Because they needed to show that the BoS is a descendent of the US military, sort of, and tv show s have to put lots subtle storytelling through tropes for the casual viewers or they get confused.
There is no sort of. The original brotherhood were from mariposa. They executed the scientists when they found out about FEV and then the bombs dropped.
Edit: holy shit this is the most likes iv ever gotten on this account and it for my nerd knowledge. I love it
Yes, thats definitely true, but its just Roger Maxson's former command and followers not the entirety of the old US military. I was just trying to cover some of the caveats with "sort of."
The mariposa thing with the fev is the entire reason the brotherhood hates other factions having any kind of advanced tech.
After a few hundred years the goal is the same but most dont have the understanding of why they keep tech from others.
Yeah the original purpose of the Brotherhood has been diluted. You can see that in every game they’re in. The goal of hoarding technology so that it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands was the end goal of said hoarding, now the hoarding is the goal. The dogmatic religious beliefs of the Brotherhood is dragging down those who would actually be beneficial to it.
Hoarding nuclear weapons to create a monopoly on violence and prevent another apocalypse? Impractical, but perfectly reasonable. Destroying the Institute to stop an army of superhuman synths from taking over the world? Overkill, but understandable.
Hoarding literal toaster ovens? Why tf is that even part of the curriculum?
Personally in fo4 it seemed like the hoarding was less important important to the bos co.pared to securing the commonwealth and destroying dangerous threats like the institute. The bos ideology is sti there which ia part of why they believe the institutw ia so dangeroua besides the obvious and why maxson felt danse needed to be eliminated. But they felt more practical and military to me. Whuch is why i felt they where somewhat of the morrally grey faction in 4.
This gets a little philosophical into what I believe the BoS would do after FO4.... I think Maxson wanted the institute's toys, and used BoS dogma to justify taking what he wanted. The BoS could not abide a rival with great technology the BoS didn't have access to in 2287. If the BoS won in FO4 they'd pick the corpse of the institute clean to make themselves stronger.
"Synths transcend the destructive nature of the atom bomb," yet the BoS regularly use atom bombs in warfare and to bolster their own arsenals. The problem isn't synths, since they'd existed for a century or more at that point, it is that synths and institute technology aren't under BoS control. The BoS didn't come to the commonwealth in force until Paladin Danse's recon team discovered some unusual energy readings(from teleportation). Synth's were the justification and a bit of local pandering.
They took and used the enclave's Adam's Air Force base crawler to make the Prydwen. The capital wasteland BoS is far stronger in FO4 than it was in FO3 after defeating the Enclave.
If the BoS successfully took the knowledge of how to make Synths I suspect the BoS would bolster their ranks or use them in the same sorts of ways the Institute was using them while claiming that they were to "protect" the world from itself. They take and "preserve" technology seeing themselves as the only true stewards of it. The BoS used all of the other technology they discovered including Liberty Prime taking great efforts to rebuild and reconstruct that technology.
I think if BoS was successful synths would just be one more tool in their arsenal. Disposable loyal foot soldiers...
Of course, this is just how I see the BoS in the commonwealth.
Personally i dont agree.
As a quick aside for the brothershoofs intentions in 4 while their not completely altruistic i dont think the brotherhood are evil, while there are certainly dogmatic members there also seem to be many who do legitimately want to help people and do good through the bos. And even thought maxson is a dick his interest in the commonwealth seems to go beyound just technological. I make this part an aside as i think we can both agree thais speculation and opinion on both sides as to weather the members pf the bos want to help and which people do and dont.
As for the main point while yes the bos uses and incoporates various advanced and dangerous technology to make itself stronger but it sort of has to. The goal of the more modern bos (which i see as improvement from the old school isolationists, though seems to have taken abit of a negative turn in the show with its return to relgious fanaticism mixed into it) has been to bring order back to the wasteland something in 3 and 4 that they are making steps to doing. And do to this the bos needs to be strong and have the capability to expand.
The brotherhood believes technology is important and vital to human survival, which is why they collect and presserve and try to develope it but they also they think that technology can go to far before people are ready for it if people dont look and the dangers and ethical queations this technology posses. leading to people using it poorly and for nafaruous purposes to disatorous consequences. This was the case with the expansion of nuclear weponry. But weather they like it or not this technology is out there and ita not going back in the bag. People use it widely and if they destroy every bit they find or refus to use it out of principle they wont stand a chance agaisnt those who do use it.
The synths are a diffferent story and i dont think they for a secound they wanted the synths. to the brotherhood or maxson atleast institute is a prime exmaple of what they oppose, erhical queations of a technology being ignored, and the consequences obvious from how they're being used. The institute is creating hundreds of sentient adroids to use as ita pupets for nefarious goals, almost the exact thing the. The brotherhoods view of them as abominations while prejudice is their legitimate view and i think a perfect exmaple of rhis is paladin danse. He was fiercely loyal and wouldve guven his life for the bos and they still wanted him dead because they couldn't abide what he represents. Even when con uced of his independence from the institute he wants him gone. And after they beat the institute they didnt takeover the base and scavange. They nuked it because the institutes actions and the possibilities of what could be done with the syths couldnt be abided
Just quickly im probably not going to continue this discussion cause i have stuff to fo today but i just want to say i love discussion like this and complex and complicated stuff like this is part of why i love fallout and its lore.
Thats how it is all the way back to Fallout 1, but by Fallout 4 the original Brotherhood is completely twisted into an anti-Brotherhood. At least Maxson's faction is anti BoS compared to original. Instead of hiding underground and avoiding contact with everyone, having no contact or influence (save brief encounters when collecting technologies for preservation), preserving all technology and studying it for replication and knowledge... Fallout 4 has them announce their existence as loudly as possible with flying amplifiers. Engaging in ongoing xenophobic racial genocides, and fearing/destroying technology.
The show seems to reference all the way back to Fallout 1, while possibly referencing 4 as well, so I'm curious to see if it is a unified Brotherhood or if there was a civil war over these massive differences.
And this split was established in Tactics by the way - I say this for anyone who might be a Bethesda complainer. Bethesda picked up the Brotherhoods evolving changes in philosophies that began with Tactics (as did the fact that the Brotherhood operates fleets of Airships) and ran with it, so much that the Brotherhood went from a minor faction with less influence than the Railroad (intentionally, because they avoided all influence) to becoming a major expansionist faction with certain historical dictator allusions of where that might be going.
NEVER - until Fallout 4. The show makes this evident - they have Titus complain he had to go out and collect Toasters for study. Preservation. Not destruction. They universally want to make sure the Dark Ages aren't repeatd, thats why they are the Brotherhood. In the Dark Ages, information was lost - books were burned, so much was just gone. What we know of the Dark Ages comes largely from what the roman catholic church preserved. Thats why the Brotherhood is a reference to the church, and their duty is the same. It's not that they are a religious group that cares about god - its that they used the idea as a basis of the Order since it worked to supply centuries of knowledge preservation until civilization was rebuilt. And it gives is cool ass titles like Paladin.
Now, if you have the only known toaster to study, the Brotherhood would take it for the good of the future having the ability to make more toasters. But if you had 1 of a million, they got theirs for study you can have yours, they never cared. And the Brotherhood would NEVER go out of its way to destroy all toasters. The concept of luddites running the Brotherhood is brand new, and is a direct reflection of the changes that made Maxson's new faction being a historical goofy mustached fascist hatred reference. They even gave him the SS looking coat rather than fancy roman catholic church garb like leaders had in the earlier games (and the show). I do kinda hope they add the robed power armor, that had very little presence in earlier games (just Tactics I think) but recent fan art showing it is completely badass - and appropriate for the Crusades references the Brotherhood came from.
There are. There's actually a few of em in Fallout 76, between the Free States secessionists, the Remnant US army Squadron, and the mechanized staff (and their human trainee) of Camp McClintock.
And they didn't outright reject the USA in general - they stood on moral high ground and refused to participate in the murder and torture of innocent vistims of FEV experimentation.
They were good soldiers refusing illegal orders as is their sworn duty to the country that flag represents.
This is from Maxson's Diary at Mariposa from Fallout 1.
>Oct. 20 2077
I finally replied to the outside world over our radio. I don't know why they never sent anyone here to see what was happening when we stopped responding to their transmissions. It doesn't make any sense. Well, they'll come now. I declared ourselves seceded from the union. They remember Jefferson Davis. What will history say about me?
>Oct. 22 2077
What the hell is going on? We declare ourselves to be in full desertion from the army and no longer under the Government's command and what happens? Nothing. Something bad is coming down.
I don't know about you, but comparing his actions to Jefferson Davies and saying he was no longer under the army or government sounds like a rejection of the USA to me. You gotta remember, by the end of the 'interrogations', Maxson had come to believe the scientists were telling the truth about following the governments and military's orders, he just didn't care anymore.
A good interpretation! Remember, he feels deep guilt for the murders of those civilian scientists he carried out. He was morally right, but as a good man he is NEEDS to have this out in the open so they aren't just murders carried out in the dark, but justifiable homicides vindicated in a lawful process... possibly even not vindicated, he may want to be punished. He isn't pointing at Davis as an example of how great he is - he's wondering if he will be looked at like Davis because he was the bigbad villain in the United States' darkest hour where brother killed brother so greedy politicians like Davis could continue profiting on the annihilation of civil rights. Maxson wants the military to come in and arrest him, put him on trial, and let him testify so the evils he stopped are on the record and his conscience can have some closure. He's MAD that the military simply didn't respond - and he was right that the biggest thing to ever happen to the military came down on them right then. His men only survived because of their actions, if they had been "just following orders" they'd all have gone off to die somewhere with the rest of the military.
The guilt may be why he established the Brotherhood on the roman catholic church template. Catholic Guilt is a real thing. Though I suspect preservation of technology and knowledge played a bigger part - nearly all we know of the Dark Ages comes from what the catholic church preserved in their isolated monestaries, just as teh Brotherhood's isolation helped preserve tech.
IMO he cared a lot. Very much. Enough to desperately hope to be arrested.
