This is a topic that seems to come up a lot in other semi-related threads so I thought I'd give it It's own personal space.

In two of the main possible endings for the game the Brotherhood survives the events of Fallout4:

-The BoS ending,in which you attack the Institute with a frontal assault under the shadow of the mighty Optimu-eahm Liberty Prime.

-The Minutemen/Bos ending,in which you rely on the help of the minutemen to Infiltrate the institute from an old dismissed passage while mantaining peaceful relations with the Brotherhood and possibly being a high ranking officer of this organization.

The first ending leaves the Brotherhood and the Minutemen around.The two groups goals might collide sometime and cause incidents.The brotherhood is acclaimed in diamond city and it's flag fly over the city.

The second ending leaves the Brotherhood,the minutemen AND possibly the Railroad around.In case the Railroad is still around,we can expect their goals to bring future friction between them and the brotherhood.

The Minutemen flag flies over DIamond City.Aboard the Prydwen the minutemen are on everyone's lips for good or worse.

Again,the new influence obtained by the minutemen and the hit to the brotherhood pride might bring the two factions to opposite ends of a shootout.

What are your predictions for the future of these two factions (In the scope of the endings mentioned above)?

Can they coexist?

If yes,which of the two endings is less likely to bring troubles down the road?

EDIT- Added poll.

I can't speak for anyone's RP, but the vibe I get from the sole survivor is that they're about the Commonwealth first and Brotherhood/Railroad/Institute second regardless of how they finish the game.


So if we view it from this perspective I can see Nate/Nora leaving the Brotherhood/Railroad after destroying the Institute and eventually becoming the General of the Minutemen and the first President of whatever the Commonwealth decides to call itself as a nation. The Brotherhood would leave amicably or on salty terms depending on how the Commonwealth develops.


/speculation

I can see the minutemen and the Brotherhood coexisting, for better or worse. In the case of the Railroad, if left intact would see the Brotherhood as a new advarsary to replace the Institute due to their stance on synths.


It would be cool to see a Railroad/Minutemen Comminwealth endgame, free synths fighting side by side with free farmers defending each other!

RR has no purpose after any of the ending, and they would be wiped out in every ending except the Minutemen. They're a useless group, so it doesn't matter if they're there or not. BoS is always gonna be there. BoS has no reason to get into Minutemen's business seeing as they're both want to help the people of the Commonwealth. Despite their disdain for ghouls (Something they share with the rest of the Commonwealth), they don't hunt down regular ghouls, and Danse would actually love it if you help innocent ghouls and hates if you kill defenseless ghouls.

This is kind of hard to think about. I feel that the "best" ending is a BoS/MM "alliance" (read as they are okay with each other) ending, but as to whether the RR should be alive or destroyed, I do not know.

IMO, the best ending is probably the MM/BoS ending. The RR will get involved in a war with the BoS and get destroyed eventually if they survive the game, so in order for them to live both the Institute and the BoS need to be destroyed. Which is, IMO, bad since the RR will never be able to provide as much security to the Commonwealth as the BoS can.

Nah, the RR would be destroyed in the RR ending. They are tiny, no longer have a united purpose. The BoS would be pissed and would come back for revenge. They would get destroyed once the BoS come back for revenge. The highest chance of survival would be from Minutemen since the synth and the Institute are destroyed, the BoS has no reason to destroy the RR and they haven't done anything to the chapter to make the BoS comes back for revenge.

Good points but I don't know if the BoS can recover should the player destroy the Prydwen. Is it ever mentioned in the game how many forces the BoS left behind in the Capital Wasteland?

Nah, they have different chapters throughout America, there were the East coast, the West coast, and other area as well. It was just a branch and it wasn't even their main force, and they're just arriving there in Boston without a lot of preparation and more like a scouting group. The Institute themselves is afraid of the BoS, and that's why it's necessary for them to demonstrate their power by utterly crush the chapter on top of being able to hide underground, something that the RR can't do due to their lack of number, their lack of purpose after the Institute is destroyed, and the lack of unity.

Turning Arthur Maxson into a martyr is maybe the worst thing you could do if you are an enemy of the Brotherhood of Steel.

You would single handedly create an army of Arthur Maxsons whereas, before, he had his token invasion force that he hand-picked himself.

Destroying the railroad comes down to personal preference I think.

Following the BoS instead of the MM makes most sense.

It 2 missions:Blind betrayal and Tactical Thinking that might bring the sole survivor to question their methods and possibly look for help elsewhere (MM).

The Minutemen is a new NCR. The Brotherhood will attempt to wipe them out as soon as they're in a position to start attempting to get old world technology up and running again. It may go better for the BoS on the East Coast due to their more open recruiting policies compared to the West Coast.


The BoS force that invaded Boston can hardly be called a 'token' force. Maxson is the only leader that the BoS has at the moment (it was explained that the BoS went through a series of ineffective leaders prior to Maxson and after Sarah Lyons). The Prydwin is the culmination of 10 years of development and there is only one Liberty Prime. So they would be losing a series of unique assets if they lost their Commonwealth invasion force.

The minutemen and the NCR are completely different.

The NCR origin has nothing to do with militia groups.

The NCR and the Minutemen are both non-BoS military forces. One has a central democratic government, the other has self governed settlements so they're not identical but the fact that they're not BoS governed is what's important.


As soon as one settlement attracts the attention of the BoS, there are two outcomes. The Minutemen fall apart under BoS pressure or they band together and attempt to fight. This is an inevitability because the BoS does not trust anyone except the BoS.