Why is this a problem? Don't attacks just stop if your defense rating is higher than your resources produced?

No, they are just less likely to occur at a high defense settlement but they don't occur if the BOS controls that settlement

I wasn't complaining. I was praising the Brotherhood for defending just about everything in the game.

Except BoS aren't evil, do they have problems? Sure but they aren't evil. Maxson's goals are legit to protect people and find tech, that's why he constantly goes after raiders, ferals and super mutants without asking anything in return from local settlements. If protecting people from various real threats, threats from beings whose goals are either to rob, [censored] and kill or kill, eat, genocide or kill and eat without any scrap of sanity is evil then that's one messed up idea of evil.


I stopped reading after "I'd have the commonwealth cleared out in a week" because you clearly have no clue what you're talking about. You are vastly underplaying the severe threat of the forces in the commonwealth and it shows off. Also the BoS are working to clear those out, I know I know paying attention is really hard but if you do it you'll realize that random encounters with BoS patrols dropping in to attack areas filled with raider, super mutants or ferals actually happen!

Ah, yes. Please tell me more about the nefarious plans of the synths being sheltered in Bunker Hill.

Nah I'll just tell you about how a Synth squad destroyed an entire town or how the Institute has been kidnapping people and replacing them with synths.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/University_Point

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Synth

So, you'll give non sequiturs, in short? The mere fact of being a synth shouldn't mark you for death any more than being human should.

Except for the BoS and basically everyone in the Commonwealth Synths have only been used to kill people, to replace said people and to kidnap people. While I don't agree with the whole viewpoint said viewpoint still completely stands as an accurate one for them to hold.

Oh, but the SS can just become Director of the Institute and turn things around as easily as a steering wheel and everything will be nice and roses and happy because the SS demands it to be so.

I just finished another MQ play through as the Institute. Note that the Battle of Bunker hill is an Institute Quest. It does not happen if you are just playing the BOS.

Anyway, I made this play through specifically to examine the mechanics of this event.

It is clearly a quest to present, what should be a simple mission, going horribly wrong. The player and a Courser are supposed to retrieve some malfunctioning Synths. Instead it becomes a pitched battle since someone tipped off both the Railroad and the BOS.

The real villain here is the Railroad, whose conscienceless disregard for human life allows them to use innocent traders and their families as human shields for their clandestine activities.

Anyway back to the topic of Elder Maxson.

I believe the Death Claw incident that messed up his face is a case of a developing legend. I hear BOS people say he was fighting it single handed. However, while I believe he was fighting a Death Claw that walloped him, and while I believe he may have gotten the kill shot on it, I also believe there was probably a couple fully kitted Knights and maybe a scribe shooting at the thing too.

The BOS typically doesn't patrol solo.

Still this would take nothing away from his obvious personal courage.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/The_Prydwen_terminal_entries

"As the years passed, and Arthur Maxson grew, so too did his accomplishments. At age 12, while on a training project, he killed two Raiders and saved the squad that was supposed to be escorting him. At age age 13, he single-handedly killed a Deathclaw (and gained the large facial scar he still has to this day). But it was his victory at age 15, over the Super Mutants "Shephard" who was attempting to re-organize the Capital Wasteland's Super Mutant's, that elevated him to hero-like status. When word of this feat reached the Elders back on the West Coast, they knew the time had come...Maxson was ready. Ready to lead and, more importantly, to reunite the fragmented Brotherhood of Steel forces on the East Coast."

Since Quinlan has a direct line with Maxson he can get the story for himself straight from the Elder and since Maxson doesn't care about personal glory but the BoS in general I doubt he would lie.

Cider, I stand corrected. However, I like my more realistic, but erroneous, version better. heehee.

That's nothing, my dogmeat took out a mystic deathclaw by himself.

Why is it that I always interpret this as a shot at BioWare? I mean Mass Effect doesn't hold a candle to Fallout, but I still find it hillarious that 15 yr old Elder Maxson killed Commander Shepard.


Happy New Year [censored]es.

STOP with the ridiculous "SJW" insults, it shows none of you in a good light and it has not a [censored] thing to do with this game or your opinions on Elder Max and the BOS.

Jeebus.

Stick to your topic.

More likely due to the nature of a Shepherd then anything to do with Bioware or Mass effect.

Because individuals developing a cult of personality never have reason to exaggerate their accomplishments.

The whole thing reads like a Davie Crockett myth. "Killed him a bear when he was only three."

Maxson is so great he saved his entire squad when they were supposed to be protecting him (two years after he was so clumsy with a gun he shot Sarah Lyons in the ass). Maxson is so great he took on a deathclaw by himself when he was barely a teen. Maxson is so great that cults are popping up in the west worshiping him as a God, which he, because he's so great and awesome and humble and perfect, refuses to accept their worship.

