I'll cast over. Yeah. I find myself being a bit of a hater just

[00:07:36] because they are, I'm trying to think of a diplomatic way to say this. The Brotherhood

[00:07:42] are kind of, yeah, they're fanatics for sure. They're kind of like a religious cult. Yeah.

[00:07:47] I mean, hey, I love a good religious cult. They're always fun. Totally. Yeah. Totally great for the

[00:07:51] world too. Absolutely. Especially when they have power armor and energy weapons. That's not dangerous

[00:07:56] at all. No, not at all. But in Fallout 3, I definitely do the like good guy Brotherhood

[00:08:02] ending every single time just because you know, the Brotherhood of Steel and Fallout 3 is so

[00:08:07] different from the Brotherhood in the other games. They're very much, they're good guys in Fallout 3.

[00:08:13] No question about it. They have the best intentions for the wasteland in mind.

[00:08:17] Four when I had to, this is a spoiler for Fallout 4, the Brotherhood of Steel like questline.

[00:08:23] And I remember I loved Paladin Dance. He was my favorite Brotherhood character

[00:08:27] in four at least. And I was so sad when Elder Maxim was like, he's a sin. Kill this guy.

[00:08:32] Like that was just too much. I couldn't. Now if you're wondering what a sinth is,

[00:08:37] and have questions about that, we will cover that in a later episode. Yes, we will. Don't even

[00:08:43] worry about it. We've got you covered coming up. This is going to be a sort of long running series on

[00:08:47] the radioactive ramblings feed. We're going to be keeping this show going for a long time. I think

[00:08:52] that having this that sort of harkens back to our fallout roots and grounds us in that is

[00:08:57] going to be great. So without getting sidetracked anymore, let's get into the origins of the

[00:09:02] Brotherhood of Steel to really get into it and understand it. We have to start in the 2050s

[00:09:07] before the Great War. The bombs drop in the fallout universe in the year 2077 in October. And so

[00:09:14] we're going to be starting roughly 27 ish years before then in the United States and globally,

[00:09:20] but particularly in the US, a very awful disease is sweeping across the country called the new

[00:09:26] plague. It's causing starvation, displacement, lots of unrest in the United States and

[00:09:32] the government and a lot of corporations are trying to figure out a way to combat that. We in

[00:09:37] our real world, of course, know nothing about the world getting shut down by a horrible plague

[00:09:43] across the world. No, it would never happen. It never could happen. No, completely unrealistic

[00:09:49] in a modern setting. Absolutely. We're just too advanced. We're like, I mean, it's crazy.

[00:09:54] So there was obviously a desire for the cure for the plague and the US was also locked in a

[00:10:01] very long resource war with China at this point. And they were very afraid, especially the citizens

[00:10:07] in the corporations were very afraid that the Chinese government and military were going to

[00:10:10] use biochemical weapons in the United States. And those commie bastards. Get rid of them all.

[00:10:17] You're starting to sound like Liberty Prime. I am Liberty Prime. What can I say? I mean,

[00:10:21] communists detected that that guy's gone. Yeah. So obviously the US military is going

[00:10:28] to want to find some sort of cure for this, get a vaccine out. And they contract a company

[00:10:33] who you might recognize from the series called West Tech and they began working on a pan immunity

[00:10:39] variant. So just really quickly for some of the, you know, the closer to chase people and

[00:10:45] also a little bit for myself. What can you tell us about West Tech just that might be

[00:10:49] important with in the context of the new plague and them working on the pan immunity

[00:10:54] Yeah. So they were one of the biggest military contractors in the lead up to the Great War.

[00:10:59] They produced things like power armor and I believe that they were involved in some energy

[00:11:05] weapon making as well. I can't remember exactly whether or not they designed them or not, but

[00:11:10] I believe they were involved in the series. You this is a spoiler for the fallout series.

[00:11:14] I'm going to assume that anyone here is here because they watch the series and want to

[00:11:18] know a little bit more about the lore. So we will be spoiling the series a little bit,

[00:11:22] but we'll try to give some fair warning. If you remember the meeting at Vault Tech where...

