Brotherhood's response to the Super Mutant threat

[No Man]

I would like to discuss a certain point regarding the CW's chapter of BoS and their attempts to tackle the Super Mutant problem.

FO3 shows the BoS as the benevolent 'white knight' group, that has gone against their orders and decided to 'protect the people of the wasteland'. Except they don't. I'm not even talking about the BoS being able to contain most raider or slaver groups with relative ease and minimal losses. See, the Brotherhood's main objective at the start of FO3 is the removal of the SM threat. Right. They plan to achieve this by fighting them in Downtown DC, an almost completely uninhabited area.

There are two main problems with this approach. The first one is rather simple - they are not defending the people in the western and central CW. This leads to regular wasteland problems - raiders, slavers, critters - running around completely unchalllenged, terroising unprotected settlements and travelers. This even applies to SMs themselves, who attack and kidnap people without any sign of BoS presence around. In the meantime the Brotherhood struggles to hold a radioactive, mostly deserted ruin.

The second one is a bit more complex. Mutants are supposed to even be in Downtown DC to search for FEV they need to make more of themselves. However, it is highly doubtful if the virus in any large quantities (allowing for dipping) is accessible or even present in the city. On the other hand, 200+ year old ruins are bound to be unstable in many places and overall a dangerous place to conduct a search for anything - moreso since the mutants are hardly the most careful creatures. That being said even if there is FEV in DC the mutants still need people to dip. They would still need to attack human settlements even with the virus. The BoS does not acknowledge this and allows the mutants to attack wastlanders, getting more soldiers to fight the BoS. And the Brotherhood kills SMs thus creating a demand for more troops the mutants get from people of the CW. As a result the BoS wages a largely fruitless war, trying to thwart SMs highly unlikely long term plans, completely ignoring their their current main supply base they could cut off.

The game constantly attempts to paint the BoS and their struggle to keep mutants out of DC as heroic and valiant, but it just seems misguided. It would appear that some characters try to show it as a white whale hunting it is, but statements like these are few and far apart (mostly from the Outcasts). They are also mentioned once and never brought up again (much like BoS shooting Underworld ghouls). What the game shows us is Lyons saying stuff like 'I chose to help the people.' or 'It was the right thing to do.' - I can only speak for myself, but that's not the kind of protector I'd like watching my back.

 

[Fire Fallout]

You do have a point there but wouldn't they be just a little bit too thinly spread if they included everywhere in their protection? Also they are technically containing a fair amount of the super mutant force in the D.C ruins in slight fairness.

 

[No Man]

Including everywhere is not necessary. Having patrols in the more settled areas (settlements and the surrounding areas, main routes) would probably be a good start. They chose one of the worst areas to protect - there is little point to be there and it helps no one (except maybe this one loud guy on the radio, who does their propaganda).

The mutants are supposed to be looking for FEV, they'd likely be there BoS or not. And they aren't contained really. I don't think the term even applies if they are coming from somewhere else. Besides, the remaining mutants still manage to kidnap and dip enough wastelanders to keep fighting. A way more efficient way would be to grant protection to the actual people, because whatever happens they will always be needed to make more SMs.

 

[Languorous_Maiar]

Solution for entire CW problem?
Just leave that arena. Radiation, almost no fresh water, super mutants.

All wastelanders should go south/east/whatever. It literally can't be worse. If there will be no water and a big groups of raiders, still no SM's so pretty nice progress.

Essence of this problem, is presented in one quote:

I can't believe I went through all that trouble to leave Navarro and make my way across the country just to get stuck in this shithole. I'll be damned if I'm going to die here.

 

[No Man]

I doubt that 'east' is the direction to go when you're in DC. CW ain't a paradise, but I like to believe it's better than living in an ocean.

Kidding aside though, when it comes to this, there's a similarity between Oblivion and FO3. Oblivion being a sequel to Morrowind has taken a fantasy world, that had a lot of originality with it's cultures, races and religions - it defied cliches constantly - and made it into a typical medieval Europe fantasy world. In a way FO3 does the same - it takes classic Fallout world and turns it into a shallow, stereotypical post-apocalyptic wasteland - omnipresent radiation, ruins, lots of raiders, lack of water, lack of any economy or agriculture, dead world - seriously hurting the atmosphere of the game. Problem is, in Oblivion it's just crappy and shallow. In FO3 it makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Yamu]

Truth, sir. If the Brotherhood was really that interested in doing what was best for all concerned, the only two logical courses of action would have been to finish their scavenger hunt and escort all willing participants westward to more habitable ground, or to head to Vault 87 (everyone in the wasteland seems to know where Little Lamplight is, so it really shouldn't have been that hard at all to track down) and cash out the mutants' central hub. If your Vault teenager can do it, a squad of crack assault paladins should probably be able to handle it just as well, and without access to the FEV, the mutants should have been pretty easy to manage through attrition alone.

 

[Byzantine]

Solution for entire CW problem?

Spoiler

I assume that Lyons and the Brotherhood are more than aware of the super mutants' sterility on account of Vree's research; as @Yamu's just pointed out, if they focused more on cutting off their enemy's access to the Forced Evolutionary Virus, their crusade would go along far more smoothly via attrition than what was seen in Fallout 3. Otherwise, to me, it's just like waiting at the end of a working production line of super mutants with a laser rifle when all you really need to do is unplug the machine's source of power. If they can afford to be the Team America of the Wasteland, they can most certainly afford another scout or two to find where more mutants and centaurs are being created.

@Languorous_Maiar certainly has a point, too; the Capital Wasteland, politeness aside, is a veritable shithole filled with every kind of violent and cruel dickhead you can possibly imagine. The same certainly applies to many other places in the Wasteland, of course, but the remains of Washington appear to have a higher concentration than most, given the prosperous slave trade present there. Elder Lyons' ideology, too, is very much like something out of a Disney movie. Generally speaking, the Brotherhood of Steel's often reclusive and suspicious nature doesn't make them an inherently appealing society in my eyes, either.