What's interesting is that the case for this actually being Lyons and not Midwest is now very strong. And so if we are looking at Lyons BoS, then there would have to have been enough time for events to move forward to include, for example, the building of the airship, Maxson reaching advlthood (whatever his rank may be), and any change in leadership, such as Sarah Lyons succeeding her father (It is unlikely that Owen Lyons would be brought in as the Elder this time round given his age at the time of FO3). And so this sheds even more doubt on the claims that the game is set exactly "200 years" after the great war.

I am quite certain that once we get to see some kind of footage from QuakeCon, or once we at least get to read an article from a reliable source who attended, we will find out an exact date due to the in-game use of the Pip-Boy. I think it would be very hard to conceal this during a one hour demo.

I'm entirely doubtful on the exactly 200 years claim so it will be good to get this confirmed or finally get the correct information.

A few things:

The symbol has been 'bastardized' many times from its original look and style. The CWBoS have their banners/graffiti markings painted with a http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/4/4d/BOS_Graffiti.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090531225314. And the airship insignia is impossible to tell what color it is what with the fire and all.

I don't disagree because the LW was doing some crazy deeds at the young age of 19. But, he was thrust into those crazy deeds because he wanted to find his dad. Even with Maxson's entrance into leadership at age 18, he's still behind senior ranking paladins like Cross and Lyons who are very well respected by the order. Even Maxson is infatuated with Lyons because she taught him how to kill a man by stabbing him in the kidney.

-Fallout Shelter is non-canon. You can have Elder Lyons make babies with Sentinel Lyons in that game. All appearances of characters in that game are for http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_canon.

-The events of the pItt were optional and since the scourge I don't think they have any good reasons to return to the Pitt. They'd have to actively civilize the Pitt and bring order to it if they wish to utilize the factories and steel smelters unhindered. Considering the last time they passed through, I don't think the locals would be all too open to them coming back.

-The elephant in the room is Liberty Prime, and the fact that the ending of Broken Steel says the order is working on rebuilding him, it's a safer bet to say they didn't jump ship and scrap LP in favor of an airship.

Why do people keep forgetting that the capital wastelands BoS has Gods Own Fetchboy aka the lone wanderer.

Obviously getting the BoS a Zeppelin was a unmarked side quest......

I added numbers to make it easier to reply to the post...

1. The white BOS system is unique to Lyons' BOS I believe, so at the very least the concept art with the BOS trooper (with white BOS symbol) with the Protagonist and the Minuteman (with the airship and vertibirds in the background) is most probably Lyons' BOS.

2. I'd agree that Maxson is unlikely to be in an overall command position at 18-20, however in Lyons' BOS most of the command positions seem to be Knight Captains rather than Paladins (who are used more as elite troopers rather than command) and I could easily see Maxson reaching such a rank with the majority of the BOS fighting strength made up of recruited wastelanders.

If Lyons' BOS has sent an expedition to Boston, its not that unlikely that a Knight Captain could be in charge of the military side of the expedition.

3. I agree Fallout Shelter is non canon, its just using Fallout characters.

4. How hard would it be for Lyons' BOS to have built their infrastructure up once they had pacified DC, to give them the capability to build new equipment and keep a fleet of Vertibirds running....I'm not sure the Pitt is needed for the production of an airship.

5. Liberty Prime is junk at this point, its unlikely anybody post war has the knowledge or parts to rebuild Liberty Prime. So after a while they can give up the fiction that the parts they have the LW collecting are of any use in rebuilding Liberty Prime. Once its loss wont effect the troops morale.

1) The insignia's are interchangeably used as are the colors. The CWBoS, for example, have https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5f/67/81/5f67811bf3964e7283138bae16369e68.jpg (inverted).

2) That's if he becomes a knight. For all we do know he is training to become a scribe

4) Not that hard since they've got the water purifier, but the outcasts are still giving them trouble in 2281 so I suspect that securing the CW is still difficult 4 years later. Evlbastard above notes that it's not confirmed that it's the Outcasts warring against the CWBoS, but that isn't telling information at all because the Outcasts exist as a direct mirror to the CWBoS. There are only two BoS chapters in the East Coast (MW and CW). Who else are the Outcasts going to fight?