[00:11:27] Oh, was he the um, sorry, was he the old guy? He was not the old, the old guy was

[00:11:32] Frederick Sinclair who we will get to in a later lore episode. Okay. He was the guy who suggested

[00:11:37] creating a vault where they experiment with super mutants at the time. Oh, okay. All right.

[00:11:43] Well, I know where that fits in. I got that. All right. So West Tech is a very shady

[00:11:49] corporation as are all the corporations in the fallout universe. They're fine. That's kind of a

[00:11:54] theme in the fallout universe is that these large capitalist corp, corp corporations are...

[00:12:00] You can do it. Yeah. Yeah. These large capitalist corporations are sort of messing things up quite

[00:12:05] a lot. Yeah. That especially after the after the show, I mean that that ending was just insane.

[00:12:11] It really was. It adds a lot of context to how evil these companies in the fallout

[00:12:15] universe really were. So amid the resource wars, which as I said earlier, were these wars between

[00:12:21] the US and China over the remaining oil, uranium deposits. Europe and the Middle East were also

[00:12:27] involved but it was primarily a war between the United States and China. The plague was used

[00:12:31] as an excuse to discourage the assembly of workers, bust up unions. It fueled conspiracy

[00:12:37] theories. They were using it as a way to grow anti-communist sentiments and the US government

[00:12:42] and West Tech even spread rumors that being infected with the plague would cause a symptom

[00:12:46] of having socialist thoughts, which uh... See that one is just insane. Like you're gonna be a

[00:12:52] colony if you get sick. So don't do that. Like what? That is so wild. Yeah. That's crazy. I mean

[00:13:01] I'm more worried about real things like I put on my tinfoil hat to protect me from the 5G

[00:13:06] rays every morning. See I'm more worried about even the other things. Like I gotta build a set

[00:13:11] of power armor in the next 30 years or 50 years whatever. Like I need a functioning suit. Just in

[00:13:17] case. Just in case. You are a welder by trade. I believe you can do it. I could weld one together

[00:13:22] and the welding on the T-51 that I make will not have a flaw in the chest place where you

[00:13:28] can just die instantly because I'm that guy. As long as you make a suit of power armor for me,

[00:13:33] I think that we can get on board with this. All right. That'll work. Yeah, why not?

[00:13:37] We have a fun little project. Absolutely. All right. So despite their best efforts to develop a cure,

[00:13:43] the scientists at West Tech were unable to make any meaningful breakthroughs in this pen immunity

[00:13:49] variant. So in 2071 the US military took over the primary administration of the project and

[00:13:56] began to develop it with the help of West Tech but the military was now fully in charge

[00:14:02] only with the help from West Tech. And then after that, from what I understand about four years after

[00:14:08] in 2075 a new project was spun off of the Pan Immunity variant project and that was called the

[00:14:14] Forced Evolutionary Virus. Now I don't know who here has played Fallout 1 and 2. Obviously they're

[00:14:20] very different from the more modern ones that we have but FEV is a pretty big plot point from

[00:14:26] what I understand. Aaron, I think you've played them though so I'll defer to you on that.

[00:14:30] Yeah. So in Fallout 1 the FEV is a very major plot point. Fallout 2 it's there but it's more

[00:14:37] background but yeah we can cover Fallout 1 in a later video because there's a lot to unpack there

[00:14:43] but just know that some of the most scary villains in the Fallout universe are sort of

[00:14:48] fueled by this FEV. They were born out of this Forced Evolutionary Virus. Yeah. So this

[00:14:54] project that was originally intended to be a cure to the new plague sort of ends up being this virus

[00:15:01] that forcibly mutates people. They had originally started testing it on rodents and flatworms,

[00:15:08] things like that and they noticed immediately that the rodents, the bugs, whatever they were putting

[00:15:13] this FEV into, they were immediately becoming smarter, larger, more dangerous. The flatworms

[00:15:19] were able to reproduce only asexually and so they thought initially even though it wasn't what

[00:15:24] they set out to do, they thought it was a major success. Yeah and I'm sure it wasn't until human

[00:15:29] trials started that they realized maybe maybe we should pump the brakes on this just a little bit

[00:15:35] but again I'm sure that's for a later episode. So out of fear for international espionage

[00:15:41] specifically big surprise they were afraid of China this show or the Fallout series really

[00:15:46] is just such a great stereotype of Cold War relations between the US and Russia. The whole

[00:15:52] red scare, being afraid of communists hiding around every corner you know it's a great satire for sure.