They could have just put it in the dialogue with Lucy or even the Brotherhood classroom scene in episode 1. I doubt most casual viewers even noticed the flag.
Dialogue takes time, and it isn't just the flag. It also the reason that the BoS base looks like a WWII military base instead of being built out of some old ruins. Maximus and the other squires also wearing clean white shirts and fatigues with their dog tags out are all parts of the unspoken language of film so they don't have to explain Maxson's rebellion and formation of the BoS when it isn't important to the current story being told.
Bingo. Film and television is a different medium. Endless dialogue is not always the answer. The medium has evolved and picked up many tricks in order to convey a message to the viewer, while being as efficient as possible.
Not everything has to be explained, and most viewers don't want a 5 minute slideshow history lesson prior to an episode.
If only there were some military barracks, army uniforms, units doing military drills and training, and a wartime propaganda poster, all in the frame at the same time, to do that for the viewer instead
Maybe because they still see America as their country? I mean, in that same episode, the Elder says that the artifact can either harm or save their nation. And in Fallout 4, they referred to the death of one of the Initiates as a sacrifice he made for his country.
Deserting the army doesn't mean abandoning one's country.
The army is just one institution, representing a government. It's not the country as a whole.
I think they actually fully seceded from the US government, not just the army, just before the bombs dropped in response to human testing of FEV at the mariposa military base.
They didn't really know who they were rebelling against at the time; the Mariposa base was being used to conduct human experimentation (developing the F.E.V.) on behalf of West Tek.
When Maxson discovered this he began interrogating scientists who all claimed they were doing it on orders from "the government". But we (and the Brotherhood) now know that what they meant was actually the Enclave.
Even so, rebelling against the government doesn't mean they don't still consider themselves to be patriots – they were after all fighting back against a conspiracy within the government, not seeking to establish their own independent nation.
> But we (and the Brotherhood) now know that what they meant was actually the Enclave.
This is mostly a distinction without a meaning. Most of the people who really counted in the government and the military were in on it. Most likely not all of Congress, or even most of it, but certainly the president and top generals.
Also, according to ZAX entries in FO1, the transition from the Pan Immunity Virion Project to the FEV project was initiated by the Defense Department, so, while remaining a secret, it was a "proper" move by the government through official channels.
> Most likely not all of Congress, or even most of it,
Fo76 answered this and>! you are absolutely correct!<. >!And those who survived the war and were not part of the Enclave were quickly disposed of.!<
>Most likely not all of Congress, or even most of it,
Definitely not all of Congress! In Fallout 76, there's a bunker intended for the US Congress to use during a nuclear war, most of them successfully got there. However, a large portion were killed by Enclave personnel because they were Enclave members.
The Enclave was functioning as a full shadow government for at least a couple of decades by then.
The government is just as capable of committing treason as its citizens. One could argue the Brotherhood was founded to combat this treason and defend (lol) the American people.
>The government is just as capable of committing treason as its citizens.
By the time of the rebellion of the military personnel guarding the Mariposa Military Base, it was the Enclave, which pre-great war was a fascist shadow government pulling the strings of the majotity of government officials not part of it, commiting most of the treason against US citizens.
Also, as I noted elsewhere in this comment thread, that US flag is clearly one that has a star for each US state, and probably 50 total like the modern US flag. **However, that is not the official US flag at the time of the Great War!** Instead, the final US flag has 13 stars (and this is featured from the original Fallout game on ward in the franchise), to represent the commonwealth system which added 13 administrative/government regions (consisting of several states) between the state and federal government. This seems to imply that the BoS in this camp are intentionally identifying with the US government of a different era, probably intentionally one pre-Enclave.
The distinction is that the Enclave was a shadow government – while it had control everywhere that mattered, it didn't have *everyone* under its control.
An uprising to oust them *could* have prevailed and left the remaining (non-Enclave) sections of government in charge, though obviously that never happened because nuclear armageddon – if it's not rain, it's nukes, bloody typical!
But Maxson probably never actually found out who he was really rebelling against, as the team(s) that went to the West Tek facility (which might have had some information exposing the Enclave etc.) never made it back.
It's another example of how war never changes – broken communication and bad intel lead to imperfect decision making.
> But Maxson probably never actually found out who he was really rebelling against, as the team(s) that went to the West Tek facility (which might have had some information exposing the Enclave etc.) never made it back.
The second part of my comment was meant to argue against this. We have don't have much evidence of the Enclave being the ones *specifically* behind the FEV project. The project was a Defense Department programme, so while covered by military secret it wasn't likely on the same level of secrecy as specific Enclave related projects, like building a base on the Poseidon Oil Rig. It would have likely involved many high ranking people that weren't necessarily part of the in-group. Simply put, while the Enclave was doing most of the pulling of strings, we have do not have much evidence that government officials and top brass outside of it were opposed to the imperial and authoritarian drift of the US, and arguably lots of evidence of the contrary. Specifically, we can't really say that what happened at Mariposa was mainly Enclave driven, as opposed to simply unethical military research.
>They didn't really know who they were rebelling against at the time; the Mariposa base was being used to conduct human experimentation (developing the F.E.V.) on behalf of West Tek.
Which along with other corporations and certain high-ranking government politicians and officials (but not all, see Fallout 76 and the information on the slaughter at the bunker for the US Congress) were simultaneously parts of the Enclave (which Pre-Great War was a straight-up fascist shadow government).
So, my headcanon is that soon after the conclusion of Fallout 2, the Bos and probably NCR (remember the two were at least somewhat chilly allies in that time period) were able to recover enough information about the Enclave to piece together its pre-Great War existence and role as a shadow government behind ehat was by then a largely figurehead public facing US government. In that case, it could explain why the BoS decides to identify with the non-Enclave parts of the US government.
In any case, I will note the US flag the BoS uses appears to be a 50-star (i.e. a star for each state) one, like in real-life. This is in contrast to the 13-star (i.e. one for each Commonwealth, a new multi-state administrative/governing region above states but below the nation level) was the last official US flag before the Great War. Given the overall attention to detail shown so far, I think this is almost certainly intentional and not a mistake on the showrunner's part. If so, that would indicate that the BoS is **specifically not** identifying with the US government immediately prior to the Grwt War, and instead to the US government sometime between the the mid-20th century and when the commonwealth/super-state regional system was adopted.
Sure, but Maxson did reject the old America it in his speech to the survivors after the bombs fell (from the wiki):
>I know most of you love [America](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/United_States_of_America). The good old red, white, and blue. But those of us that served at [Mariposa](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Mariposa_Military_Base) know something. America failed. Not because its citizens, who lived clean lives filled with hardship in a never ending war. And certainly not because of its fighting men and women. God bless them. No, its leaders failed us. [Senators](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/United_States_Congress#Senate), Generals, Presidents, all those bastards. Their failure almost destroyed all mankind.
But I look around here and I see survivors. People too stubborn, too damned ornery to die. We've fought and we've endured and finally we have a small patch of safety. But having a home isn't enough. We need something more. What we need is... purpose. But we cannot look to the America of old for that purpose. We have to build our own.
That being said, Maxson was at odds with other leaders of the BoS later in life, and there have always been multiple factions within the organization with different visions of how they should proceed. It's easy enough to believe that there are subfactions that have maintained American symbolism, or now use it as a claim for legitimacy or power (like medieval European kingdoms using Roman iconography).
Maxson sends a message stating he was seceding because he wanted a response from his higher ups and they had gone completely silent on him. It was a last ditch effort to get answers. When he does finally get a response it is literally cut off mid conversation by the nukes dropping. So there's never really a moment where we see if Maxson was going to follow through or if it was always a bluff. But based on the fact he reaches out to other military personnel across the country it implies that he, at the very least, still believes in the military
He convinces taggerdy to secede via satcom because they “need to set up their own faction, what happens when some senator crawls out of a bunker and tries to have us start the war up all over again. We need to have our own chain of command and become something different.”
Paraphrasing camp venture holotapes.
Iirc Maxson mainly did it just to get attention so he could get answers on FEV. When the bombs dropped he went back to acting as a us army representative for a time realizing this was more important.
The BoS formed from the remnants of the army at the Mariposa military base. The commander blew his own head off so Capitan maxon took over because of rank and a determination to hold his troops together. They then questioned the science staff about their experiments with fev before executing them. FEV was one of the main reasons they want to protect humanity from the technology that gets out of hand like vault 4 in the show. They eradicate abominations. It was the original maxon who wanted to reform into the BoS, basically keep the structure and training, change the titles and missions and ideology.
On a related note there was a guard at the robo-brain testing facility who raised ethical concerns (even though they were butchering condemned prisoners) who "allegedly" found himself part of the Anchorage offensive overnight.
Some of the log data in that facility is pretty informative.
Maxon’s unit was posted at Mariposa. Mariposa was where government scientists were doing FEV research. When Maxon found out, he had all the scientists killed and then waited for the rest of the militart to come for them for their betrayal of duty. But the Great War came for them first.
Maxon decided that was a sign or something and they committed themselves to not repeating the last few days. No more sick science experiments, and no more weapons capable to turning the world to a wasteland in the hands of irresponsible people.
With the civilian leadership a no-show there are a lot of surviving military units suddenly having no one to report to, some of them join up with Maxon and his crew. At least they have a mission and something to keep living for.
They literally declared secession, Roger Maxson even compared himself to Jefferson Davis, and they repeatedly criticize the pre-war US. They could hardly be more explicit in deserting their country.
>They could hardly be more explicit in deserting *what* their country *had become*.
I hope you'll forgive my insertions above. I don't wish to counter your argument, but rather lend to it a bit more specificity. They would very likely have kept the flag.
I would.
Yea but they didn't just desert or go AWOL. Maxson and those under his command fully seceded from the US government because they initiated the FEV expirements.
Again, a government isn't a country.
For a real life exemple of this concept, Iranian opponents to the regime are completely seceeded from the government of the ayatollah, but they're still Iranian.
But Maxon and his men literally declared secession from the United States. He formally withdrew from the country that is the United States. That's how secession works and was the BoS originally made a new flag, to represent themselves.
They may consider themselves American like the Confederates did irl, but they don't consider themselves United States Americans, just like the Confederates didn't.
