The issue I have is that power plant can be restored or alternative means of power can be used, as can manufacturing be restored.

That isn't so much of a halt to a robot army as much as it is a speed bump. Not to mention that there were a lot of robots which would only be permanently disabled if the calculator was destroyed.

Those pacification bots and behemoths are killer, heck even the regular robots need gauss or pulse rifles to be effective against.

With all the years that have passed how can you explain they didn't restore power and manufacturing?

What I am saying it could be said that the nuclear plant was destroyed beyond their ability to fix and in the game you can do alot of damage to it. After all how many people know how to fix a nuclear power plant? It wouldn't be enough to simply find a doohicky like Harold wanted you to do. They would have to rebuild complicated parts. Other means of power? If there were then the Calculator would have used them.

Reasons why they didn't/wouldn't restore the manufacturing would be because the nuclear power plant would be gone (beyond their ability to fix), so no means to power them. The plants themselves would be destroyed to heavily and they would be at war with themselves and with the MLA as well as other groups such as reavers, raiders and slavers. Also facing rebellions and such.

Just like the orginal BoS, the MWBoS pissed everyone off they came across. But instead of just stealing peoples good tech, they forced them to join against their will.

After 90 years they could have restored some centers and found other sources of power for those centers. But they wouldn't be able to do what they Calculator alone was able to do. Vault Zero would be the only real source for new robots and the game itself makes it clear Vault Zero's resources were limited to start with.

So without the ability to build tons of new robots and their ability to repair them limited and 90 years of war and a vast territory to cover. The Robot Army the Calculator was able to build and the MWBoS inherited, would have dwindled over the decades. What is left sent to defend their towns, bunkers and outposts.

How would the robots dwindle? We have 200+ year old robots running about.

The Chosen One can fix a nuclear power plant in FO2. Just saying...

Not to mention you can raid or take over Vaults.

I'm not saying it is impossible, but it would take a serious re-write so that it made sense, where as my idea wouldn't require much of a rewrite.

And...well I just don't trust Beth rewrites. But again, yeah it possible to create an explanation, I just think mine is simpler, and a lot of times in writing you want to keep it simple, because the more complex, the greater the risk of screwing it up.

Most likely ending to be cannon from my perspective is the "warrior destroys calculator ending" I imagine happening is that the brotherhood spend a long time elimating threats and uplifting the population, and educating them, spreading knowledge. Eventually they have there borders secure and don't really have a need or urged to expand, and instead study, maintain, modify, repurpose, the various tech they've collected. To explain them not being this giant active force that would rivial the Legion or NCR, they probably have a lot less active patrols, scouts, and contact outside of there sphere of influence, so the NCR could know about them from raiding Brotherhood bunkers before they were destroyed, but that's not likely seeing as how they've only recently expanded out of California and into the southern most tip of Nevada. The legion however, i believe Ceasar is aware of there existence, reason being that he is foucased destroying the NCR, (which would be a lesser power in this case) and expanding westward, gathering a large slave army. I remember from Lonesome Road Usslessy talking about a bunker that would have been of intress to the brotherhood of steel, and that Ceaser wanted it destroyed, being as how it had some considerable firepower in it. As for the Enclave, the way i see it they only destroy military assets when its a do or die situtation.

Example; From fallout 3 we all know that they could've, at any time, destroyed the Pentagon, Washington Outpost, GNR and crippled the Eastern BOS, but they didn't, but what they did do is destroy Liberty Prime, as it was assaulting their communications facility. They could've destroyed Liberty at project purity or any other time, but didn't. I'm make a wild jump and infer that this is because they lack the manpower, materials, and the time to build, or maintain any major assets due to their isolationist approach that is much like the Western brotherhood, minus the civilian brutality. Unlike either of these factions, including the Eastern brotherhood, the Mid Western Brotherhood protects the civilian, trains them,[ (more or less) for the record of course the inexperienced tribal recruits would have leather armor and some not so OP weapons, being as their not experienced , trained, or skilled, as opposed to seasoned warriors like the Warrior)(i confessed i horded the most advanced gear)]

The Midwestern BOS has The most valuable resource out of all the factions in the Universe; Trained people in abundance I'm not talking about the few hundred scribes knights, paladins, warriors, elders, and any other cast variation i'm talking about the various villages that, no matter what ending, get better education, irrigation, and basically become the brotherhood that's outside the bunker. With a large labor force, and the knowledge i'm pretty sure the Mid Western BOS could Convert it to motorized combat armor , repair some of the Vault 0 facilities, or painfully assemble the armor from scratch.(worth it though its totally bad ass in appearance)

The robots would dwindle in combat. The Reavers weren't destroyed completely and they came up with the EMP rifle. The MLA, reavers, slaver, raider and exBrotherhood would take their toll on the robots. Once destroyed they would have a hell of a time rebuilding them.