[00:15:58] It's very reminiscent of like in high school when we learned about Joseph McCarthy in like the

[00:16:04] late 50s or late 60s I think it was and he was just up your way and rat go to jail get out of here

[00:16:09] or worse or torture so yeah it's a great satire and I do love that I love that it

[00:16:15] doesn't take itself too seriously while still taking it self seriously enough if that makes

[00:16:20] sense I might just be yabbin though. No I think that makes a lot of sense you know the Fallout

[00:16:25] universe is really even though it's a very serious look at post-apocalyptic America and this

[00:16:32] sort of world that's been shattered by corporate greed and you know the tagline of war never

[00:16:37] changes it's also got a very distinct sense of humor a very dark sense of humor but still

[00:16:42] it's there so I appreciate that about the Fallout universe that there's some levity to it at those times

[00:16:48] yeah for sure this international espionage that they were afraid of forced them to move the FEV

[00:16:53] project to Mariposa military base which is in central California or actually nor I believe

[00:16:59] northern California and this is when they began testing the FEV on human beings now

[00:17:05] this is a big landmark but it's also worth noting that when they tested the FEV on human

[00:17:10] beings originally they were only doing it on prisoners of war which is very messed up that's

[00:17:15] not a war crime that's that's silly these uh these prisoners of war in the united states

[00:17:21] not only did prisoners of war had to have to endure testing with the FEV but there were also

[00:17:28] POW camps all across America just like the Japanese internment camps in World War II so yeah

[00:17:35] there were the United States was committing some pretty terrible crimes in the Fallout universe

[00:17:40] which really mirrored the the US's actions during World War II yeah that's very un unbrand for a

[00:17:48] wartime united states unfortunately very much so now the military placed Captain Roger Maxson

[00:17:54] and Colonel Robert Spindle as the overseers of the military sort of security task force in the

[00:18:00] base and yeah these two were not informed that there were human experiments going on

[00:18:05] oh i'm sure that's that's totally not going to come back to like by West Tech in the ass or

[00:18:10] anything that'd be crazy not at all and now we're on to phase two of the founding of the Brotherhood

[00:18:17] of Steel now that we've got the background information in place we can talk about the

[00:18:21] Mariposa Rebellion ooh in very early October 2077 the soldiers stationed at Mariposa military

[00:18:28] base discovered that the scientists were experimenting with the FEV on prisoners of

[00:18:33] war now these soldiers were extremely upset by this information obviously uh they had no idea that

[00:18:39] the base that they were guarding was being used for horrific human experiments after that i believe

[00:18:44] Colonel Spindle had a pretty nerve like crazy nervous breakdown and he he did lock himself

[00:18:49] in his office which left Maxson the captain he was the commanding officer at Mariposa so

[00:18:55] i mean he got promoted good for him he used his power as the the new commanding officer

[00:19:00] to order the all the scientists brought for him you know to sort of get the the rundown on what they're

[00:19:07] actually doing and Chief Scientist Robert Anderson was the one who actually told him everything and he

[00:19:12] pretty much just pleaded like i'm following orders uh that's that's just what i was supposed

[00:19:17] to do i it's not my fault but i could always disobey horribly mutating humans i don't know

[00:19:23] especially POWs that that's crazy he tried to pull the card of saying i'm just like you Maxson

[00:19:29] i am a soldier just following orders there's you and i are no different that's when Maxson

[00:19:34] decided to pull out his gun and execute Anderson on the spot real honestly so such a good move

[00:19:41] deserved you know what i can totally see this playing out in like a movie some sort of like

[00:19:46] flashback in the fallout show to the founding of the brotherhood of steel or maybe a mini series i

[00:19:51] think that this would be really great in fact as an animated series oh my god it would be perfect

[00:19:55] especially if they did what like Star Wars has been doing recently where they do like those

[00:19:59] i shouldn't say recently the past couple years but the the six to eight episode runs they're like

[00:20:03] 20 minute episodes they're quicker but they they don't have any like filler content they just