Those that fled didn't secede. They aren't fleeing to start a new nation. Maxson didn't flee he seceded. He seceded and declared Mariposa as an independent territory from t he United States.
Those that are and have revolted against their government, revolted. A revolt is used to change a countries government, not to leave it.
More than a few, and a separate army ranger group. And they would have without a doubt attracted more (former) military personnel (like a national guard unit) since an organized group does offer stability and safety after all hell has broken loose.
Not to mention they would have had their coms still up that lost units might have picked up.
The Enclave is the remains of the highest levels of government (POTUS & cabinet) and their security, and the BoS is the remains of a small group of Army soldiers assigned to protect some f’ed up FEV scientists.
The Enclave is a classic conspiracy shaddow government. A cabal of influential people from the Military, Government and Business seeking to manipulate and eventually supplant the government. Not the remains of the government or the highest levels of Government.
By the the time of the great war it seems POTUS was Enclave, and the Secretary of Agriculture. But that Secretary of Agriculture of ends up in charge once the bombs drop. Otherwise we don't really have a run down of all their main people. It doesn't seem to be the full cabinet, or all of the government, or the entire executive branch. Just key influential people scattered across the government, private industry and influential positions.
Their whole thing was sweeping in and taking control once the nukes nuked.
They *claim* to be the legitimate remains of the US, but they are not. That's sort of the whole hook.
I'm pretty sure the "country" they're referring to is the Ordenstaat the Brotherhood had formed in the Capital Wasteland. The Brotherhood tends to criticize America when it comes up and declared secession before the war.
"We lost a dozen men trying to retrieve the GOAT from vault 33. On the other hand we've discovered initiate Koster would be an excellent barber. You win some, you lose some"
Mark Twain is credited with saying, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it."
More people should have that attitude but either conflate the two or have it reversed...
The worst kind of Nationalists too. Nationalism as a liberation ideology is one thing, but Nationalism as a component of being the global superpower is how you begin to justify a lot of bad and even evil things.
It is also in line with real military thinking. Yes the President is commander in chief. But even in real life the oath you take is to defend the constitution. There is no oath to the President either as a person or as an office, just the constitution. Yes it says to obey the orders of the President and others over them, but not before the constitution. If the President was an enemy to the constitution the pecking order is clear. The BOS saw “the government” doing blatantly unconstitutional things in the worst, basically least controversial way. Their oath demanded, essentially, that they unplug from their command structure and fight.
But the Brotherhood don't see America as their country, they declared secession before the war and according to 76 made their own command structure specifically so they don't have to recognise the authority of any American military or civilian official.
Thats probably a misstep.
This is from the BOS founding proclamation: I know most of you love America. The good old red, white, and blue. But those of us that served at Mariposa know something. America failed. Not because its citizens, who lived clean lives filled with hardship in a never ending war. And certainly not because of its fighting men and women. God bless them. No, its leaders failed us. Senators, Generals, Presidents, all those bastards. Their failure almost destroyed all mankind.
Its fair to say they absolutely saw the "red, white, and blue" as a symbolic essence of the country that was defamed due to the government.
They mutinied from the chain of command due to this, not because they were revealed as "anti-american" or not seeing it as their country anymore.
I suspect the Western brotherhood was infiltrated and corrupted (more corrupted) by the Enclave. The American flag, the fact that they were hunting an escaped Enclave scientist but not hunting down the Enclave itself, and the elder scribe talking about ousting Maxson/the current leadership and taking over with him alone in charge... smells like Enclave to me, especially since the western brotherhood was only a shade away from the Enclave in values to begin with.
Could be that they still see themselves as American, since they’re probably one of the only groups besides vault dwellers and the Enclave who care about America anymore. Even if they turned their backs on the government of the US, they could have still identified as Americans; the values and virtues that America was built on were the same that led them to revolt in the first place.
I think most people in the Wasteland has little knowledge of America or most things pre-war, heck some might not even know about the war at all, other than as some old myth.
Even in the BoS many grunts would probably go: "America? That's some pre-war thing right?"
Maybe some of the newly recruited grunts, if they’ve not been taught to read yet. Anyone who can read in Fallout’s universe has ample opportunity to learn about the old world, since they’re living in its bones. I think the catch is, while a decent amount of people could have an understanding of what America *was*, ranging from very basic to very studied, they wouldn’t understand what it *is* to be American. The BOS, steeped in tradition always, are probably one of the only groups where the context of American culture is still understood enough to be considering oneself an American. Besides them, only the Vaults and the Enclave have enough cultural identity remaining from the old world that they’re passable as “American.”
Think of it like this: take the indigenous history of your country, or even the history of your nation back two hundred years - how much do you understand about the culture of that time? Do you think that you have good knowledge of them? Do you think most of your peers do? Whether you do or don’t know all that much about what it was like in their day, and despite the fact you’ll probably lack context even if you know their history, you still consider yourself a part of the nation same as they did. I believe this is how the BOS is, as they live in a much different America, but still have the underlying tradition and history to consider themselves Americans.
The BOS at large is knowledgeable about old America, to the point where you will occasionally get pieces of dialogue with them discussing it. Danse in Fallout 4 even goes so far as to discuss sociopolitical factors about the old US that led to the war during with some mission monologues.
With the literacy rate in the wasteland being presumably abysmal, I would agree most people probably don’t have much knowledge of America as it was, but are still able to take context clues from the world they live in, and the ones who are illiterate probably thought America must have been a paradise from the wrecks they can see around them, but to them it is all dead, and they’re just from X place in what was once the US. I just don’t think the BOS is in the boat with most people, due to their education.
The fact they can read or they know that America existed doesn't make them American in the slightest. Their education is linked to recovering technology and from dialogue they are pretty very much against what America stands for because of the heinous shit they have done and the fact that they basically destroyed civilization.
It would be like saying that I'm Roman and wave a SPQR flag because I was taught for 2 years in school. Actually this is the best analogy, America is for them what the Roman empire is to us, a fallen empire, maybe an interesting conversation piece but nothing more.
That’s what I would’ve thought as well. I figured they never thought of themselves as Americans, especially since the US right before the war was on a pretty dark path. But then we get to the crux of the matter, which is that the BOS is flying the US flag as pictured above. There is legitimately no reason for them to fly that flag besides considering oneself, in some way, part of the identity that it represents. Flags are important symbols, and the Brotherhood are very mired in symbolism and protocol, so it isn’t just some off the cuff flying of the old world flag - to fly the flag alongside their organizational colors is a pretty obvious statement that this symbol, the US flag, has meaning to them. The only other time I can think of them even hinting they had some semblance of national identity was in Fallout 4 when they speak of dying *for their country*, which is a very loaded remark that can’t just be dismissed. It implies very heavily they identify as being part of a country, and paired with the flag being flown in the show, that country is the US, or at least the idea of it.
I’m not saying that I don’t desire to agree with your sentiment. I would prefer the BOS remain aloof, and not start identifying themselves with the nation their ancestors effectively walked away from, as I feel that it fits their character - but Fallout is changing. We can say “oh, I don’t quite like that,” all we would like, but the lore is progressing in this direction, so it’s not something that seems can be argued.
The BOS is an increasingly large and powerful force, and is drawing in disparate groups of recruits from seemingly all over the remains of the USA. It could be possible that, as the Brotherhood becomes larger and more diverse, they require a more universal identity that will be palatable across a large spectrum, and therefore have adopted the symbols of the old world to help integrate all the different people under their growing wingspan. Learning about Rome, in your example, would have much more additional context if your teachers had been telling you while you learned that you, in fact, were Roman your whole life and just did not know it. Learning about the old world isn’t what makes them Americans or not, it’s their leadership choosing to identify with a country and fly it’s flag.
There’s the potential that the line I mentioned is simply an oversight, because it sounds good, but I don’t really believe that. And the same potential exists for the show picturing the BOS flying the US flag. But I have to assume these are not accidental, without someone from Bethesda saying otherwise, and are instead willfully showing that the BOS, as it evolves, is fostering an American identity in its ranks.
Most post-collapse/catastrophe peoples will eventually see themselves (and no others) as the inheritors/true sons & daughters of the civilization that came before.
This isn’t even necessarily true, since it’s only people who have material motive and reason to claim inheritance over a “national” legacy. The downtrodden and poor peasants almost universally never really gave a shit. The ruling classes who used and abused the masses almost always did care about such ideals though.
You see Americans flying the US flag next to the confederate flag, and you see Russian soldiers wearing the USSR flag in Ukraine right now. The BOS was created from the US army. They're probably just celebrating their roots, flaws and all.
Or the creators just didn't know what they were doing.
its both
smart moneys on they wanted to signal how BoS has American roots and is a military faction, so they opted for flying the US flag along with the BoS flag
Not strange when both imperial projects existed in competition and conflict contemporaneously. It took united efforts against any upstarts like the French and Germans to create any kind of shared “unity” in their relationship.
I think they just don't agree with the vision the Enclave have, to them the Brotherhood is representing the US and the Enclave lost their ways and sure as hell isn't thinking on what is best for the country.
besides they arent flying a regular american flag, its a 14 star flag, 1 central large star surrounded by 13 stars encircling it, the enclave even has a version of the flag too but with an E logo in the place of the large star.
The flag they're flying is the American flag of the fallout universe, where before the war the US reorganized into 13 commonwealths. So it's just the US flag for all intents and purposes
Which doesn't make sense when you realise that the this West Coast Chapter is subordinate to the East Coast Chapter, which also sends the Prydwen to help out. Titus, for example, must be East Coast because nobody seems to have ever seen a T-60 Armor outside a book.
It might be because they have Liberty Prime. They have the giant robot talking about how great America is and just decide, "Fuck it, we're the real Americans here. "
they started as surviving military personal collecting abandoned military hardware and just slowly become a cult technophiles-ish group so a lot of the old military stuff survived the 200 years
More likely, the event has been twisted and perverted through the years into "the government betrayed us as they were evil bureaucrats who destroyed the world" or something.
That’s actually entirely possible. Because in Fallout 1 and New Vegas it was stated that a lot of BoS members don’t even remember who Roger Maxson is or what he did.
