Brotherhood of Steel
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"So tonight, as we break bread together, let us forge together something new. Something strong. Something we can be proud of. Something we can build upon. We'll preserve what's best of what's come before and use it. And one day, we will reclaim what was lost. Let us forge a Brotherhood of Steel"
-Roger Maxson, founder of the Brotherhood of Steel
Formed from the remnants of deserting USA military forces, the Brotherhood of Steel are absolute badasses, and their aesthetic and depictions in the Fallout games are probably the closest direct look at what the early, post-apocalyptic Imperium was really like, with Space Marines being giant rusty metal-men rather than the semi-Roman, colorful, polished gods among men that they now are. If the modern Imperium discovered the Brotherhood of Steel on a random feral planet one day, they would be smoothly adopted into the Imperium, no questions asked. Or, at least the Fallout 4 East-Coast Chapter would. The Fallout 3 version...eh. Some DRASTIC changes would have to be made.
History[edit]
Since their founder, Captain HIGH ELDER Roger Maxson created them, the Brotherhoods goal was to protect and preserve technology from those who would misuse it, to prevent a nuclear war from ever happening again. They are a group of survivalist soldier-engineers who salvage and protect technology from irresponsible users, (i.e. everyone else besides them) and honoring restraint regarding technology and development. I guess this means no flying babies with vox-speaker mouths.
Witnessing how people around him slowly succumbed to depression, Captain Maxson formulated a new ideology for the survivors. It took him years to create it, replacing the tarnished Stars and Stripes with new symbols, new ranks, and new ideas to replace the ones scorched in nuclear fire. They would provide meaning for people before they became lost in the depths of despair after losing their friends, family, their entire world. Although some under his command, particularly Lieutenant Taggerdy, were skeptical of his plans, Maxson believed that the way forward lay in new traditions and a new mythology, free of the burden of the past. He also believed that it would prevent any surviving politicians from exercising their authority over former American soldiers, especially those with an agenda that involved burning Americans on the funeral pyre of the regime. By June 20, 2082, all members under his command switched over to using Brotherhood ranks and practices.
While this all sounds like the Brotherhood were forward-thinking science-y types that safeguarded humanity from the dangers of rampant tech, the OG Brotherhood and those close to them were very close-minded, preferring to retrieve any and all forms of technology above toaster-level at (las)gunpoint. See, Maxson wrote everything down in the CODEX ASTARTES, a pseudo-religious framework that the Brotherhood takes very seriously; unlike the Codex Astartes, this book was meant to be taken literally, prioritizing the confiscation of technology and the safeguarding of pre-War science over the general welfare of the Wasteland and large, or even the Chapter itself. Entire civil wars have happened within Chapters whose Elders dared to make helping outsiders a priority.
Like the SPESS MEHREENS, the Brotherhood is separated into Chapters, with each chapter being pretty much independent from the original chapter on the West Coast. In fact, most chapters East of California, including the nearby Mojave Chapter, were started by Elders who were sent east so that their "radical ideas" wouldn't be a detriment to their home chapter.
The Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 3 and Fallout Tactics (which IS canon) were much more goody-two-shoes, friendly, underdog super-heroes who fought alongside gross Super-Mutants and undead Ghouls to kill off the epic Enclave, the legitimate remnants of the United States Government (to be fair, they were being lead by an Abominable Intelligence) However after the death of their Boomer leader Elder Lyons, and the effective, but short-lived rule of his daughter who perished in battle, Roger Maxson's last surviving descendant Elder Arthur Maxson reformed the East Coast Brotherhood to be more fascist human-centered and focused. Putting the dominant species of Holy Terra AMERICA FIRST. Operations to wipe out mutated life such as Ghouls and Super Mutants, making things more safe for the people of the Capital Wasteland (once known as the State of Washington Washington D.C.) turning it into a militarized city-state.
After receiving reports of a disturbing misuse of technology in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (synthetic life, teleportation, and more, courtesy of the survivors of M.I.T.), Elder Maxson had a great airship constructed known as the Prydwen, which became the West Coast chapter's mobile base of operations. Taking his best fighters and a fleet of post-war built Valkyrie Vertibirds shipped off to the Commonwealth to personally deal with this disturbing abusers of technology, known as the Institute. The Institute had managed to create synthetic life that mimicked real humans perfectly (because they were, for better or worse, built with synthetic flesh, and the only machine identifier being a component in their brain), and were used as workers and spies. A high-ranking Paladin of the East Coast Brotherhood was even revealed to have been a Synth, though it was unclear to everyone whether he was replaced while on reconnaissance in Massachusetts (unlikely), or that he was an escaped synth, whose mind was wiped by the Underground Railroad so that he could live a free life and make his own decisions.