[00:20:08] sort of run through everything that happened and it's quicker because like for them to make

[00:20:13] since it's animated i think that would be fantastic yeah i i would really like to see

[00:20:17] something like that hopefully with the success of the fallout show we're gonna get some more

[00:20:21] fallout content i know xbox and microsoft are pushing big time for some expansion yeah so now

[00:20:26] that maxon has executed Anderson he is officially the leader of the rebellion at mariposa military

[00:20:33] base and colonel spindle is just completely out of touch with reality by this point he's still

[00:20:38] locked away in his room just absolutely he's lost it and won't let anyone in if you were maxon

[00:20:44] and your commanding officer had locked himself in his room what would you do in that situation

[00:20:48] i would probably either break down the door or like if there was a window i would go in through

[00:20:54] the windows something like that you know you got to get in there and get him to stop before he

[00:20:58] hurts himself or or others now breaking down the door seems to be the wrong choice i hate

[00:21:04] to inform you because when maxon ordered his soldiers to break down the door uh colonel spindle

[00:21:10] immediately committed suicide in front of all of the soldiers that had broken into his room

[00:21:16] to try and get to him and reason with him so spindle is gone maxon is the highest ranking

[00:21:22] soldier now at mariposa not only in acting capacity but in practice like actual capacity as well

[00:21:29] he's the highest ranking officer and on october 20th 2077 roger maxon sends out a call over

[00:21:36] the radio to the u.s government to announce that he and his soldiers are seceding from the

[00:21:42] u.s military and this was sort of a desperate attempt to get the u.s military to recognize what

[00:21:48] was happening at mariposa and respond to it but after he called and was like hey we're defecting

[00:21:57] we're our own unit you guys need to come and do something about this the government just

[00:22:02] straight up did not respond yeah and i think a couple days later actually on october 23rd 2077

[00:22:10] a day that in the fallout universe is just super infamous for what happened uh that's when all the

[00:22:16] big bombs dropped and so i would assume that that's part of the reason why the call went unanswered

[00:22:23] because ultimately even if it gets out that the u.s government is torturing pow's within three days

[00:22:30] it won't matter no one's gonna care because everyone's gonna be not everyone but most

[00:22:34] people are going to be dead because the nukes yeah and this is what really makes me wonder if the

[00:22:41] u.s government was involved with vault tech and everything in sort of starting the war if they

[00:22:48] let this go unanswered and that to me says that they knew what was going to happen in a few days

[00:22:54] and they were like fuck it we're just gonna let this go and see what happens and it won't matter

[00:23:00] yeah alternatively one other thing that could have happened would be maybe vault tech had people

[00:23:07] in the government that were intercepting the communications and so they heard that

[00:23:13] and they were just like no don't matter still tied to the fact that the nukes will would have

[00:23:18] dropped a couple days later but also adding in that bit of corporate espionage from vault tech

[00:23:24] because I mean from what we've seen it's it's definitely not below them like they'll they'll do

[00:23:29] it in a heartbeat no and we know that west tech and vault tech were collaborating on a lot of the

[00:23:34] vaults so we know that that back door into mariposa through west tech that vault tech would

[00:23:38] have had that in since they were working so closely i'm assuming i mean mariposa is this huge

[00:23:44] facility armored bunkers and everything and i'm assuming that he his soldiers their families

[00:23:50] everyone involved really was protected from the bombs yes indeed so their whole little company that

[00:23:56] they had going the soldiers their families everyone's stationed in mariposa the remaining

[00:24:00] scientists who went and defected uh from west tech in the government uh they were all sheltered

[00:24:06] from the nuclear bombs and only two days after the bombs dropped maxin scientists uh read

[00:24:13] the radiation levels above ground and they determined that the background radiation

[00:24:18] was cleer low enough that they could prepare to leave mariposa maxin was afraid that the chinese

[00:24:24] military would come for mariposa again afraid of the the communists you know those commie

[00:24:30] bastards obviously the world is destroyed and china wasn't going to be coming for them but

[00:24:35] that didn't stop that mindset from taking hold so maxin decides that him and his people

[00:24:40] need to get out and make for the lost hills bunker in southern california and they