This might have been mentioned at some point, but I read a good chunk of the comments and didn't see it, but the BoS in the show, flying the US 50 state flag, is probably because they feel THEY are the ideal with which the USA should now conform to and it's their job to conquer the wasteland and reunite the nation.
They are basically looking back at the WWII era and claiming THAT time period as what they want to see emerge.
Of course, though, the Brotherhood has mostly become a Theocracy where technology is the be all, end all, goal.
Only the Brotherhood can save us. Save us from our enemies. Save us from ourselves. Restore the USA to its former glory and lead us into the future.
I'm pretty sure the originals in the enclave were most of the high ranking military officers and the government. Bos is just american soldiers under a new flag
Production error. They even use the wrong US flag for the series. In universe the [50 star flag hadn't been used since 1969,](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States) with the implementation of the Commonwealth system.
Can you?? Not enough pixels to see the flag thats flying. The poster saying "Your country needs you Enlist" has a fifty star flag (also not sure why the BoS is trying to convince their own trainees to enlist)
You know what? Flag flying is pretty hard to tell. Still looks like the 50 star flag to me, but if I squint I can sorta see it maybe being the circle star flag.
Doesn't explain the use of the 50 star flag in the enlistment poster on the barracks smh.
That the only answer that matters here, it was another overnight by the producers of the show, and as always people are overthinking trying to get some deeper meaning when it was a simple oversight by the guys that got many other things wrong.
The brotherhood was largely founded by pre-war American soldiers who survived. This is really delved, deep into and fallout 76, where we get some insight into the original founders of the brotherhood. The ThunderCats, and other military grades that were in Appalachia.
The BOS still cares more about America than they do Mexico, China, or heck pick a country. Of course they're still going to fly the historical flag of their nation.
As they say in the show and heck in FO4 too, all of the factions are striving for a more perfect American society, they just disagree on how to do it. (And 75% of the factions are fucked in the head, but that's a different conversation).
Though it's worth pointing out that the American flag was different in the FO universe by the time the bombs drop.
I'm still trying to figure out why their flags are tattered. They're one of the more organized groups shouldn't their flag be in better shape than the New California Republic's?
I believe the Brotherhood, given their usage American-esque iconography, has thrown their own heritage.
Really it comes back the term “nation state”; nation is the culture,virtues, chthonic law held by that society; state simply means government.
The Brotherhood honors the American nation, but not the pre-war deep state federal government.
There isn't a 100% confirmed reasoning also supported by previous games.
A portion of the Brotherhood just finished a massive war with the Enclave who still exists in the Television show. The brotherhood also doesn't exactly follow the tenets of the US. Some will say it is because the Brotherhood descends from the US Military. Maxson's *Rebellion* was against the US Military and even Captain Maxson himself described the Rebellion as a secession movement.
So, It doesn't have a basis in lore and probably has more of a basis in that showrunners wanted the audience to know these guys were like the US Military mixed with Metal Monks.
I noticed most give some big argument.,but in reality wasteland folk don’t care about nothing but there next meal and water..besides the fact the world is in jeopardy now more then ever sense according to book of revelation all has came true but the rapture and resurrection the lord says he is the first and the last so what is the resurrection?second the rapture hopefully will happen before nukes
Because the brotherhood of the show isn't the same brotherhood that was established over 200 years ago. Customs and beliefs change over time.
The original founder had good reason to distance himself from a government who failed their people. In contrast, the brotherhood in the show probably sees solid propaganda value who displaying their association with original legal government of the area they operate.
The factions are all largely some remaining vestige of "America" or see themselves as carrying on some aspect of pre-war America. The BoS being founded by members of the American armed forces see themselves as the rightful protectors of the land. They may not work for an American state or formally acknowledge it, but it could likely be flown as a symbol of an idea of heritage to the organization. It gives them an increased sense of place and purpose.
In 76 an NPC says "To rebuild America we must move away from America", so it seems as if they have a distinction between America the place and America the idea/system.
I was just playing fallout 4 and heard some stuff like “blah blah blah for your country” I think they carry old world patriot values. Pride in their country despite its state.
Because the Brotherhood draws a part of their legitimacy from their connection to the old world American military. And so they use old American symbolism
They don't really draw legitimacy from the US, according to 76 they specifically changed their ranking system to distance themselves from the pre-war American power structure.
The Brotherhod is the least American major organization after Shi.
The whole Brotherhood ideology and culture was built solely to prevent them from aligning with any remnant US government.
The Brotherhood of Steel was formed by remnants of the US military. It was formed in California as well, so considering this is probably one of the closest chapters to the original one at Mariposa, they likely identify with that sect the closest.
The brotherhood just uses iconography of the army from before the bombs fell. They’re just wanna be’s so they probably are just trying their best to match old pictures they’ve seen and what lot.
But this is entirely a fictional setting and no evidence I found online indicts military involvement in the show's production
If I had to guess I'd say maybe the BoS base was an irl old military base and the military required them to keep the American flag up at all times (pretty standard for military bases), hence why we only see the BoS flag being raised while the US flag is already seen flying.
I think it was for people that are new to Fallout to understand that the BoS was remnants of the US Army. Next season will probably set things straight with Arthur Maxon explaining his descendant Roger Maxon renounced his oath to the US Army to form the Brotherhood.
"The so called Brotherhood of Steel. Don't be fooled by their pseudo-knightly nonsense or supposed connections to the United States Army. These power armored Boy Scouts are nothing more than common criminals with access to some antiquated technology. Criminals, who have had the audacity to claim this country's most important military installation, the Pentagon, as their own personal club house. And don't be fooled America, those who have left the Brotherhood of Steel, branded Outcasts, are just as dangerous. Even more so, being in exile"
-President John Henry Eden
These are west coast Brotherhood, so perhaps they still hold America a little dear to their hearts, and see the Brotherhood as America's best chance at redemption.
Especially since a lot of the west coast brotherhood members might be ex NCR or former residents of shady sands.
Iirc they already existed before the Great War as a part of the US Army or something, so it’d make sense that they retained some of American values, like guns and flying the flag
The BoS in their newfound power in the show (since there’s a power vacuum with the NCR gone) are probably claiming to be the successors of the pre war US in order to gain credibility and influence.
Similar to how many governments in the medieval period (and even today) claim to be the successors of the Roman Empire and would regularly copy things from the Romans to appear more Romanesque
The BoS still sees the land as the US, just one that went awry and they’ll be the ones to “fix it” by controlling technology. The way they see it they’re openly despots, albeit benevolent ones. Also the original BoS were remnants of the US military that weren’t part of the Enclave.
Keep in mind, in this universe, there was no Vietnam War and systemic racism was (ironically) stamped out after the Civil War - except against those with politically divergent ideals (communism) and capitalism went a little bit crazy. Supposedly there were no “race riots” and everyone that pledges allegiance is 100% American. Being a “pinko” was worse than being a POC by a massive, massive margin - Cooper himself in the TV show knows what his friend means with his anti Vault-Tec rhetoric but tells him “shut up man or you’ll be dragged away”.
Because they needed to show that the BoS is a descendent of the US military, sort of, and tv show s have to put lots subtle storytelling through tropes for the casual viewers or they get confused.
There is no sort of. The original brotherhood were from mariposa. They executed the scientists when they found out about FEV and then the bombs dropped. Edit: holy shit this is the most likes iv ever gotten on this account and it for my nerd knowledge. I love it
Yes, thats definitely true, but its just Roger Maxson's former command and followers not the entirety of the old US military. I was just trying to cover some of the caveats with "sort of."
The mariposa thing with the fev is the entire reason the brotherhood hates other factions having any kind of advanced tech. After a few hundred years the goal is the same but most dont have the understanding of why they keep tech from others.
In FO4 and the show it certainly feels like saving humanity by hoarding technology is dogma, not something they actually believe.
Yea thats what i ment but the words escaped me. To them its a religion at this point.
Yeah the original purpose of the Brotherhood has been diluted. You can see that in every game they’re in. The goal of hoarding technology so that it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands was the end goal of said hoarding, now the hoarding is the goal. The dogmatic religious beliefs of the Brotherhood is dragging down those who would actually be beneficial to it.
Hoarding nuclear weapons to create a monopoly on violence and prevent another apocalypse? Impractical, but perfectly reasonable. Destroying the Institute to stop an army of superhuman synths from taking over the world? Overkill, but understandable. Hoarding literal toaster ovens? Why tf is that even part of the curriculum?
…Do you know what you can do with a toaster oven?
If we’re talking about the toaster in OWB, global domination is on the table
A toaster is just a death ray with a smaller power supply. If that wastelander had access to a fusion plant, they would burn the world!
The toaster is a nod to the wasteland series.
Personally in fo4 it seemed like the hoarding was less important important to the bos co.pared to securing the commonwealth and destroying dangerous threats like the institute. The bos ideology is sti there which ia part of why they believe the institutw ia so dangeroua besides the obvious and why maxson felt danse needed to be eliminated. But they felt more practical and military to me. Whuch is why i felt they where somewhat of the morrally grey faction in 4.
This gets a little philosophical into what I believe the BoS would do after FO4.... I think Maxson wanted the institute's toys, and used BoS dogma to justify taking what he wanted. The BoS could not abide a rival with great technology the BoS didn't have access to in 2287. If the BoS won in FO4 they'd pick the corpse of the institute clean to make themselves stronger. "Synths transcend the destructive nature of the atom bomb," yet the BoS regularly use atom bombs in warfare and to bolster their own arsenals. The problem isn't synths, since they'd existed for a century or more at that point, it is that synths and institute technology aren't under BoS control. The BoS didn't come to the commonwealth in force until Paladin Danse's recon team discovered some unusual energy readings(from teleportation). Synth's were the justification and a bit of local pandering. They took and used the enclave's Adam's Air Force base crawler to make the Prydwen. The capital wasteland BoS is far stronger in FO4 than it was in FO3 after defeating the Enclave. If the BoS successfully took the knowledge of how to make Synths I suspect the BoS would bolster their ranks or use them in the same sorts of ways the Institute was using them while claiming that they were to "protect" the world from itself. They take and "preserve" technology seeing themselves as the only true stewards of it. The BoS used all of the other technology they discovered including Liberty Prime taking great efforts to rebuild and reconstruct that technology. I think if BoS was successful synths would just be one more tool in their arsenal. Disposable loyal foot soldiers... Of course, this is just how I see the BoS in the commonwealth.