Also I said it would take more then finding a part to swap out like Harold asks the Chosen One to do. The mission where you take out the power plant, you have the option to completely destroy the turbines which also [censored]s up alot of the the power plant, lots of things go boom and smoke. Which completely destroys it. So good luck fixing it.

You can raid vaults and such yeah, which is why I said they could fix some of the smaller areas if those centers were close enough to a vault.

It wouldn't need a serious rewrite. Am I the only one who has actually played Fallout Tactics here? I must have played the game well over a 100 times by now. Most of the stuff I am talking about actually can happen in THE GAME. I am not just making [censored] up here. I am going off in game content.

Ooops wrong section

I know what happens in game, and there are robots all over creation doing a huge mass attack as the calculator is stopped


A lot of robots, that already built and would be functioning


Gauss and Pulse weapons would be rare, and now you would have robots, pacification bots, Behemoths AND BoS working together.

Not a serious rewrite? It is a huge and complex rewrite to basically come up with a story as to how this robot army dwindled, when it was on the verge of wiping EVERYONE out. That is without any NEW production.

Ending FO Tactics: Robots owning everything until...offline. power plant already been long gone. Manufacturing long gone. Robot carnage.

Now, back online, add BoS and....dwindle? That IS a rewrite.

If i not mistaken Calculator even makes some threat that a bunch if behemoths and pacification bots are waiting outside to kill the warrior.

I am getting tired of talking in cycles.

The MLA fight a guerrilla war against the BoS. They aren't completely defeated. In fact it says for every disappearance another person joins.

The endings doesn't say "The BoS repaired Buena Vista nuclear plant, fixed all the manufacturing centers and started producing thousands upon thousands of robots."

In game content is. The Buena Vista nuclear plant can be destroyed. All the Calculator's robot repair and manufacturing centers are destroyed.

What I am saying is. It wouldn't be to hard to say that many within the MWBoS who supported mutations find themselves on Barnaky's hit list. Much like when the commies took over in Russia and they started killing alot of their own generals and so on. So those on his to kill list fight back. They damage his systems. Systems to complicated to repair.

exMWBoS both human and mutant, because not all those in the MLA are mutants, join the MLA or at least agree work together. Mutants and humans with Brotherhood training and equipment. Other groups like the reavers help or even join. With Barnaky facing threats from his own people be becomes more parinaud. Soon he has to depend more and more on the robots. So he uses them to secure bunkers, towns and outposts. With the system damage Barnaky can no longer directly control the robot forces all at once.

Over the 90 years of not being able to repair and produce enough robots to replace those lost in the fighting. The robot forces dwindle. The enemies of the MWBoS would get their weapons and supplies from the MWBoS when they take it. A death by a thousand cuts.

That isn't a major rewrite. I am basing this on in game content and what could happen. Remember 90 years have passed and all the endings would have to be tweaked.

You're idea (which I don't hate) is a rewrite. It is making up an ending which doesnt even exist. There is no ending of Barnaky gaining control of the MWBoS in his robot body. The only way Barnaky could gain control of the MWBoS is by having the robot army. Remember Barnaky was apart of the minority in the MWBoS who wanted to kill all the mutants. If he didn't have the power to take control (the robot army) he wouldn't be able to. The MWBoS would then actually gain more power and have the resources of Vault Zero even with the Calculator destroyed. Making it even less likely that Barnaky could ever gain control.

He could control a splinter group at best, but not the whole MWBoS.

So without Barnaky becoming one with the Calculator, there is no way he could ever take control, hence no Barnaky Ending.

My idea is the Calculator is destroyed ending(thus eliminating, the majority of the Robot army) and follows that with the only exception being that years later, probably after the Warrior is dead, Barnaky forms the more militant anti-mutant BoS and the MLA war begins.

I do not view that as a major rewrite, or even an alternate ending, as it follows the Calc destroyed, with a lot of time taking place. Like any coup or take over, I don't see Barnaky having much of a problem gaining followers.

I don't hate your idea either, I just don't trust Beth to implement it properly, just like I don't trust them with Androids. I am hoping FO4 will change my view on this.