[00:24:45] thought that they would be safe in this bunker that was a old government facility so they set out

[00:24:51] and that brings us to the third and final chapter of this week's episode the exodus to lost hills

[00:24:58] and so the as the soldiers and their families everyone they're going through uh the wastelands

[00:25:05] they they lost a lot of people i mean obviously right after the bombs dropped there were already

[00:25:11] people becoming raiders or at least like early raiders and a lot of people did sadly die uh one

[00:25:17] of them actually was maxin's wife so now it's just sort of they they suffered some pretty heavy

[00:25:22] losses you know there are some non-canon sources that say in addition to his wife that maybe

[00:25:28] one of his sons died or it's a little bit foggy about what's there i believe that that comes

[00:25:34] from the unfinished fallout 3 van buren game that was supposed to be the third fallout game

[00:25:40] developed by black isle studios before that studio went belly up and the franchise went over to

[00:25:46] to bethesda so not exactly clear where that stands but at the very least maxin lost his wife but the

[00:25:51] civilians that were killed for every one that was killed about two of the marauders were killed

[00:25:57] because these soldiers were protected by t-51 power armor the refugees unfortunately suffered

[00:26:03] heavy losses but the soldiers had power armor and were able to fight back so what what happened

[00:26:08] after this track did they did they make it to lost hills they did in fact make it to lost hills and

[00:26:14] they turned the bunker into their home and adapted it to become this sort of beacon of technological

[00:26:20] advancement and for a long time they kept it a secret from the rest of the wasteland they would

[00:26:24] only go out on scouting missions to retrieve lost technology that they had heard of and a few years

[00:26:30] later after this group settles down in lost hills bunker they officially formed the brotherhood

[00:26:35] of steel i believe that this happens in 2082 that the brotherhood of steel is officially formed

[00:26:40] with roger maxin as its first elder and that really brings us to the brotherhood of steel not as we

[00:26:47] know it but the origins if you look at fallout one fallout two that's sort of the brotherhood

[00:26:52] that we know from those games but as we get into the later games we're going to cover this

[00:26:56] in later lore videos the brotherhood changes a lot over time their goals become different

[00:27:01] and they really have different priorities in the modern uh games yeah i feel like between three four

[00:27:08] and seventy six i feel like they're you know they're more prevalent of course but they're also very

[00:27:13] different iterations of each other i mean obviously in 76 that's i think that takes place 25 30

[00:27:19] years after bombs drops like that's obviously the early like founding days so that's as close

[00:27:24] as we're going to get to what we just covered as well along with one and two and then three

[00:27:29] they start to take a turn four is uh of just a very different thing and then the the sect we see in the show

[00:27:36] is also of course a completely different i mean that's a really fanatical like zealous

[00:27:41] sect of the brotherhood as we saw we should talk a little bit about the chapters so like you were

[00:27:47] saying all of these different iterations of the brotherhood are really different and that's

[00:27:51] because the brotherhood has a lot of chapters across the united states and each one is very

[00:27:56] different from each other and a lot of them don't recognize the authority of the high elders of the

[00:28:01] original brotherhood it's very much like fractured sort of all these different little cults of the

[00:28:07] brotherhood of steel all with different goals all with different ideas of what the brotherhood

[00:28:12] of steel should be but it seems like in the fallout show the brotherhood of steel that we

[00:28:17] see in fallout four has sort of gained control of the brotherhood at large it seems like the

[00:28:22] fallout show and the fallout four brotherhood are very much either the same brotherhood or at

[00:28:27] least very influential on each other when it comes to fallout three that chapter was the precursor

[00:28:35] to the brotherhood in fallout four and in the show and they were very much the ones who

[00:28:39] wanted to help the wasteland they wanted to act as this organization that was creating

[00:28:44] like clean water and just really helping the people of the wasteland and once the descendant

[00:28:51] of roger maxon came to power in the eastern brotherhood that's when they sort of went back

[00:28:56] to their roots of wanting to stop mutants control technology and really just be this militaristic

[00:29:03] force across the wasteland that are really no better than raiders in power armor to be honest

[00:29:08] they're not as destructive but they're they're kind of bullies to the the small farmers of