Personally i dont agree. As a quick aside for the brothershoofs intentions in 4 while their not completely altruistic i dont think the brotherhood are evil, while there are certainly dogmatic members there also seem to be many who do legitimately want to help people and do good through the bos. And even thought maxson is a dick his interest in the commonwealth seems to go beyound just technological. I make this part an aside as i think we can both agree thais speculation and opinion on both sides as to weather the members pf the bos want to help and which people do and dont. As for the main point while yes the bos uses and incoporates various advanced and dangerous technology to make itself stronger but it sort of has to. The goal of the more modern bos (which i see as improvement from the old school isolationists, though seems to have taken abit of a negative turn in the show with its return to relgious fanaticism mixed into it) has been to bring order back to the wasteland something in 3 and 4 that they are making steps to doing. And do to this the bos needs to be strong and have the capability to expand. The brotherhood believes technology is important and vital to human survival, which is why they collect and presserve and try to develope it but they also they think that technology can go to far before people are ready for it if people dont look and the dangers and ethical queations this technology posses. leading to people using it poorly and for nafaruous purposes to disatorous consequences. This was the case with the expansion of nuclear weponry. But weather they like it or not this technology is out there and ita not going back in the bag. People use it widely and if they destroy every bit they find or refus to use it out of principle they wont stand a chance agaisnt those who do use it. The synths are a diffferent story and i dont think they for a secound they wanted the synths. to the brotherhood or maxson atleast institute is a prime exmaple of what they oppose, erhical queations of a technology being ignored, and the consequences obvious from how they're being used. The institute is creating hundreds of sentient adroids to use as ita pupets for nefarious goals, almost the exact thing the. The brotherhoods view of them as abominations while prejudice is their legitimate view and i think a perfect exmaple of rhis is paladin danse. He was fiercely loyal and wouldve guven his life for the bos and they still wanted him dead because they couldn't abide what he represents. Even when con uced of his independence from the institute he wants him gone. And after they beat the institute they didnt takeover the base and scavange. They nuked it because the institutes actions and the possibilities of what could be done with the syths couldnt be abided Just quickly im probably not going to continue this discussion cause i have stuff to fo today but i just want to say i love discussion like this and complex and complicated stuff like this is part of why i love fallout and its lore.
Thats how it is all the way back to Fallout 1, but by Fallout 4 the original Brotherhood is completely twisted into an anti-Brotherhood. At least Maxson's faction is anti BoS compared to original. Instead of hiding underground and avoiding contact with everyone, having no contact or influence (save brief encounters when collecting technologies for preservation), preserving all technology and studying it for replication and knowledge... Fallout 4 has them announce their existence as loudly as possible with flying amplifiers. Engaging in ongoing xenophobic racial genocides, and fearing/destroying technology. The show seems to reference all the way back to Fallout 1, while possibly referencing 4 as well, so I'm curious to see if it is a unified Brotherhood or if there was a civil war over these massive differences. And this split was established in Tactics by the way - I say this for anyone who might be a Bethesda complainer. Bethesda picked up the Brotherhoods evolving changes in philosophies that began with Tactics (as did the fact that the Brotherhood operates fleets of Airships) and ran with it, so much that the Brotherhood went from a minor faction with less influence than the Railroad (intentionally, because they avoided all influence) to becoming a major expansionist faction with certain historical dictator allusions of where that might be going.
> and fearing/destroying technology. Well that has always been a part of the BOS.
NEVER - until Fallout 4. The show makes this evident - they have Titus complain he had to go out and collect Toasters for study. Preservation. Not destruction. They universally want to make sure the Dark Ages aren't repeatd, thats why they are the Brotherhood. In the Dark Ages, information was lost - books were burned, so much was just gone. What we know of the Dark Ages comes largely from what the roman catholic church preserved. Thats why the Brotherhood is a reference to the church, and their duty is the same. It's not that they are a religious group that cares about god - its that they used the idea as a basis of the Order since it worked to supply centuries of knowledge preservation until civilization was rebuilt. And it gives is cool ass titles like Paladin. Now, if you have the only known toaster to study, the Brotherhood would take it for the good of the future having the ability to make more toasters. But if you had 1 of a million, they got theirs for study you can have yours, they never cared. And the Brotherhood would NEVER go out of its way to destroy all toasters. The concept of luddites running the Brotherhood is brand new, and is a direct reflection of the changes that made Maxson's new faction being a historical goofy mustached fascist hatred reference. They even gave him the SS looking coat rather than fancy roman catholic church garb like leaders had in the earlier games (and the show). I do kinda hope they add the robed power armor, that had very little presence in earlier games (just Tactics I think) but recent fan art showing it is completely badass - and appropriate for the Crusades references the Brotherhood came from.
Yes, it is a military order that turned into a religious order. That is the point.
Didn’t Maxon sent out a broadcast for all surviving US military to join BoS after the nuclear war? This is from Fallout 76.
Finally some one know the lore!!!!
Roger Maxson's command also seceded *prior* to the bombs falling.
Which makes me think there should be other U.S. Military descended factions from other areas
The enclave technically did have military divisions that survived. The upper ranks were government people.
There are. There's actually a few of em in Fallout 76, between the Free States secessionists, the Remnant US army Squadron, and the mechanized staff (and their human trainee) of Camp McClintock.
I think I am missing a ton of cool Fallout lore by not playing 76. I just couldn't get into it.
There's loads of great lore tbh and (in my opinion) some of the best writing for the Brotherhood of Steel in any Bethesda-era game.
And they didn't outright reject the USA in general - they stood on moral high ground and refused to participate in the murder and torture of innocent vistims of FEV experimentation. They were good soldiers refusing illegal orders as is their sworn duty to the country that flag represents.
This is from Maxson's Diary at Mariposa from Fallout 1. >Oct. 20 2077 I finally replied to the outside world over our radio. I don't know why they never sent anyone here to see what was happening when we stopped responding to their transmissions. It doesn't make any sense. Well, they'll come now. I declared ourselves seceded from the union. They remember Jefferson Davis. What will history say about me? >Oct. 22 2077 What the hell is going on? We declare ourselves to be in full desertion from the army and no longer under the Government's command and what happens? Nothing. Something bad is coming down. I don't know about you, but comparing his actions to Jefferson Davies and saying he was no longer under the army or government sounds like a rejection of the USA to me. You gotta remember, by the end of the 'interrogations', Maxson had come to believe the scientists were telling the truth about following the governments and military's orders, he just didn't care anymore.
A good interpretation! Remember, he feels deep guilt for the murders of those civilian scientists he carried out. He was morally right, but as a good man he is NEEDS to have this out in the open so they aren't just murders carried out in the dark, but justifiable homicides vindicated in a lawful process... possibly even not vindicated, he may want to be punished. He isn't pointing at Davis as an example of how great he is - he's wondering if he will be looked at like Davis because he was the bigbad villain in the United States' darkest hour where brother killed brother so greedy politicians like Davis could continue profiting on the annihilation of civil rights. Maxson wants the military to come in and arrest him, put him on trial, and let him testify so the evils he stopped are on the record and his conscience can have some closure. He's MAD that the military simply didn't respond - and he was right that the biggest thing to ever happen to the military came down on them right then. His men only survived because of their actions, if they had been "just following orders" they'd all have gone off to die somewhere with the rest of the military. The guilt may be why he established the Brotherhood on the roman catholic church template. Catholic Guilt is a real thing. Though I suspect preservation of technology and knowledge played a bigger part - nearly all we know of the Dark Ages comes from what the catholic church preserved in their isolated monestaries, just as teh Brotherhood's isolation helped preserve tech. IMO he cared a lot. Very much. Enough to desperately hope to be arrested.
There just isn't time to lay it all out, especially in an 8 episode season.
nor would I want them to. It worked better with out exposition dumps.
"Show don't tell" is the way to go 99% of the time.
They could have just put it in the dialogue with Lucy or even the Brotherhood classroom scene in episode 1. I doubt most casual viewers even noticed the flag.
Dialogue takes time, and it isn't just the flag. It also the reason that the BoS base looks like a WWII military base instead of being built out of some old ruins. Maximus and the other squires also wearing clean white shirts and fatigues with their dog tags out are all parts of the unspoken language of film so they don't have to explain Maxson's rebellion and formation of the BoS when it isn't important to the current story being told.
Bingo. Film and television is a different medium. Endless dialogue is not always the answer. The medium has evolved and picked up many tricks in order to convey a message to the viewer, while being as efficient as possible. Not everything has to be explained, and most viewers don't want a 5 minute slideshow history lesson prior to an episode.
If only there were some military barracks, army uniforms, units doing military drills and training, and a wartime propaganda poster, all in the frame at the same time, to do that for the viewer instead
That just tells you its military. The flag tells you its the remnants of the American military.
I thought the enclave was the remnants of the military. Although I never went too deep into the lord of the games.
Maybe because they still see America as their country? I mean, in that same episode, the Elder says that the artifact can either harm or save their nation. And in Fallout 4, they referred to the death of one of the Initiates as a sacrifice he made for his country.
Also, the BoS had risen from the remains of the US Army.
A few who deserted under the command of Maxon or not?
Deserting the army doesn't mean abandoning one's country. The army is just one institution, representing a government. It's not the country as a whole.
I think that was the reason they deserted? Because they couldnt deal with the bullshit anymore? But I cant remember to good anymore
I think they actually fully seceded from the US government, not just the army, just before the bombs dropped in response to human testing of FEV at the mariposa military base.
