Why exactly do you move your ENTIRE GOVERNMENT to a unclaimed area. They probably knew that D.C. wasn't secure, not even close, yet you move so many men from Navarro (which could have been used for Defense against the NCR onslaught) and Chicago (their main government center). And then they trust a A.I? I mean, i barely trust my phone, id rather write letters for the rest of my life than have a A.I. control me.

Bethesda Magicka?

There was no real reason to send Enclave to DC other then the cash of tech that was there. Why did they not get it about 200 years sooner? Bethesda Magicka.. Still does not explain the population explosion.

Chicago is not their their main government center.. well I guess it it is now :ermm:

The only people who knew Eden was a A.I was august autumn and his father

Yeah but one would think after 35 years people would wonder why they have not seen their "president."

It wasn't unclaimed, occupation of Raven Rock was a contingency plan if operations in the west failed. Eden had been stationed there since before the bombs fell and he had a small army of robots garrisoning the base. When Eden assumed command he ordered the transport of troops to DC.



A few things:

1. They had received contact from President Eden, they had ample reason to assume that there was at least a base in DC that they could set up shop in (and its possible that higher-ups knew about the existance of Raven Rock and Eden).

2. As far as the Enclave was concerned, the operations in the West were a failure. They wanted to get out of Dodge as quick as they could and try again elsewhere.

3. Chicago was not their "main government center", where did you hear that? The Oil Rig was the "capital" of the Enclave and it was destroyed in Fallout 2, leaving the Enclave leadership and command structure in tatters.



Trust an AI? They weren't simply trusting an AI, they were under the command of the President of the United States, John Henry Eden. Eden had assumed rightful command via COG protocols. Besides this, Eden is smart, incredibly smart and despite what people think, his plan to restore the capital wasteland and the Enclave was sound. He was an excellent leader.



Oh come on Dario :wink_smile: lets not take the easy way out on this one.



I would have to agree with this though. I wish Bethesda hadn't made Eden's "secret" a "secret". The story would have been more believable then and it wouldn't have taken away from his personality.

I like to think the East Coast 'Clave was aware of President Eden's status as a ZAX.

I think your taking Eden's quote about Raven Rock being a COG base a little too far, or at least coming to an incorrect conclusion. RR is an official Government COG base, the Enclave was not the official government, at least before the war; the Enclave was a secret organisation of the people who held all of the power and, instead of opting for an official government bunker, built their own COG plan, the Oil Rig. Raven Rock was meant for the actual people like Senators and such who believed that they ran things when in fact they did not, the Enclave got their orders from the new President Eden (who did gain power through Line-of-Succession protocalls) and, being loyal citizens of America, obeyed the call. Do you see what I mean?



Agreed, I never understood "Autumnist" Enclave supporters, the guy, both directly and indirectly, destroyed the Enclave and any legitimacy it may have had, all because he lacked the balls to posion the wastelanders so that they could all live in peace. Then again, I don't hold Autumn responsible, the whole Enclave rebellion thing was just a poorly written way to have a big gunfight and "Moral Choices" involving the Enclave.



Agreed again but, alas, the citizens did not know.

I probably am and I do see what you mean. Its a COG-certified location but that doesn't mean it was incorporated into the Enclave's plans (it irks me that there's no mention of its use following the war though, Raven Rock would be the new "Pentagon" if a nuclear war occured in real life). I think that President Eden, when he assumed control was the one that made it a priority to retreat to the East.



Yep. I still like the guy though. I kinda blame bad writing (the whole Enclave "gun fight" like you said) for his actions. Based on what he did in-game and what his views appear to be, there seems to be no reason to think he wouldn't want to help President Eden and go along with his plan. I mean what was he actually planning to do with the purifier? If I know the Enclave, and I like to think I do, there's no way that its ideology would have gone along with giving out the water to earn mutant wastelander's loyalty. My guess is that Autumn's plan would have turned into Eden's plan very soon.

Yeah exactly, what happened to the actual government before the war? Surely every single politician and soldier was not an Enclave plant.