[00:29:13] the wasteland no i definitely feel like the brotherhood like when they're at their height of

[00:29:18] power not height of power i guess but when they're more more powerful iterations of them definitely

[00:29:23] do they're they are just raiders in nicer stuff but they preach about honor and keeping people safe

[00:29:30] so that's like that um i don't know what i'm trying to say but that you know they use that

[00:29:37] to justify being raiders essentially like well we're nice so it's all right they've got the

[00:29:43] motto of wanting to protect humanity from themselves i think that is that what you were

[00:29:48] trying to like sort of get yes thank you they they want to protect humanity from themselves

[00:29:54] with the technology angle they believe that the reason why the world fell is because people

[00:29:59] had access to technology that they shouldn't so obviously they should control it all because if

[00:30:04] they control it all no bad people can use it but yeah totally but then it becomes like

[00:30:09] are the brotherhood really that good that they should be controlling the technology i mean

[00:30:14] they they say latin words there and okay and they they call themselves knights so yeah clearly i mean

[00:30:19] obviously speaking of them calling themselves knights we should get into the before we wrap

[00:30:24] things up and call it a day on this episode we should talk a little bit about the structure

[00:30:30] of the brotherhood of steel and how they organize themselves because i'm sure that some

[00:30:36] folks are wondering what does it mean when someone is a knight an aspirant and initiate

[00:30:40] there's just a lot of words thrown out in the show and in the games that it can sort of feel

[00:30:44] like word salad right oh definitely i um so i guess like if we if we were to do like the the

[00:30:50] pyramid like who who's at the bottom of the pyramid erin at the bottom of the pyramid the

[00:30:55] fallout show sort of changed things a bit but it seems like at the bottom of the pyramid we

[00:30:59] have this new class called the aspirants which are essentially recruits from the wasteland

[00:31:05] they weren't born into the brotherhood they are people that the brotherhood has either found or

[00:31:10] they found the brotherhood and they wanted to join so they start off as these very low ranking

[00:31:16] sort of i guess almost like grunts in in the military and above them would be squires yeah and

[00:31:22] squires are the companions to the knights like maximus was too tight as is i guess probably

[00:31:29] the most recent and easiest to pick out the fallout show changed some pretty fundamental

[00:31:33] things about the the squires because in the games the squires have usually been children that were

[00:31:38] like born into the brotherhood and so it was much more a squire in the traditional sense like

[00:31:44] in medieval history you had some noble kid running around with you like cleaning your

[00:31:49] armor and everything and now it seems like that role is just filled by anyone in the brotherhood

[00:31:54] who has worked their way up to a point where they get to accompany a knight and sort of be

[00:31:58] the helper of the night until they gain their own knighthood did you say that's sort of an

[00:32:02] accurate picture i'd say that's pretty accurate although i do i do have a thing about like having

[00:32:07] it be an adult do all of these tasks or even not like an adult exactly but you know maximus is

[00:32:13] what early 20s like a young adult i guess having it be someone who's like more more grown up more

[00:32:19] has a sense of self-respect we see maximus i mean with titus and that's just gonna be my

[00:32:25] example i keep going back to because it's it's fresh like titus rips off the crotch plate

[00:32:29] throws it to maximus and like a little kid might be fine with just like shining that up sticking

[00:32:35] it right back on but obviously maximus has you know he doesn't want to just do that because he

[00:32:41] he's already you know he's grown i guess he can think for himself a lot better than like

[00:32:45] you know a seven-year-old going in through the wasteland like yeah there's certainly

[00:32:49] some resentment there absolutely when you're a full grown adult and you've been through all

[00:32:54] the training and you think i should be in that armor too and but at the same time i i do

[00:32:59] have to say that not sending a child into battle is probably for the best oh no no 100 sorry sorry

[00:33:05] should have should have specified that i am not into sending kids to war that's bad that's very bad

[00:33:12] don't do that not but you know what i mean yeah i understood i understood the point you were

[00:33:17] making no no no but yeah okay good for sure not sending a kid into battle is going to be the

[00:33:24] ideal whenever possible which should be 100 of the time should be possible i mean except in the

[00:33:31] fallout universe you know in the games the kids are functionally immortal so like maybe maybe that's