They didn't really know who they were rebelling against at the time; the Mariposa base was being used to conduct human experimentation (developing the F.E.V.) on behalf of West Tek. When Maxson discovered this he began interrogating scientists who all claimed they were doing it on orders from "the government". But we (and the Brotherhood) now know that what they meant was actually the Enclave. Even so, rebelling against the government doesn't mean they don't still consider themselves to be patriots – they were after all fighting back against a conspiracy within the government, not seeking to establish their own independent nation.
> But we (and the Brotherhood) now know that what they meant was actually the Enclave. This is mostly a distinction without a meaning. Most of the people who really counted in the government and the military were in on it. Most likely not all of Congress, or even most of it, but certainly the president and top generals. Also, according to ZAX entries in FO1, the transition from the Pan Immunity Virion Project to the FEV project was initiated by the Defense Department, so, while remaining a secret, it was a "proper" move by the government through official channels.
> Most likely not all of Congress, or even most of it, Fo76 answered this and>! you are absolutely correct!<. >!And those who survived the war and were not part of the Enclave were quickly disposed of.!<
>Most likely not all of Congress, or even most of it, Definitely not all of Congress! In Fallout 76, there's a bunker intended for the US Congress to use during a nuclear war, most of them successfully got there. However, a large portion were killed by Enclave personnel because they were Enclave members. The Enclave was functioning as a full shadow government for at least a couple of decades by then.
Drain the swamp!
The government is just as capable of committing treason as its citizens. One could argue the Brotherhood was founded to combat this treason and defend (lol) the American people.
>The government is just as capable of committing treason as its citizens. By the time of the rebellion of the military personnel guarding the Mariposa Military Base, it was the Enclave, which pre-great war was a fascist shadow government pulling the strings of the majotity of government officials not part of it, commiting most of the treason against US citizens. Also, as I noted elsewhere in this comment thread, that US flag is clearly one that has a star for each US state, and probably 50 total like the modern US flag. **However, that is not the official US flag at the time of the Great War!** Instead, the final US flag has 13 stars (and this is featured from the original Fallout game on ward in the franchise), to represent the commonwealth system which added 13 administrative/government regions (consisting of several states) between the state and federal government. This seems to imply that the BoS in this camp are intentionally identifying with the US government of a different era, probably intentionally one pre-Enclave.
Road to hell, and all that paving underfoot
The distinction is that the Enclave was a shadow government – while it had control everywhere that mattered, it didn't have *everyone* under its control. An uprising to oust them *could* have prevailed and left the remaining (non-Enclave) sections of government in charge, though obviously that never happened because nuclear armageddon – if it's not rain, it's nukes, bloody typical! But Maxson probably never actually found out who he was really rebelling against, as the team(s) that went to the West Tek facility (which might have had some information exposing the Enclave etc.) never made it back. It's another example of how war never changes – broken communication and bad intel lead to imperfect decision making.
> But Maxson probably never actually found out who he was really rebelling against, as the team(s) that went to the West Tek facility (which might have had some information exposing the Enclave etc.) never made it back. The second part of my comment was meant to argue against this. We have don't have much evidence of the Enclave being the ones *specifically* behind the FEV project. The project was a Defense Department programme, so while covered by military secret it wasn't likely on the same level of secrecy as specific Enclave related projects, like building a base on the Poseidon Oil Rig. It would have likely involved many high ranking people that weren't necessarily part of the in-group. Simply put, while the Enclave was doing most of the pulling of strings, we have do not have much evidence that government officials and top brass outside of it were opposed to the imperial and authoritarian drift of the US, and arguably lots of evidence of the contrary. Specifically, we can't really say that what happened at Mariposa was mainly Enclave driven, as opposed to simply unethical military research.
>They didn't really know who they were rebelling against at the time; the Mariposa base was being used to conduct human experimentation (developing the F.E.V.) on behalf of West Tek. Which along with other corporations and certain high-ranking government politicians and officials (but not all, see Fallout 76 and the information on the slaughter at the bunker for the US Congress) were simultaneously parts of the Enclave (which Pre-Great War was a straight-up fascist shadow government). So, my headcanon is that soon after the conclusion of Fallout 2, the Bos and probably NCR (remember the two were at least somewhat chilly allies in that time period) were able to recover enough information about the Enclave to piece together its pre-Great War existence and role as a shadow government behind ehat was by then a largely figurehead public facing US government. In that case, it could explain why the BoS decides to identify with the non-Enclave parts of the US government. In any case, I will note the US flag the BoS uses appears to be a 50-star (i.e. a star for each state) one, like in real-life. This is in contrast to the 13-star (i.e. one for each Commonwealth, a new multi-state administrative/governing region above states but below the nation level) was the last official US flag before the Great War. Given the overall attention to detail shown so far, I think this is almost certainly intentional and not a mistake on the showrunner's part. If so, that would indicate that the BoS is **specifically not** identifying with the US government immediately prior to the Grwt War, and instead to the US government sometime between the the mid-20th century and when the commonwealth/super-state regional system was adopted.
Two legends of the BOS, Maxon and Taggerdy 🫡
Sure, but Maxson did reject the old America it in his speech to the survivors after the bombs fell (from the wiki): >I know most of you love [America](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/United_States_of_America). The good old red, white, and blue. But those of us that served at [Mariposa](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Mariposa_Military_Base) know something. America failed. Not because its citizens, who lived clean lives filled with hardship in a never ending war. And certainly not because of its fighting men and women. God bless them. No, its leaders failed us. [Senators](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/United_States_Congress#Senate), Generals, Presidents, all those bastards. Their failure almost destroyed all mankind. But I look around here and I see survivors. People too stubborn, too damned ornery to die. We've fought and we've endured and finally we have a small patch of safety. But having a home isn't enough. We need something more. What we need is... purpose. But we cannot look to the America of old for that purpose. We have to build our own. That being said, Maxson was at odds with other leaders of the BoS later in life, and there have always been multiple factions within the organization with different visions of how they should proceed. It's easy enough to believe that there are subfactions that have maintained American symbolism, or now use it as a claim for legitimacy or power (like medieval European kingdoms using Roman iconography).
Maxson sends a message stating he was seceding because he wanted a response from his higher ups and they had gone completely silent on him. It was a last ditch effort to get answers. When he does finally get a response it is literally cut off mid conversation by the nukes dropping. So there's never really a moment where we see if Maxson was going to follow through or if it was always a bluff. But based on the fact he reaches out to other military personnel across the country it implies that he, at the very least, still believes in the military
He convinces taggerdy to secede via satcom because they “need to set up their own faction, what happens when some senator crawls out of a bunker and tries to have us start the war up all over again. We need to have our own chain of command and become something different.” Paraphrasing camp venture holotapes.
Iirc Maxson mainly did it just to get attention so he could get answers on FEV. When the bombs dropped he went back to acting as a us army representative for a time realizing this was more important.
The BoS formed from the remnants of the army at the Mariposa military base. The commander blew his own head off so Capitan maxon took over because of rank and a determination to hold his troops together. They then questioned the science staff about their experiments with fev before executing them. FEV was one of the main reasons they want to protect humanity from the technology that gets out of hand like vault 4 in the show. They eradicate abominations. It was the original maxon who wanted to reform into the BoS, basically keep the structure and training, change the titles and missions and ideology.
yes if i recall correctly it's because they saw the US experimenting with FEV on prisoners and they deserted in protest
On a related note there was a guard at the robo-brain testing facility who raised ethical concerns (even though they were butchering condemned prisoners) who "allegedly" found himself part of the Anchorage offensive overnight. Some of the log data in that facility is pretty informative.
Maxon’s unit was posted at Mariposa. Mariposa was where government scientists were doing FEV research. When Maxon found out, he had all the scientists killed and then waited for the rest of the militart to come for them for their betrayal of duty. But the Great War came for them first. Maxon decided that was a sign or something and they committed themselves to not repeating the last few days. No more sick science experiments, and no more weapons capable to turning the world to a wasteland in the hands of irresponsible people. With the civilian leadership a no-show there are a lot of surviving military units suddenly having no one to report to, some of them join up with Maxon and his crew. At least they have a mission and something to keep living for.
They couldn't deal with the unethical use of science
Maxson deserted because they didn't like how scientists tested on prisoners when they were in Mariposa.
They literally declared secession, Roger Maxson even compared himself to Jefferson Davis, and they repeatedly criticize the pre-war US. They could hardly be more explicit in deserting their country.
>They could hardly be more explicit in deserting *what* their country *had become*. I hope you'll forgive my insertions above. I don't wish to counter your argument, but rather lend to it a bit more specificity. They would very likely have kept the flag. I would.
Yea but they didn't just desert or go AWOL. Maxson and those under his command fully seceded from the US government because they initiated the FEV expirements.
Again, a government isn't a country. For a real life exemple of this concept, Iranian opponents to the regime are completely seceeded from the government of the ayatollah, but they're still Iranian.
But Maxon and his men literally declared secession from the United States. He formally withdrew from the country that is the United States. That's how secession works and was the BoS originally made a new flag, to represent themselves. They may consider themselves American like the Confederates did irl, but they don't consider themselves United States Americans, just like the Confederates didn't.
And Iranian opponents formally withdraw from their servitude to the regime and flee. Doesn't make them not Iranian.
Those that fled didn't secede. They aren't fleeing to start a new nation. Maxson didn't flee he seceded. He seceded and declared Mariposa as an independent territory from t he United States. Those that are and have revolted against their government, revolted. A revolt is used to change a countries government, not to leave it.
BoS ar filthy deserters and should be eradicated. Traitors. Long live the Enclave
More than a few, and a separate army ranger group. And they would have without a doubt attracted more (former) military personnel (like a national guard unit) since an organized group does offer stability and safety after all hell has broken loose. Not to mention they would have had their coms still up that lost units might have picked up.
Wouldn’t exactly call it desertion given the legitimate chain of command ceased to exist.
Yes, because of the F.E.V. Experimentation at Mariposa
“Everyone wants to save America, they just can’t agree on how.”
And they still hate the Chinese remnants.
They deserted bc they found out that they were experimenting with FEV but they still loved their country just not what it was doing
Am I stupid? I thought the enclave was the army (In conclusion I was stupid but only a little)
The Enclave is the remains of the highest levels of government (POTUS & cabinet) and their security, and the BoS is the remains of a small group of Army soldiers assigned to protect some f’ed up FEV scientists.