In the end thow if the Barnaky ending is chosen, chances are Bethesda will put their own take on it. Maybe if we are lucky Obsidian will oneday get to make another game.

Hell at this point, I would be happy just to hear "Barnaky" spoken in terms of being a leader of the MWBoS.

As for your idea. In a sense if I am reading you right. Your idea is based off the neutral ending in which the Calculator is destroyed. Barnaky in his robot body several years later gains power or forms his own group and starts the MWBoS war. In a sense Barnaky takes an extreme view. Most of the enders don't like mutants but they don't outright hate them to the point they want to kill them all. They simply want to use them. So to me the only way for him to gain power using your idea would be if he somehow got voted in. The majority would want to surpress him and his followes. If they even let him back into the BoS as a robot. He doesn't want his wife to see him like that. Its pretty much why he asks to be one with the Calculator. Cause of his wife and that he did work against the MWBoS, even if it was against his will.


I would like the robots of Tactics to be around defending bases and such. I don't want there to be tons of them. But I would love to walk into a MWBoS town and see a Behemoth Robot right in the heart of the town.

Well wife and such would be long dead.

But the Calc destroyed ending sounds like what happened. Ie fallen on hard times, BoS ends up fighting raiders and gangs. Will be decades before they contact the west.

My idea, if they are using that ending, is thus to expand on that to show MLA and so forth could still exist.

Actually. As far as I can tell it is never said that they have "fallen on hard times."

All that is said of them is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZzQcd2KTRE Lone story." Scribe Rothchild.

The best part about that is "Long Story." As in Bethesda is acknowledging there is a long and I would hope complex story there.

Then we have Caesar captuing two brotherhood members in his eastern territory in New Vegas. The two don't know even know who Roger Maxson is, and they could only be a reference to the MWBoS in Colorado. Since the Legion recently went into Colorado and took Denver. Colorado is also the furthest the MWBoS made it. So the MWBoS still spand from Chicago to Colorado Springs.

Off the radar generally implies something is keeping them off it.

Which if they somewhat powerful, wouldn't make sense. A town with say a behemoth sitting in it, is not really off the radar, but very much in your face.

The Enclave for example are off the radar in FO2, mainly because they in the middle of the ocean, but are moving out of it.

The Enclave in FO3 is likewise off, then very much on.

The BoS in the mojave are off the radar.

I guess my question or point would be that if the Barnaky BoS with robots was off the radar, it would almost mean there is a serious threat and they are not the major power. Otherwise there really no need for them to be "off the radar".

I still think it'd be interesting if the MLA ended up regrouping in the west, perhaps finding and recruiting other Super Mutant survivors, then heading back, destroying the Calculator and dismantling the MWBoS into what Lyons' BoS and Caesar's Legion have run into. As Styles said, it's never specified that they were actually destroyed.

Well you're three examples have something in common. They are off the radar because they want to be off the radar. It is the same as "going off the grid." I can see how one can think it means they have fallen on hard times. But lets remember that that isn't actually said anywhere. If they are still in Chicago and in Colorado. That would say they still have alot of assets and resources.

Now I am not suggesting that the MWBoS are a thriving super power. But it seems to me people are thinking they are nothing more then a chapter size force eking out an existance in Chicago.

Lyons group being small based on Rothchilds discription could have taken a different path to DC that avoided much of the MWBoS' territory but for the Chicago region. The MWBoS in Chicago could have feared that Lyons' group was a spear tip of a much larger Orginal BoS force, finally expanding East and looking for their lost brothers. Which was apart of Lyon's mission. The MWBoS not wanting to be found avoided Lyons. Lyons didn't give up and got closer. The MWBoS figured out that Lyon's isn't the head of a larger force finally shows itself. Not wanting to give to much away understates its forces.

Lyons not really giving a crap and wanting to get on with the more important part of his mission of going to DC, accepts their story, checks them off his to do list and heads on to DC.

We also have to remember that the Orginal BoS would have no idea where to start looking of the MWBoS. For all they knew everyone on the airconvoy died. So it could be completely possible that the meeting between Lyons and the MWBoS in Chicago could have been a complete happenstance. As in "holy hell some of you guys did survive, how about that!"

Also it is completely possible that most if not all the MWBoS would have no understanding of their past. They might only go back as far as the airconvoy. Given that most of the MWBoS would be tribals and other wastelanders brought into the BoS by force and given at the time of Tactics the MWBoS was at war. I don't BoS history 101 was high on the list of priorities. The old school members dying off without passing on that history, it would become lost.