Of course, being an abominable machine, Elder Maxson orders you to kill him.
There are other endings, like supporting the Minutemen or the Underground Raildroad in their quest to free Boston from tech hoarders and a bunch of nerds, or join said nerds/pseudo-Space Marines. Siding with the Brotherhood means powering up Liberty Prime, a giant robot that lobs Nukes like footballs and and shoots lasers out his eyes. Liberty Prime then smashfucks his way through the ruins of MIT, "infiltrating" through the use of his deadly eye-laser and drilling down underground for the Brotherhood to exterminate the cancer underneath the Commonwealth at its source, halting Synth production when a Nuke was placed inside the Institute, destroying the Institute Scientists and saving the Commonwealth from their experiments. Once he's done with his job, he'll then spend the rest of the game Liberty Prime walking in a circle around the Boston Airport, instead of being used to easily cleanse the entire wasteland of Mutants because Bethesda did their very best to ensure that the plot stays at the bare minimum.
Structure and Ranks[edit]
The Eastern division implemented a heavily modified hierarchy derived from Lyons' Brotherhood of Steel altered ranking system, adapting it to the challenges of the wasteland realizing that it was kinda dumb to have everyone on the frontlines share a rank, and that the Knights and Scribes just did the same job anyway.
Scribes are the brains to the Brotherhood's brawn. They are responsible for the development and research of all Brotherhood technology, as well as the maintenance of advanced systems, weapons and armor and any other technical requirements. If it involves a computer or any sort of Science, it's probably a Scribe's job.
Squires are children who are too young to train as Initiates but are allowed to serve the various needs of full-fledged members of the Brotherhood. In exchange, they are taught basic concepts such as military structure, combat readiness, and loyalty that will help them when they are old enough to become Initiates. Squires sometimes accompany exemplary Knights on missions, at the behest of Lancer Captain Kells, to experience combat firsthand but only as an observer.
Initiates are Brotherhood-born members and sponsored outsiders who are training to become Knights, Scribes or Lancers.
Aspirant is a rank used to denote someone training under a superior officer such as a Paladin or Knight-Commander in order to be promoted to a full-fledged knight. They are a step above Initiates.
Lancers are the backbone of the Brotherhoods newly formed airforce. Without them, the Brotherhood would be unable to operate their vast fleets of Vertibirds.
Knights are fully-fledged members who have served time in the Brotherhood. In the West, Knights are the equivalent of Chapter serfs, or physical engineers. While Scribes do clerical, sciencey, and tech-work, Knights handle equipment and equipment-related missions; they make sure all their mechanical machinery works, and in times of great need, will accompany Paladins on missions to retrieve tech.
- In the East, Knights are soldiers who haven't yet been promoted to Paladin. Knights aren't equipped with Power Armor in FO1 and FO2 (West Coast) because they were non-combatants, but because the Lyon's Brotherhood found an entire army's worth of outdated, first-gen power armor (T45-d), they were able to equip everyone on the frontlines with them. For some reason, in FO4, most guys don't have Power Armor anymore, and you'll encounter even Paladin level troops fighting in Guardsman-tier Combat Armor.
Paladins are the Brotherhood's elite, seasoned veterans that are often high ranking field commanders or used in elite strike teams. All Paladins are supposed to always be equipped in Power Armor, except in FO4 where the canon is ignored.
Sentinel is a rare rank, only given to the Brotherhood's best and most distinguished soldiers. The last known Sentinel was Sarah Lyons, daughter of Elder Owyn Lyons; she was the highest-ranking field commander under Elder Lyons and commanded the Lyon's Pride, a single squad of the chapter's best soldiers. It is unknown if the Pride still operates as of 2287.
Arsenal[edit]
As a faction of techno-hoarding warrior-crusaders, the Brotherhood of Steel goes to war armed with the "best" technology leftover from the Great War, which is mostly power armor and energy weapons. Because they can't exactly build more of them (again, unless we're talking FO4 BoS that has just as much zappy-zappy whirly-gigs as the plot requires), the BoS considers technology to be sacred, and will do anything in their power to "acquire" more of it.