Sure Maxson. Sure.

Again, Maxson doesn't care about personal glory and has no reason to. Everything he does is for the BoS which shows off well with his personality. People can do a lot even at young ages, hell the Lone Wanderer was only 18 when they left the vault, so why couldn't Maxson who has been trained since childhood not have the same ability as a character who wasn't trained since childhood to fight and is only five years older then him?

Also take for instance Joan of Arc. She was only 17 when she went into battle against the english and lead several successful campaigns for France until her death at age 19 or should we simply say she didn't do any of that because of her age? Or Billy the Kid who started a life of crime at age 14, killed his first man at 18 and became such a great gunslinger he is considered an American legend. Or Tutankhamun who reversed several disastrous changes his father made, repair relations with other countries and saved Egypt from the brink of economic downfall all before dying at age 18 oh and do you know when he took the throne? At age 9.

Enjoyed the character, and enjoyed eventually turning on him and killing him. Terrible human being.

I'm sure.

Yes, we can cherry pick examples of exceptional individuals in history. We can also cherry pick numerous of examples of leaders exaggerating or lying about past accomplishments to develop cults of personality intended to create an "an idealized, heroic, and at times worshipful, image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise."

Maxson went from, at age ten, to being so clumsy with a gun he accidental shot the girl he was crushing on. He displayed no measure aptitude or incredible talent during this time and by all accounts just looked to be a normal kid. Then suddenly in two years he becomes a super-action hero who saves a squad of Brotherhood soldiers, killed a deathclaw single-handedly (a feat that no doubt veteran Brotherhood Paladins would find challenging), and now it just so happens cults of Maxson are popping up in the West because everyone loves him there (despite communication with the West Coast Elder likely being difficult what with the war with the NCR still on-going).

Is this all true? Ok sure, maybe he's just an amazing prodigy or has divine help on his side or something.

Do I believe it? No. At best, I think there's some grains of truth in there. But embellishment, IMO, has almost certainly occurred in order to develop Maxson's cult of personality

"cherry pick" yes because pointing out real historical figures that did amazing feats at young ages is totally cherry picking /sarcasm

Again, Maxson doesn't care about personal glory and his character shows this off, if you choose to ignore it fine. We have no clue what the situation in the west is like so it's entirely possible the BoS-NCR war ended with the BoS surviving (possibly the truce ending for the NCR-Mojave BoS is now canon and it went to cover the entire organization) or they could have fled up further north, the NCR didn't completely take out the BoS and guessing from the lines of "chasing ghosts in Baja" that some NCR npcs say when referring to the Veteran rangers the NCR also believes the BoS went either north or south, hell we already know one chapter went into the Mojave because of the war what's stopping more from retreating out of NCR land to rebuild?

Lt Andronicus, If it's on Quinlan's terminal, I'm pretty sure Bethesda intends it to be canon. Quinlan is presented as a serious scholar, not a fan boy. You may not like Bethesda's writing, and I generally fall into that category myself, but it's their story. So like it or not, divine intervention or not, Maxson did all these things just as Quinlan recorded them.

Thing is, none of these events have any bearing on whether or not Maxson is a good leader. The event that first shows his leadership ability is his creation of the Eastern BOS, by negotiating the reunification of Lyons BOS with the Outcasts. I guess you could also include the successful campaign against the Super Mutants in the Capitol Wasteland, something that Elder Lyons was clearly out of his depth on.

Yes, cherry picking: "the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position."

You point out examples of historical figures that did great feats.

I can just as easily argue the flip side of that data set which is that there is plenty of leaders throughout history who've claimed to have done great feats. But didn't. At a young age or otherwise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality are not an imagined thing.

The fact that Joan of Arc led the french army at age 17 doesn't mean that Elder Maxson killed a deathclaw at age 13. Its unrelated.

I mean, believe what you want. If you accept Maxson's biography as written. That's fine. Those who are more inclined towards The Brotherhood probably will, because they believe in the ideal Maxson as Glorious Leader which that biography claims to show.

I, on the other hand, believe its been embellished. There's undoubtedly some grains of truth there, but I don't believe all of it is true. Call me a skeptic.

Or they intend it to be examples of a Maxson Cult of Personality.

Seems, to me, like its clearly worded to be written that way. The exaggerations and glorification fit the MO of personality cult glorification to a T.

Personally, I think its intended to start the very debate we are having now. Did he really do all this? Or is it just [censored]? I think its all a tease.

Well given the fact he doesn't care about personal glory and given the fact that Quinlan cares more about truth then fiction

yes

he did it. Pay attention to BOTH of the people in question, the subject and the writer.