Autumn actually demanded proof that the President had betrayed him and if I remember correctly even tries, feebly, to say that you stole it rather than accept that Eden lied to him; sounds like a fanatic, why the [censored] did he over-ride the orders of the damn President, with a single sentence no less!?!

How so? Unlike the Enclave's plan in Fallout 2 Eden's plan is incredibly limited in scope to the point of utter ineffectiveness in the long run. Purifying the Capital Wasteland is a pretty minuscule achievement particularly considering the societies that are growing and expanding in the West.

Were they planning to go back to the airborne route afterwards? If so why not just stick with the airborne route instead of getting horribly sidetracked and wasting resources with the Project Purity nonsense?

At least the President was swift in despensing justice and putting down the insubordinates. :celebration:

Sentry Bots ftw.

I really don't know what to think about the fight in Raven Rock anymore though. It wasn't really a rebellion or a revolution, but it certainly wasn't just a disagreement (unless the Enclave use "agressive negotiations" :toughninja: ). Of course then Colonel Autumn's statements at the purifier just compound things more.



Picture this.

An entire section of the eastern seaboard completely cleasned and purified for the Enclave to grow and prosper in, far away (for the moment) from anything out west. In 20 or 30 years the Enclave would have a true homeland and most likely would be rebuilding fleets of vertbirds and its army would have increased from procreation. All the while, they would be advancing their already incredibly advanced tech.

The NCR wouldn't have stood a chance, and thats if the Enclave didn't just launch a world-wide virus later on.

Perhaps Raven Rock was not in the right place to administer the virus into the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream?

@ Andronicus, indeed, poorly thought out to say the least.

Entirely possible but that doesn't make Eden's plan any more effective or sensible.

Reread my edited post.



That would be my guess as well.

It's a pretty insignificant section of the eastern seaboard. The Capital Wasteland is really quite small and the Enclave's homeland would still be surrounded on all sides by hostile wasteland full of raiders and societies like the Pitt, Commonwealth, etc. who are now fully aware of their presence and what they wish to achieve and will be determined to prevent that.

No amount of time is going to make the Enclave capable of taking on the emerging Western societies. The disparity between the two side's populations is just far too great. The NCR in Fallout 2 had 700,000 citizens. How many people could the Enclave possibly have by Fallout 3? 1,000? The entire reason the Enclave in Fallout 2 went with the virus was because they couldn't just wipe out all the mutants conventionally. If the Enclave at the height of its power stood no chance then the tattered remnants of the Enclave are never going to have a shot no matter how long they take with rebuilding and advancing because the West is doing the same things at an exponentially greater rate.

If the Enclave still has the capacity to release the airborne virus then that should've been their approach and they should've retreated to a location where they could do that not dig themselves into a dead end at Raven Rock. Eden's plan is wildly unrealistic.

Because bethesda thought DC would be cool but they didn't know how to make their own factions so they crammed the Enclave and BoS in there.

I don't really think they would need to worry about either of those, the pitt is frankly quite pathetic and so are raiders. The commonwealth would prove interesting, but we really have no clue as to their military capabilities, or if indeed the Enclave and the commonwealth wouldn't get along (they seem to be similar in many ways).



The NCR is also dealing with the Legion and has basically reached its max expansion limit. They're on the verge of collapse from poltical corruption and ineffective leaders as it is. Its true that the Enclave has a small population, but it also has tech and research capabilities that the NCR could only dream about. Given enough time, those, along with population, would have only increased.



They dug themselves in at a place that they felt would be far enough away from the NCR and any other major power. Raven Rock was one of the few bases left (or possibly the only base left) that the Enclave could occupy. Besides, once the water-virus had done its work and cleaned up the place. Whose to say that a airborne version wouldn't have been released? If they could do it one way they could find a way to do it the other I'm sure. It seems to me that the whole "poison the water" was to just clear out DC and surrounding areas touched by the potomac. A larger more effective virus would have been released later on.

I'm only using those as examples. Fallout 3 is wildly unspecific about what exactly is beyond the Capital Wasteland but presumably human civilization doesn't just disappear the second you leave the Capital Wasteland. Eden's solution in Fallout 3 is no solution at all because it doesn't address the issues of the wasteland beyond the tiny little section that is D.C. All the problems of the wasteland still exist just outside the borders and are going to keep spilling over into the Enclave's pacified area.