The Enclave is a classic conspiracy shaddow government. A cabal of influential people from the Military, Government and Business seeking to manipulate and eventually supplant the government. Not the remains of the government or the highest levels of Government. By the the time of the great war it seems POTUS was Enclave, and the Secretary of Agriculture. But that Secretary of Agriculture of ends up in charge once the bombs drop. Otherwise we don't really have a run down of all their main people. It doesn't seem to be the full cabinet, or all of the government, or the entire executive branch. Just key influential people scattered across the government, private industry and influential positions. Their whole thing was sweeping in and taking control once the nukes nuked. They *claim* to be the legitimate remains of the US, but they are not. That's sort of the whole hook.
The enclave are the remnants of the US government iirc
Didn't the brotherhood secede from the union before the bombs fell?
I'm pretty sure the "country" they're referring to is the Ordenstaat the Brotherhood had formed in the Capital Wasteland. The Brotherhood tends to criticize America when it comes up and declared secession before the war.
Artifact being the G.O.A.T?
You mean geck? Goat is a vault tec test
"We lost a dozen men trying to retrieve the GOAT from vault 33. On the other hand we've discovered initiate Koster would be an excellent barber. You win some, you lose some"
Yeah that's what i meant. Oops. My mind is all over the place. I remember things, just not the right words associated to them. It's super annoying.
I have a feeling the current elder may also be from vault 32
You can love your country and not love your government..
Mark Twain is credited with saying, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it." More people should have that attitude but either conflate the two or have it reversed...
Too many people who claim to be patriots but are actually nationalists.
The worst kind of Nationalists too. Nationalism as a liberation ideology is one thing, but Nationalism as a component of being the global superpower is how you begin to justify a lot of bad and even evil things.
*The Enclave* has entered the chat
It is also in line with real military thinking. Yes the President is commander in chief. But even in real life the oath you take is to defend the constitution. There is no oath to the President either as a person or as an office, just the constitution. Yes it says to obey the orders of the President and others over them, but not before the constitution. If the President was an enemy to the constitution the pecking order is clear. The BOS saw “the government” doing blatantly unconstitutional things in the worst, basically least controversial way. Their oath demanded, essentially, that they unplug from their command structure and fight.
But the Brotherhood don't see America as their country, they declared secession before the war and according to 76 made their own command structure specifically so they don't have to recognise the authority of any American military or civilian official.
This is all so pretty explicitly spelled out in fallout 1 and fallout 2
Thats probably a misstep. This is from the BOS founding proclamation: I know most of you love America. The good old red, white, and blue. But those of us that served at Mariposa know something. America failed. Not because its citizens, who lived clean lives filled with hardship in a never ending war. And certainly not because of its fighting men and women. God bless them. No, its leaders failed us. Senators, Generals, Presidents, all those bastards. Their failure almost destroyed all mankind. Its fair to say they absolutely saw the "red, white, and blue" as a symbolic essence of the country that was defamed due to the government. They mutinied from the chain of command due to this, not because they were revealed as "anti-american" or not seeing it as their country anymore.
In fact most people should think that way
Different chapters have wildly varying values
A lot of the times they're directly conflicting with one another.
Yeah the Mojave chapter really values crispy goods after I visited.
I suspect the Western brotherhood was infiltrated and corrupted (more corrupted) by the Enclave. The American flag, the fact that they were hunting an escaped Enclave scientist but not hunting down the Enclave itself, and the elder scribe talking about ousting Maxson/the current leadership and taking over with him alone in charge... smells like Enclave to me, especially since the western brotherhood was only a shade away from the Enclave in values to begin with.
FucK I thought this was Los Alamos lmfao
Could be that they still see themselves as American, since they’re probably one of the only groups besides vault dwellers and the Enclave who care about America anymore. Even if they turned their backs on the government of the US, they could have still identified as Americans; the values and virtues that America was built on were the same that led them to revolt in the first place.
I think most people in the Wasteland has little knowledge of America or most things pre-war, heck some might not even know about the war at all, other than as some old myth. Even in the BoS many grunts would probably go: "America? That's some pre-war thing right?"
Maybe some of the newly recruited grunts, if they’ve not been taught to read yet. Anyone who can read in Fallout’s universe has ample opportunity to learn about the old world, since they’re living in its bones. I think the catch is, while a decent amount of people could have an understanding of what America *was*, ranging from very basic to very studied, they wouldn’t understand what it *is* to be American. The BOS, steeped in tradition always, are probably one of the only groups where the context of American culture is still understood enough to be considering oneself an American. Besides them, only the Vaults and the Enclave have enough cultural identity remaining from the old world that they’re passable as “American.” Think of it like this: take the indigenous history of your country, or even the history of your nation back two hundred years - how much do you understand about the culture of that time? Do you think that you have good knowledge of them? Do you think most of your peers do? Whether you do or don’t know all that much about what it was like in their day, and despite the fact you’ll probably lack context even if you know their history, you still consider yourself a part of the nation same as they did. I believe this is how the BOS is, as they live in a much different America, but still have the underlying tradition and history to consider themselves Americans. The BOS at large is knowledgeable about old America, to the point where you will occasionally get pieces of dialogue with them discussing it. Danse in Fallout 4 even goes so far as to discuss sociopolitical factors about the old US that led to the war during with some mission monologues. With the literacy rate in the wasteland being presumably abysmal, I would agree most people probably don’t have much knowledge of America as it was, but are still able to take context clues from the world they live in, and the ones who are illiterate probably thought America must have been a paradise from the wrecks they can see around them, but to them it is all dead, and they’re just from X place in what was once the US. I just don’t think the BOS is in the boat with most people, due to their education.
The fact they can read or they know that America existed doesn't make them American in the slightest. Their education is linked to recovering technology and from dialogue they are pretty very much against what America stands for because of the heinous shit they have done and the fact that they basically destroyed civilization. It would be like saying that I'm Roman and wave a SPQR flag because I was taught for 2 years in school. Actually this is the best analogy, America is for them what the Roman empire is to us, a fallen empire, maybe an interesting conversation piece but nothing more.
That’s what I would’ve thought as well. I figured they never thought of themselves as Americans, especially since the US right before the war was on a pretty dark path. But then we get to the crux of the matter, which is that the BOS is flying the US flag as pictured above. There is legitimately no reason for them to fly that flag besides considering oneself, in some way, part of the identity that it represents. Flags are important symbols, and the Brotherhood are very mired in symbolism and protocol, so it isn’t just some off the cuff flying of the old world flag - to fly the flag alongside their organizational colors is a pretty obvious statement that this symbol, the US flag, has meaning to them. The only other time I can think of them even hinting they had some semblance of national identity was in Fallout 4 when they speak of dying *for their country*, which is a very loaded remark that can’t just be dismissed. It implies very heavily they identify as being part of a country, and paired with the flag being flown in the show, that country is the US, or at least the idea of it. I’m not saying that I don’t desire to agree with your sentiment. I would prefer the BOS remain aloof, and not start identifying themselves with the nation their ancestors effectively walked away from, as I feel that it fits their character - but Fallout is changing. We can say “oh, I don’t quite like that,” all we would like, but the lore is progressing in this direction, so it’s not something that seems can be argued. The BOS is an increasingly large and powerful force, and is drawing in disparate groups of recruits from seemingly all over the remains of the USA. It could be possible that, as the Brotherhood becomes larger and more diverse, they require a more universal identity that will be palatable across a large spectrum, and therefore have adopted the symbols of the old world to help integrate all the different people under their growing wingspan. Learning about Rome, in your example, would have much more additional context if your teachers had been telling you while you learned that you, in fact, were Roman your whole life and just did not know it. Learning about the old world isn’t what makes them Americans or not, it’s their leadership choosing to identify with a country and fly it’s flag. There’s the potential that the line I mentioned is simply an oversight, because it sounds good, but I don’t really believe that. And the same potential exists for the show picturing the BOS flying the US flag. But I have to assume these are not accidental, without someone from Bethesda saying otherwise, and are instead willfully showing that the BOS, as it evolves, is fostering an American identity in its ranks.
They seem pretty big on history so I feel like they would know how the BoS was founded.
You see it in fallout 4 as well, you got people going "American Citizen? Is that some pre-war mumbo jumbo?".
Most post-collapse/catastrophe peoples will eventually see themselves (and no others) as the inheritors/true sons & daughters of the civilization that came before.
This isn’t even necessarily true, since it’s only people who have material motive and reason to claim inheritance over a “national” legacy. The downtrodden and poor peasants almost universally never really gave a shit. The ruling classes who used and abused the masses almost always did care about such ideals though.
You see Americans flying the US flag next to the confederate flag, and you see Russian soldiers wearing the USSR flag in Ukraine right now. The BOS was created from the US army. They're probably just celebrating their roots, flaws and all. Or the creators just didn't know what they were doing.
Given the mind-boggling amount of detail seen all over the show, my caps are on option A.
its both smart moneys on they wanted to signal how BoS has American roots and is a military faction, so they opted for flying the US flag along with the BoS flag
Strangely I've never seen a British flag flying in the US to honor our heritage.
Not strange when both imperial projects existed in competition and conflict contemporaneously. It took united efforts against any upstarts like the French and Germans to create any kind of shared “unity” in their relationship.
I think they just don't agree with the vision the Enclave have, to them the Brotherhood is representing the US and the Enclave lost their ways and sure as hell isn't thinking on what is best for the country.
besides they arent flying a regular american flag, its a 14 star flag, 1 central large star surrounded by 13 stars encircling it, the enclave even has a version of the flag too but with an E logo in the place of the large star.
They represent the Commonwealths. That is the regular American flag to the Fallout universe since 1969.
The flag they're flying is the American flag of the fallout universe, where before the war the US reorganized into 13 commonwealths. So it's just the US flag for all intents and purposes
Because: - they're in the USA - It's a way to tell that they're descendants from people that were part of the Army
I’m pretty sure the east and west coast chapters have very different opinions on everything
Which doesn't make sense when you realise that the this West Coast Chapter is subordinate to the East Coast Chapter, which also sends the Prydwen to help out. Titus, for example, must be East Coast because nobody seems to have ever seen a T-60 Armor outside a book.