[00:33:36] not even a gameplay mechanic maybe that's just true maybe it is kids could just people improve

[00:33:42] if you haven't played the games uh richard is referencing the fact that in all of the fallout

[00:33:47] and just Bethesda games in general children are immortal they they can't be harmed by anything

[00:33:53] for obvious reasons i i any game murder is bad yeah yes don't do that yes so above the squires to get

[00:34:03] back into our hierarchy here would be knights knights are sort of the mid tier of the brotherhood

[00:34:10] they're the people who have worked their way up earned their power armor they make up the sort of

[00:34:16] they're the cavalry of the the brotherhood of steel they're the ones who are going to be

[00:34:20] going into battle dropping out of vertebrates they're they make up the bulk of the military yeah

[00:34:25] they're like the the cabal of the brotherhood yeah and above them sits the paladins who are

[00:34:33] essentially i would say that they function pretty much the same as a knight except that they

[00:34:38] command the knights under them so they're they're just the next step above and above them

[00:34:43] are sentinels which i believe are only a a rank that were was introduced in fallout four and

[00:34:50] they act largely the same way that the paladins do i think that sentinels is more of a ceremonial

[00:34:56] role to distinguish you as a very distinguished member of the brotherhood rather than having

[00:35:00] more responsibility i would say it's pretty much just paladin with more like oomph to it

[00:35:06] you're you're a little cooler you know maybe you single-handedly just one if you want a

[00:35:09] death claw with no weapon and you were just going round for round with that guy like something like

[00:35:14] that i feel like would be a way to get to earn like your your role as a sentinel from the paladin

[00:35:19] yeah the way that they treated it in fallout four was like you've done a lot for the brotherhood

[00:35:24] and you really should be the elder but we already have an elder so we're gonna make you a sentinel

[00:35:29] instead so i guess it's just that extra distinction when there's not really a position open you

[00:35:34] know and that brings us to the top of the core military being the elder the elder is the person

[00:35:40] who runs the chapter they are usually picked from the existing paladins in the brotherhood of steel

[00:35:46] and they are sort of the age isn't really a fact a factor even though they're called elders you

[00:35:52] don't necessarily have to be seasoned and older we see in fallout four the new elder max and the

[00:35:58] descendant of the founder of the brotherhood of steel he was only 26 when he became the elder

[00:36:02] of the brotherhood really i thought he was at least in his 30s but then again i guess he's close to his

[00:36:07] 30s when we actually meet him as the elder and i think he was in um perk me up on ron but he was

[00:36:12] in three wasn't he was he was a as a kid yeah he was a child in fallout three he was still a squire

[00:36:18] so we see him and he's pretty young guy to be an elder i believe he's the youngest elder ever

[00:36:23] in the history of the brotherhood of steel which is a sort of amalgamation of both his

[00:36:28] accomplishments and the fact that he is the descendant of captain roger maxon but it's good

[00:36:34] that he didn't just get there based on the fact that he is a descendant because like that trend

[00:36:39] that style of like power transitions never seems to work well ever because like you can get a complete

[00:36:45] idiot but oh well he he's related so he's he's got to be the leader like now nepotism is never

[00:36:52] a good way to pick a leader that's for sure no not one bit and aside from this main structure

[00:36:59] there's also a few other roles within the brotherhood that live at kind of the night level like you

[00:37:05] have scribes which are the essentially the scientists and researchers of the brotherhood and

[00:37:11] there's a head scribe there's proctors those are all the science and research division of

[00:37:18] of the brotherhood of steel those are going to be the people who are doing

[00:37:22] research fixing a power armor all of that and they're not necessarily below the nights they're

[00:37:26] kind of at an equal level with the proctors being sort of like the paladins of the of the

[00:37:32] scribes uh sorry lost my train of thought there for a second you're good and then proctors

[00:37:36] reporting to the elder you know yeah and then one last thing with it which i think was more

[00:37:41] of an addition in the the show than anything else was the the clerics would you say the

[00:37:45] clerics are about night level and then the high clerics would be about paladins so in terms of like

[00:37:51] their own i guess pyramid so i got the impression that the clerics sort of acts like the elders