Yet even if the NCR collapses the societies that come after it will inevitably grow and seek to expand and they will do so with resources and a population base the Enclave can only dream of. It's research capabilities aren't significant enough to overcome the other incredible weaknesses they possess anymore than they were back in the time of Fallout 2. No matter how advanced the Enclave's technology is going to get, the West will be advancing as well. Just as all the APA in the world didn't enable the Enclave to take on the NCR in a straight up fight in Fallout 2, whatever technological edge the Enclave can amass is never going to be sufficient for them to cancel out the millions of men and vast amounts of resources and territory the societies in the West (and hell eventually Midwest, South, New England you name it) will possess.

They have to resort to the airborne solution eventually yet Eden's plan gets them no closer to achieving that goal and in many ways actively harms it by exposing themselves too soon in pursuit of a ridiculous objective (control of Project Purity).



Again though just start with the airborne virus. Find another viable location to release it into the jetstream and set up new facilities there. Hell if you just want breathing room in D.C. for some reason don't worry about the damn jetstream just pump it into the air. It'll spread out and get as many mutants as the water version will. Eden is just fixated on Project Purity for no good reason.

I have to agree with Okie here, so all of the water in the tidal basin and down river of DC is posioned? Eventualy word of mouth will spread and people will simply stop drinking the water or collect it for purification from the river north of the Purifier.

No mutated creatures would have been able to survive within the area and neither would any non-Enclave humans. The wasteland couldn't have just "reclaimed" the DC area, as stated in the Fallout 3 ending slides, the wasteland became a "graveyard" and the Enclave were allowed to grow and prosper there.




Which is where an air-borne virus comes in.



The purifier is the key to cleansing the wasteland of mutations, including wiping out the Brotherhood of Steel and any other hostile forces. Prehaps an airborne version of the virus wasn't ready yet and would still take several years but the water-borne version was ready on the spot and could be deployed easily to wipe DC's slate clean so expansion could begin.



We have to assume that an easier solution to DC-genocide was not yet available to the Enclave at the moment (and that the infected water solution was the easiest way), because I'm sure it would have been used. (also don't just assume that Raven Rock was not a viable location for the Jetstream, there may be other reasons that the airborne version was not released.)

I have to say now though, what you are close to arguing is that there is no real reason that the Enclave should have lost at DC (which I would agree with). With their technological capabilties and a genocide virus, they should have mopped the floor with the Brotherhood.

Besides what would the plot of Fallout 3 have been if there wasn't a fight over the purifier? Maybe there should have been a fight over an airborne virus releasing facility but then you have the plot of Fallout 2.



I guess they didn't though, or prehaps they didn't know it was the water, or prehaps there is an unknown factor that we don't quite understand (maybe when the water evaporates it produces a sort of local-airborne virus). The ending slides say, the DC area became a "graveyard".

I'm not saying the wasteland will literally reclaim the territory. I'm saying now you have a little pacified area of land that's still completely surrounded by a hostile wasteland full of the same hazards and perils that the Capital Wasteland used to have. Raiders aren't just going to say "bad water there leave those people alone" they're going to keep attacking and raiding it. There's no real advantage to pacifying this little patch of territory at all because you still have to defend it from all the hazards you didn't eliminate just outside the borders. If anything it's a liability because now you have to have a much more extensive military presence to defend a larger perimeter than say, just Raven Rock.

Pacifying the Capital Wasteland just does not help the Enclave's overall plans in the slightest.



Then why not work towards that from the beginning instead of becoming obsessed over reclaiming the Capital Wasteland? To put it bluntly who gives a [censored] about the Capital Wasteland? Eden is just myopically focused on this little patch of territory and a stupid scheme to purify it for no real reason that will never work anywhere else.