5) I doubt Liberty Prime was completed without full documentation. Even without original blueprints of LP, the BoS specialize in reverse-engineering, so noting how the pre-war US pentagon got to the same point that stumped both parties (the power issue) was definitely documented and outlined in new blueprints for future production. Dr. Li solving the power issue was also noted and documented.

I'm not using real world comparisons. I am using BoS as an example. Maxson is not unique. Every member of BoS is born in and begins their training early, and spend years and years of training and climbing into the ranks of Knights and then beyond to a Paladin. Doesn't have anything to do with the real world, but everything to do with how the BoS has always worked.

Except that Lyons' BOS doesn't work like that, the majority of BOS's fighting strength in Fallout 3 is made up of recruited members rather than those born into the Brotherhood, Maxson is unique in that he is pretty much the only known child (in Fallout 3) being trained by Lyons' BOS, giving him an advantage over the bulk of the troops who he is likely to be commanding.

Let's say, in sum, only one of the three needs to survive long enough to recieve the origami unicorn. And we can rack the kid up to vault tec dabbling in concert with Weyland & Tyrell.

1. I dont remember ever seeing that in game......I'll have to load up a old save and have a look.

2. He was being trained by Sarah Lyons which suggests that like other Maxson's before him that he would be going into the military arm and he wouldn't be a squire if he was in the scribes. Being a Squire already mean't he outranked the military Initiates at 10 years old.

4. I doubt personally see the outcast as much of threat, there pretty much a doomed group.....no secure home base and rapidly dwindling numbers.

5. Where can they salvage parts for Liberty Prime, do any even exist?

Its one thing to finish of an already constructed machine, its a world of difference to what would be ineffect rebuilding it from scratch.

2) http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Brotherhood_of_Steel_ranks#SquireHis path is open though, so I was mistaken about him becoming a scribe. I forgot that Owyn Lyons was an active Paladin before he became the Elder.

4) Four years later and still waging a civil war - they don't sound doomed to me. They make up for their smaller numbers/lack of outside recruitment by extensively using robots.

5) I don't know, but if people believe that they can salvage parts and build an airship from scratch, then they can most certainly salvage parts for Liberty Prime. They did gain access to Adam's AFB at the end of Broken Steel, so that's a good place to start.

4. Its not really a civil war since Lyons' BOS isn't at any point actively fighting them. No replacements for loses (with growing dependence on robots), Lyons' BOS sitting on all the tech and no way for the Outcasts to actually win.....they are pretty much doomed.

The Outcasts dont really have any longterm plan, just a vague wish to return to the good old days of stealing tech from the locals and feeling superior. Their home base is wide open to a determined attack and there one successful attempt to gain tech, ends up in the hands of the LW, with the Outcasts fighting among themselves.

Both version of BOS in the Captial Wasteland lack a civilian population to sustain them, Lyons' BOS are able to get round this by recuiting locals and training new members......the Outcasts are doomed just by the passage of time, wait a decade or two and they will be gone simply due to the background threats, never mind actively fighting a force with equal (if not superior) tech base and greater numbers.

5. They have the established ability to produce airships though, they dont have the established ability to produce Liberty Primes......its a different level of tech, its probably easier to build an airship than a vertibird, never mind a unique mech design.

Whether it was represented accurately or not in Fo3 is up for debate, but according to lore they're waging a civil war. Just because the Outcasts weren't knocking on the CWBoS's door doesn't mean they didn't skirmish outside of what is presented.

I'm going to stick to the lore explanation for what the BoS did after Broken Steel. Whether or not they have an established ability to produce airships doesn't really hold a candle to the fact that the BoS set about rebuilding prime. When you have the blueprints to reproduce a 40ft death machine, would you shirk that chance in favor of an airship?

-----

"Liberty Prime's remains were recovered by the Brotherhood of Steel and, though it would take months or years to do so, the Brotherhood set about rebuilding and upgrading it."