[00:37:58] so like the you see the guy who is commanding the base in the fallout tv show uh he's very

[00:38:04] much acting the same way that an elder would so i think that they i think that they changed

[00:38:09] to the names a little bit to make it a bit more like a religious sort of cult fanatic

[00:38:14] type of thing like you have the aspirants who are essentially the initiates in the in the games

[00:38:19] and i think that the clerics fill that same role of elder and then they mentioned that the

[00:38:24] the high clerics in the commonwealth are the ones calling the shots which we've seen before in

[00:38:29] the brotherhood at various times there have been this like council of high clerics which are

[00:38:34] the the elders of the different chapters or the the council of high elders which are these

[00:38:39] elders from the different chapters and they come together to make decisions and that's those

[00:38:43] are the times when the brotherhood is more united and more of a single force instead of separate chapters

[00:38:48] if that makes sense and if does that answer the question a little bit yeah yeah i know it does that

[00:38:53] okay good yeah i'm sorry i'm just like process like going through to my head now there's a lot

[00:38:58] of information about the way that it's organized and also the way that the show sort of switched

[00:39:03] things up on us and introduce some new terms um yeah it can get jumbled a little bit easily

[00:39:08] i'm still trying to make sense of it myself of what exactly it all means you know yeah i get

[00:39:13] now you mentioned that you had a question or two for me before we started recording um really the only

[00:39:19] the only one that like i guess right now pertains to the brotherhood that i've got for today would be

[00:39:24] um this is from my my buddy joe at work and he was just curious like the there was like a sub faction

[00:39:29] in one of the games that he played and i don't remember which one he said that's that's my bad

[00:39:33] was it the outcasts maybe did they have like an extra little like did they they had like a red

[00:39:38] slash yes the the red and black yes yes the the the the outcast yes that he was just wondering like

[00:39:45] for a like a little bit of background on them i guess yeah absolutely so the brotherhood of steel

[00:39:51] outcasts i had mentioned that in fallout 3 the brotherhood of steel acts a lot more

[00:39:56] charitably towards the commonwealth uh they are not the commonwealth i'm sorry towards the wasteland

[00:40:02] they're they're in the capital wasteland of dc in fallout 3 so they sort of act a little

[00:40:07] bit more charitably and they aren't as obsessed with technology with killing mutants they're more

[00:40:12] interested in just helping out the people of the wasteland so the outcasts are the people from

[00:40:17] the brotherhood of steel who decided that they wanted to be closer to the origins of the

[00:40:22] brotherhood of steel and they wanted to be like focused on recovering technology and saving

[00:40:27] the wasteland from itself apparently like that sort of yeah religious fanatic idea that's

[00:40:32] the outcast they're they're much like the original brotherhood of steel and actually once elder maxon

[00:40:40] in fallout 4 comes to power uh one of the major things that he accomplishes is because he's more

[00:40:46] interested in technology he's able to mend the divide and he brings the outcast back into

[00:40:50] the fold of the brotherhood okay yeah i thought i remembered that i just couldn't i was not 100

[00:40:54] percent sure i guess if that was the same group that he was asking about okay and

[00:40:58] that's actually i believe the reason why in fallout 4 the brotherhood of steel has red and

[00:41:03] black painted power armor for a lot of the knights and paladins is because they sort of kept that the

[00:41:09] old traditions alive from the years when the outcasts were active yeah which is a very cool

[00:41:14] little detail and also red and black power armor i mean in my opinion looks badass i mean i love

[00:41:20] red and black as a color palette for armor it's beautiful so i i love that absolutely well

[00:41:25] before we dig into too much information that might be used in later episodes i think that we

[00:41:31] can probably wrap this up and we want you guys to be a part of the conversation we hope that everyone

[00:41:37] listening out there is going to come to us with some fallout questions and richard do you want to

[00:41:41] tell folks how they can get ahold of us and uh ask us those questions i would love to i've

[00:41:46] been waiting for this uh this opportunity ever since i was asked to join this podcast thank

[00:41:51] you for listening to this first episode of our new fallout lore series uh we'd love obviously to

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[00:42:01] wished that we included please let us know uh you can email us at radioactive at the lower

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