It might be because they have Liberty Prime. They have the giant robot talking about how great America is and just decide, "Fuck it, we're the real Americans here. "
If I remember correctly, the USA is still something the BoS wants to fight for.
They don’t like the government not the country Rodger maxson says this in several holotapes in fallout 76
The BoS in cannon are remnants of the US military. It would make sense that they have reverence for the flag.
Because they had two flag poles, and those shits is everywhere.
they started as surviving military personal collecting abandoned military hardware and just slowly become a cult technophiles-ish group so a lot of the old military stuff survived the 200 years
Cause most ppl who watched the show haven’t played fallout, they need context
It's actually a good point? The founder of the Brotherhood of Steel seceded from the United States after discovering horrible experiments on people?
It's been over 200 years since then, I think the Brotherhood may have forgotten that part of their history.
More likely, the event has been twisted and perverted through the years into "the government betrayed us as they were evil bureaucrats who destroyed the world" or something.
That’s actually entirely possible. Because in Fallout 1 and New Vegas it was stated that a lot of BoS members don’t even remember who Roger Maxson is or what he did.
This might have been mentioned at some point, but I read a good chunk of the comments and didn't see it, but the BoS in the show, flying the US 50 state flag, is probably because they feel THEY are the ideal with which the USA should now conform to and it's their job to conquer the wasteland and reunite the nation. They are basically looking back at the WWII era and claiming THAT time period as what they want to see emerge. Of course, though, the Brotherhood has mostly become a Theocracy where technology is the be all, end all, goal. Only the Brotherhood can save us. Save us from our enemies. Save us from ourselves. Restore the USA to its former glory and lead us into the future.
The original BoS was US Army.
Isn't the enclave descendant of the US/us military?
I'm pretty sure the originals in the enclave were most of the high ranking military officers and the government. Bos is just american soldiers under a new flag
“We denounce what the military became leading up to the war, but we look up to the ideals of what was”
They were US Army before the succeeded and became the BoS.
I put the American flag next to my BoS flag in all my Fallout 4 settlements/player homes, what’s the problem?
The brotherhood founder Was a US Army guy.
Production error. They even use the wrong US flag for the series. In universe the [50 star flag hadn't been used since 1969,](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States) with the implementation of the Commonwealth system.
you can literally see in this image its a circle of stars with a star in the centre smh
Can you?? Not enough pixels to see the flag thats flying. The poster saying "Your country needs you Enlist" has a fifty star flag (also not sure why the BoS is trying to convince their own trainees to enlist)
You know what? Flag flying is pretty hard to tell. Still looks like the 50 star flag to me, but if I squint I can sorta see it maybe being the circle star flag. Doesn't explain the use of the 50 star flag in the enlistment poster on the barracks smh.
It looks like the 50 star flag to me as well.
They don't identify with the US directly pre-war, the one who caused the destruction of the world. They identify with the older, less fascist US.
That the only answer that matters here, it was another overnight by the producers of the show, and as always people are overthinking trying to get some deeper meaning when it was a simple oversight by the guys that got many other things wrong.
The brotherhood was largely founded by pre-war American soldiers who survived. This is really delved, deep into and fallout 76, where we get some insight into the original founders of the brotherhood. The ThunderCats, and other military grades that were in Appalachia.
The BOS still cares more about America than they do Mexico, China, or heck pick a country. Of course they're still going to fly the historical flag of their nation. As they say in the show and heck in FO4 too, all of the factions are striving for a more perfect American society, they just disagree on how to do it. (And 75% of the factions are fucked in the head, but that's a different conversation). Though it's worth pointing out that the American flag was different in the FO universe by the time the bombs drop.
You can definitly love your country and not support its governing institutions.
I'm still trying to figure out why their flags are tattered. They're one of the more organized groups shouldn't their flag be in better shape than the New California Republic's?
The settlement constructor feature only includes pre worn furniture, for that authentic ‘wasteland chic’ look.
Look into the Macon family lore. It’s pretty cool honestly how the bos started
BoS made Liberty Prime. “Honoring the fallen is the duty of every red-blooded American”
Because this is America, God damn it.
I believe the Brotherhood, given their usage American-esque iconography, has thrown their own heritage. Really it comes back the term “nation state”; nation is the culture,virtues, chthonic law held by that society; state simply means government. The Brotherhood honors the American nation, but not the pre-war deep state federal government.
If I remember correctly in Fallout 4 the Brotherhood of Steal have framed antique American flags on their airship.
They're likely claiming to be a new American government, like the NCR, Legion, Minutemen (ish) and Enclave were.
The brotherhood considers themselves the true continuation of the us military
There isn't a 100% confirmed reasoning also supported by previous games. A portion of the Brotherhood just finished a massive war with the Enclave who still exists in the Television show. The brotherhood also doesn't exactly follow the tenets of the US. Some will say it is because the Brotherhood descends from the US Military. Maxson's *Rebellion* was against the US Military and even Captain Maxson himself described the Rebellion as a secession movement. So, It doesn't have a basis in lore and probably has more of a basis in that showrunners wanted the audience to know these guys were like the US Military mixed with Metal Monks.
I noticed most give some big argument.,but in reality wasteland folk don’t care about nothing but there next meal and water..besides the fact the world is in jeopardy now more then ever sense according to book of revelation all has came true but the rapture and resurrection the lord says he is the first and the last so what is the resurrection?second the rapture hopefully will happen before nukes
Eh that chapter of the brotherhood is wierd in many ways
Because the brotherhood of the show isn't the same brotherhood that was established over 200 years ago. Customs and beliefs change over time. The original founder had good reason to distance himself from a government who failed their people. In contrast, the brotherhood in the show probably sees solid propaganda value who displaying their association with original legal government of the area they operate.
This
The factions are all largely some remaining vestige of "America" or see themselves as carrying on some aspect of pre-war America. The BoS being founded by members of the American armed forces see themselves as the rightful protectors of the land. They may not work for an American state or formally acknowledge it, but it could likely be flown as a symbol of an idea of heritage to the organization. It gives them an increased sense of place and purpose. In 76 an NPC says "To rebuild America we must move away from America", so it seems as if they have a distinction between America the place and America the idea/system.
BOS was started by remnants of the US military.
I was just playing fallout 4 and heard some stuff like “blah blah blah for your country” I think they carry old world patriot values. Pride in their country despite its state.
It's a show thing to show their roots as American military.
Because the Brotherhood draws a part of their legitimacy from their connection to the old world American military. And so they use old American symbolism
They don't really draw legitimacy from the US, according to 76 they specifically changed their ranking system to distance themselves from the pre-war American power structure.
Because .... MURICA FUCK YEAH
Are you a communist!?
Some set designer had a whim.
The Brotherhod is the least American major organization after Shi. The whole Brotherhood ideology and culture was built solely to prevent them from aligning with any remnant US government.
Exactly, most of the people defending this are just coping. The show doesn't even use the correct version of the American flag on a lot of occasions.
Lots of coping in this community after the show came out. They really rather put their heads in the sand than admit the writing was bad.
Looks like they used the Oppenheimer set
The Brotherhood of Steel was formed by remnants of the US military. It was formed in California as well, so considering this is probably one of the closest chapters to the original one at Mariposa, they likely identify with that sect the closest.
That sect seceded before the bombs fell.
The brotherhood just uses iconography of the army from before the bombs fell. They’re just wanna be’s so they probably are just trying their best to match old pictures they’ve seen and what lot.
Real reason. The military is involved with most films that have war/ military topics
But this is entirely a fictional setting and no evidence I found online indicts military involvement in the show's production If I had to guess I'd say maybe the BoS base was an irl old military base and the military required them to keep the American flag up at all times (pretty standard for military bases), hence why we only see the BoS flag being raised while the US flag is already seen flying.
Because they are in America
I think it was for people that are new to Fallout to understand that the BoS was remnants of the US Army. Next season will probably set things straight with Arthur Maxon explaining his descendant Roger Maxon renounced his oath to the US Army to form the Brotherhood.
Because different BoS chapters are different. For example, Taggerdy Thunder from F76 consists only from ex-military.
The BOS is the continuation of the US Army.
"The so called Brotherhood of Steel. Don't be fooled by their pseudo-knightly nonsense or supposed connections to the United States Army. These power armored Boy Scouts are nothing more than common criminals with access to some antiquated technology. Criminals, who have had the audacity to claim this country's most important military installation, the Pentagon, as their own personal club house. And don't be fooled America, those who have left the Brotherhood of Steel, branded Outcasts, are just as dangerous. Even more so, being in exile" -President John Henry Eden
You don't see any ulterior motive for why he would say this?
These are west coast Brotherhood, so perhaps they still hold America a little dear to their hearts, and see the Brotherhood as America's best chance at redemption. Especially since a lot of the west coast brotherhood members might be ex NCR or former residents of shady sands.
Iirc they already existed before the Great War as a part of the US Army or something, so it’d make sense that they retained some of American values, like guns and flying the flag
The BoS in their newfound power in the show (since there’s a power vacuum with the NCR gone) are probably claiming to be the successors of the pre war US in order to gain credibility and influence. Similar to how many governments in the medieval period (and even today) claim to be the successors of the Roman Empire and would regularly copy things from the Romans to appear more Romanesque
The BoS still sees the land as the US, just one that went awry and they’ll be the ones to “fix it” by controlling technology. The way they see it they’re openly despots, albeit benevolent ones. Also the original BoS were remnants of the US military that weren’t part of the Enclave. Keep in mind, in this universe, there was no Vietnam War and systemic racism was (ironically) stamped out after the Civil War - except against those with politically divergent ideals (communism) and capitalism went a little bit crazy. Supposedly there were no “race riots” and everyone that pledges allegiance is 100% American. Being a “pinko” was worse than being a POC by a massive, massive margin - Cooper himself in the TV show knows what his friend means with his anti Vault-Tec rhetoric but tells him “shut up man or you’ll be dragged away”.