Most members of the Brotherhood consider firearms to be primitive, and so arm themselves with laser rifles and gatling lasers out the ass, like Space Marines written by a certain Irish leper. It's really strange considering that their lasguns aren't that much better from what the Imperial Guard has (las rifles are just as effective on Super Mutants as lasguns would be on the other greenskinned brute), and they'll actually find themselves outgunned by Rangers with .50 antimateriel rifles.
When they can find them, the Brotherhood will also utilize Plasma weaponry, which in Fallout is just Lasers+. Plasma weaponry is more experimental as evidenced by the exposed wirings and capacitors, but unlike 40K, they won't explode when you shake it too much. That being said, due to their rarity and the fact that they cannot make more of them, Plasma weaponry tends to be in the hands of the most experienced Paladins, or war spoils looted from the Enclave.
The Brotherhood of Steel is probably the most iconic aspect of the Fallout universe, and that's definitely because of the Power Armor they wear, which is ironic because nobody really likes them in-universe, and Fallout 2's cover art shows a dirty feral tribal wearing a ruined Power Helmet, an act that would throw any self-respecting Paladin into a bitchfit. Even though Power Armor's not exclusive to them (and depending on the game/chapter, they can't even build more of them), in most games, they are the most prodigious wielders of them (and so, targets for the PC), will probably train you in its use (so that you can betray them later), or will be just another background faction for you to fuck over.
They canonically wield three types of Power Armor:
T-45d - The "early mark" power armor introduced in Fallout 3. This was the first series of Power Armor that actually ran for more than an hour, featuring a built-in fusion reactor. The D.C. chapter of the Brotherhood found thousands of these underneath the ruins of the Pentagon, which they immediately used to replace the aging T-51s they had with them. While the T-45 was inferior to pretty much every Power Armor mark after it (Except, ironically, the "latest" armor rolled out by their opponents in the Capital Wasteland Enclave, the Enclave MKII), they had so much of these that it quickly became their standard model. The T-45 was then added to the canon in all the other games, with the T-45 being the "surplus" armor used by other chapters. In Fallout New Vegas, the Wastelander PC is "gifted" with "refurbished" (i.e. repaired to the bare minimum) T-45d after they join the Brotherhood because they're dicks like that.
T-51- The iconic Fallout Armor, present in every game since FO1, where it was just called "Power Armor". Very SPESS MEHREEN, even has the same kind of Pauldrons. In FO1 and FO3, this is the best armor you can find, with only a single suit available in the Capital Wasteland (again, for some reason). In other games, the Enclave Power Armor (and the T-60 power armor in FO4) are all undoubtedly better and cooler looking, so this armor gets thrown to the wayside.
T-60 - Created because Bethesda wanted to include a new Mark of Power Armor in every game (for the same reason that GW will make a new type of Marine for every occassion), T-60 armor was supposedly the newest model available to the US Army, rolled out on a limited-scale exactly before the bombs fell, which is why we've never seen it before. It looks like a tankier T-45 and is vastly superior to the T-51 and T-45. The East Coast Brotherhood just happened to find some when they were doing recon in Boston. The fact that the armor was only produced in limited quantities juuuuust before the Bombs fell is the reason Bethesda gave for the limited number of Power Armored troops in FO4 (ignoring the fact that they should still have T-45 and T-51 in massive quantities considering that Boston is the center of American tech and that everyone, from State Militia to fucking Raiders, have power armor.)
Society[edit]
The Brotherhood is a military order with a strictly enforced hierarchy and chain of command. At the foundation of the hierarchy lies the "Chain That Binds" doctrine. It mandates obedience to one's superiors and forbids circumventing ranks when giving orders. Superiors may only give orders to their direct subordinates, but not their subordinate's subordinates. Although intended to ensure the cohesion of command, the doctrine has been generally interpreted as a simple mandate of obedience within the order, with the order flow requirements ignored, abandoned, or altered in practice. However, it does provide a technicality that can be invoked to relieve members of their rank - up to and including elders.
Roger Maxson's goals in inventing a new tradition and mythology for the Brotherhood were two-fold. First, they would ensure that members of the Brotherhood would be stripped of their ties to the pre-War military and government, ensuring that any surviving general or politician would not be able to invoke their oaths and use them to unleash nuclear devastation on the world again (as was the case with Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Eckhart in Appalachia). Second, it would give the survivors an idea to believe in, something they could dedicate themselves to, and finding meaning in their lives after the nuclear war. The inspiration came from the fall of the Western Roman Empire when knights and scribes kept the fire of civilization going after the empire imploded.