Indeed it is true that they could still have power, not doubting that. Even the Mojave BoS is a threat.

I merely stating that keeping robots, some extremely large, off the radar is a difficult thing to do, and a group generally has a reason that causes them to do so.

For the Mojave BoS the reason was survival.

For the Enclave it was a combination of isolation + being sneaky with diabolical plans.

I really do not care what they do, as long as it makes sense AND we get these interesting factions.

My personal preference is Barnakey as a walking talking robot with brain, which still fits the FO world, as brain extraction and brain placement surgery totally fits into the realm and has been done in every FO game, except maybe 3, which I can't remember if it was or not.

Well lets look at Lyons BoS. They have robots. So for Lyons, seeing the MWBoS' robots could be nothing at all. Maybe making a note of "hey they have some big ass robots" (behemoths) might be worthy of note. But then again why would Rothchild feel that that detail is at all relevant to his conversation with the Lone Wanderer? Rothchild does say it is a long story, but again he doesn't see the need to go into detail about it. The Lone Wanderer doesn't ask further about it. Heck we have to twist his arm just to talk about Lyons and their own situation. So of him to mention the MWBoS at all is surprising.

One of my worried is if Bethesds does do the MWBoS, they well recant (don't think that is the right word) the robots of Tactics and change them to their own ideas. Like they did with the ones of orginals

Well it isn't just that specific conversation.

People do travel and word spreads.

If there giant robots about, you would think that is big time gossip/newsworthy.

Now, I am not saying that means behemoths don't exist, I would like to see, and fight, a huge robot. It just seems to me if they exist, there are not many and they are perhaps(more than likely) hidden.

The story just has to make sense within the game world, regardless of ending, and we want the same factions to emerge from Tactics.

Is "retcon" the word you were looking for? I agree though, the old sentry bot was a total monster. And the V-0 army wouldn't really be unique if it just was made up of the same robots we see everywhere else in the series.

I always assumed that by "Off the radar" Scribe Rothchild just meant that they were off the Brotherhood's Radar. As in, they cut ties with Brotherhood and went rogue. Even that's not the intended meaning, how does Rothchild know that they're off the radar being in DC? I know apparently Lyons went looking for them, but I don't remember when it's brought up. Where is it mentioned that Lyons went looking for the Midwestern Brotherhood?

Edit: Is it just assumed that the DC Brotherhood would have crossed paths with the Midwestern Brotherhood on their way to DC initially?

If you draw a straight line from the BoS bunker in California to D.C. in Maryland, it doesn't even cross into MWBoS territory. Sure, Lyons probably didn't walk there in a straight line, but still, the chance is big they didn't really make contact with them. "Contact" in the way that the entire Lyons party met with a big bunch of MWBoS guys on their way to D.C. I'm sure they talked a few times, though. But by the time they did that, I'm with Styles that most MWBoS guys probably don't know much about the origins of their organisation. It's more like "Woah, these guys from the west have the same name and armour as we do. Weird!"

Also, the robots could and should (at least the lesser ones) be retconned to stuff that's less rare in the Fallout universe. Like Vault 0 didn't really have all new designs for robots, but the ones they did had were few and just prototypes? The Behemoths could all look like http://indieadventure.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/primordia_giant.png by the time Lyons got to D.C. Most of the robots could be scrap. Those that survived are those proven to work forever (RoboBrains FTW!), and maybe some awesome prototype robot hid away somewhere, like the T-51b in Fallout 3.

Yes Retcon is the word I was looking for thanks.

The way I see the Vault Zero Robot army is that it was built by the lowest bidding company (Acme) since government contractors often go for the lowest bidder. After they designed and built the robots for the Vault many things could have happened. Such as being bought out by another larger company like Robco. Bad leadership in that the company didn't use the money wisely and it went under.

As for people not talking about the robots... People weren't talking about Trogs, and Hillbillies in DC. I can't picture to many people travelling great distances. It would be more like a relay race. A trader gives his stuff to one guy, that guy takes it to another guy and so on and so on. After all we don't know much about the Legion and what its like in their lands but for one guy and the Legion is right next door to the NCR.

I Haven't played tactics yet (just brought it of GOG, thanks styles ) but I'm going to say i think destroy ending will probably be cannon since it lets Beth say whatever the like about the robots and then state they seemly all got destroyed in the bunker

although isn't tactics set before fallout 2? if that's the case they can all have any lore breaking stuff be "additions" that have been added to the tale over the ages