No the purifier is key to cleansing the Capital Wasteland, and the Capital Wasteland only of mutations and anyone else the Enclave doesn't like. In the overall scheme that the Enclave is working towards what happens to the Capital Wasteland truly doesn't matter and their focus on it is ridiculous. There is no reason for the Enclave to need to expand. If anything they should want to keep an extremely low profile until they're positioned to release the virus into the jetstream again. Also we know the airborne version of the virus was ready to go at the end of Fallout 2.



But we know the airborne virus was ready by the end of Fallout 2. Did the Enclave in 3 lose just enough to somehow retain the knowledge of the overall virus but not how to make it airborne? Doesn't really make sense.



And they would've if not for the quite literal deus ex machina Bethesda came up with. But what we're arguing about is whether or not Eden's plans for the Enclave were sound. They weren't sound in the least. The Enclave's entire plan in Fallout 3 accomplishes nothing that should matter to them. Reclaiming the Capital Wasteland is in no way helpful to their overall plans and is in fact a hindrance when you consider the resources devoted to it and the opportunities wasted on it.



It's a hackneyed version of the Fallout 2 plot anyway might as well have made it make sense again.

The D.C. area would've become a graveyard because many people would've died initially and the rest would've fled. But that doesn't mean the rest of the wasteland that's not reliant on the local D.C. water supply is suddenly going to go away.

Apparently the Enclave in Fallout 3 lacked the capacity to use the virus in its Airborne form, at least it was not available in the time frame the game took place in. Prehaps they lost the knowledge for that (after all, the Curling 13 virus was only known to exist by a select group of people on the rig, everyone else was pretty much in the dark). If they couldn't get the virus around the world then, for whatever reason, whats the next best alternative? Sit around in Raven Rock twiddling their thumbs? The next best option would be to carve out a portion of the wasteland to purify and then use it to build their strength to combat other powers on the continent. The DC area would also allow them access to pre war information and technology (Liberty Prime for one) and would serve as a good symbol for them to construct their new nation, (the Capital of America being DC, and thus DC would serve as a place to reconstuct that "American" identity.

Keep in mind that the Enclave were also not expecting the Brotherhood to put up a fight at the purifier (with Optimus) and also it was Autumn who wanted to hold on to it and to use it to "earn the wastelanders loyalty", not Eden. Based on what I can see, Eden only wanted to poison the water to help in killing of enemies who could threaten the Enclave's existance in DC, like the Brotherhood of Steel. He never intended to hold onto the purifier for any meaningful length of time, which is why he sends a lone agent in to poison the water (the LW), it was Autumn who went to the Purifier and started setting up defenses to fortify it against the Brotherhood. I see Eden's plan as a clever act of subterfuge, he wanted to sabotage his enemies attempts to make their lives better and to prevent the Capital wasteland unifying under the BOS banner, not to mention wipe them out. Eden's water poisoning plan wasn't necessarily a plan which would make or break the Enclave, it was more (as I see it) a plan that went "well we got this virus ready to poison their water supply and kill them, why not use it?" it only takes one guy to insert the vial after all. I have a feeling that had Autumn not gone off on a tangent, Eden's plan would just have been to have someone push in the vial and then hop on a vertibird and leave the BOS and company to do the rest when they took back the facility. If nothing else it would have allowed the Enclave to have some breathing room in DC.

The Enclave trying to take control of DC makes sense, symbolically they would want to take control of the nation's former capital. Also I'm not sure if it would matter much if they did the virus plan or not. Either way they would have to fight the Brotherhood and the Lone Wanderer and win, and they always lose Autumn in the battle. If you chose to use the virus doesn't the game keep going during Broken Steel, and the Brotherhood is still there? I would imagine that after losing the Jefferson Memorial Battle they might not have the strength to defeat the BoS, even with the virus.

No it does not, if it did then the Enclave would't have built there headquarters on the complete opposite side of America would they? The Enclave doesn't care about symbolism, it cares about staying alive and winning first, notice how they make no attempt to secure any of the "symbolic" area's of DC aside from a single Vertibird at the Capitol?

Well they can't really secure any of that until they actually take control of area. They also probably felt that they needed to get as far away from the west coast as they could after their defeat (I haven't played Fallout 3 in a while though so I don't remember what the Enclave said about being there).