Why the Brotherhood is the stupidest faction in the Wasteland

[ElloinmorninJ]

The Brotherhood could’ve been one of the greatest powers of the New World, but those deranged xenophobic shitheads ruined it, all through their own incompetence. They caused all their own problems

For decades, the Brotherhood was literally the MOST advanced, MOST powerful faction in the entire world. They could’ve used that to their advantage, rebuilding infrastructure, governments, society- riding the Wastelands or Raiders and Mutants- but instead they squandered this opportunity hiding in a bunker. What a load of morons.

 

[Morgan_]

What'chu talkin bout Willis?
The Brotherhood are all over the U.S. defeating the Enclave, mutants and other powerful tech factions with uber cool armor and airships!

 

[Aurelius Of Phoenix]

Why should they, it could be argued their sole attempt at expansion caused them to run right back into their bunkers after getting dicked down by the NCR. If they did it earlier, Enclave probably would have sent strike teams and Frank Horrigan to murder them all anyway. They would work better if they kept to themselves but offered their protection or etcetera like the Fallout 1 ending, a sort of feudalism. Would've really liked to see that.

The Brotherhood of Steel, under new leadership after the death of Rhombus, becomes an overzealous, techno-religious dictatorship. In 20 years, the Steel Plague devastates the newly formed New California Republic, and starts a Dark Age that could last a thousand years.

 

[Atomic Postman]

They're more interesting being ideological pinheads

 

[TorontoReign]

They should have tribals worshipping them as shining Gods.

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

The Brotherhood could’ve been one of the greatest powers of the New World, but those deranged xenophobic shitheads ruined it, all through their own incompetence. They caused all their own problems

For decades, the Brotherhood was literally the MOST advanced, MOST powerful faction in the entire world. They could’ve used that to their advantage, rebuilding infrastructure, governments, society- riding the Wastelands or Raiders and Mutants- but instead they squandered this opportunity hiding in a bunker. What a load of morons.

You're missing the point of the Brotherhood.

The point of the Brotherhood is that they want to preserve technology and knowledge. The Brotherhood doesn't want and doesn't care about state building. They figure that someone else will do it. They're an army devoid of an state. They are not conquerors, they are metal monks. They want to preserve technology in order to prevent a new Dark Age. One bureocrat is one man that could be researching old world schematics instead. Resources spent conquering could be resources spent retrieving technology or making new tech.

Their real problem is that by the time of FO2, the Brotherhood already fulfilled their mission. They preserved knowledge, protected people from the mutant threat, and then they carefully introduced technology into New California. They never figured what to do next after that. They could have become part of the NCR, but they didn't want to. The dissidents wanted to open the Brotherhood to outsiders, and then they got sent off in deliberately faulty zeppelins to the Midwest. Then the "Let's take technology from the primitives" idiots took charge after 2.

Even the Midwestern Brotherhood, who did engage in state building, did it in a very feudal way - requesting men and resources from those underneath them, and in exchange engaging in protection and trade. The East Coast BOS pretty much built a Ordenstaat by accident.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Yup. The BoS were an ideologically driven order of tech-monks that happen to take self defense seriously. They're a faction but not would-be rulers or state builders. Their original inspiration was the abbey from Canticle for Leibowitz.

Fallout 3 did a number by changing their perspective into us army good guys rather than an elite order