Scribe Rothschild regarding LP:

"The only bright side in this is an opportunity to try and rebuild Prime from the ground up; make improvements on his original design."

Maybe they followed Bethedsa's footsteps and had part of the team working on Prime, whilst another group set to work constructing an airship. Either way, Lyons BoS are going to show up in Fallout 4 at one point or another. There is just too much evidence to suggest otherwise.

A lot of said evidence has been refuted or has counterpoints, though.

Hopefully we'll find out after QuakeCon! (as well as a few other details)

But I do feel that even if the evidence were equal for both sides, which it isn't, CWBoS would actually make far more sense from a storytelling perspective.

"The only bright side in this is an opportunity to try and rebuild Prime from the ground up; make improvements on his original design."

Liberty Prime was primarily destroyed in Broken Steel because it was to OP, while it was operational its an automatic win for Lyons' BOS......the new and improved Liberty Prime is only going to appear if Bethesda want another set piece where you stroll happily along behind the unstoppable death machine in future games.

Tech wise building an airship is frankly much easier (and well within their tech level) and is in no way a replacement for Prime.

Since they are also apparently keeping a vertibird fleet running, as well as all the general maintenance to their Power Armor and weaponry, I doubt their entire focus is on Prime. I'd expect the airship to be mainly meant for command and control, maybe as a mobile home base for the scribes rather than a combat design.

Not really. Lyons BoS has taken in children before, not just recruiting advlts. Kodiak or whatever his name is from the Pitt was a child. In the west, every child is like Maxson, and in the West, those kids who train all their life don't become Paladins at 18. That is mainly the comparison I am making, in that he isn't unique. Plus, you are assuming that just because Maxson raised in BoS means he has advantage over a recruited member, which isn't true, seeing how you have no idea who the recruited member is. The recruit could be Mr Death Incarnate for all you know. I'm sure not all of them are as dorky as Redding.

Not to mention if they go the full on boy king story and basically make this King Arthur in the 23rd Century, maybe give him a robot sidekick bdbdbdbd bdbdbd bdbdbd then this is a dumb story premise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v32VypWeF0I

Lyons BOS has indeed taken in children before, (many of whom are now Paladins) but Maxson is unique in that he is the only child member being trained by Lyons' BOS and already outranks the majority of the fighting force of Initiates at age 10, so its highly probable that by age 18-20 he will at least be a Knight if not higher rank.

As to a recruit being death incarnate, such people are noteworthy because they are so rare......Lyons' BOS is recruiting from a population with a low tech base, so if we say the average recruitment age is 16-18, then Squire Maxson at a similar age will have over a decades head start in practical knowledge of Power Armor, Laser and plasma weaponry. He will also have spent over a decade learning tactics and gaining experience at the side of some of the Captial Wastelands most experienced soldiers.

I doubt he will be in total control of Lyons' BOS in Fallout 4, but its very reasonable to think of him as a 18-20 year Knight Captain leading the military side of a Boston expedition.

Actually with how dangerous the CW is, I would say there is a good chance a recruit can be pretty darn deadly. Growing up around that hell hole, anyway.

I already said he would be a Knight. He would probably not be a Paladin, and there are already many other members in the BoS who in only 8 years if that is the time jump, have more experience and leadership than him, mainly all those who are currently Knights and Paladins, and those would be the types who would be leading missions.

Odds are, also, that Maxson wouldn't receive any real field missions until at least 17.

You said it yourself, the CW most experienced soliders, and unless every one of those people die off, they will be the ones leading missions. Not the boy king.

Now if the time jump is much later and he is in his 20s, then maybe he a Paladin.

No matter how deadly growing up in the CW is, that doesn't translate to over a decade knowledge and training in Power Armor, Laser and Plasma weaponry....the locally recruited Initiates would have needed a lot of training to bring them up to BOS standards.

Assuming Lyons' BOS is the regional power in DC, there are probably lots of command positions being held by Knight Captains, Paladins in Lyons' BOS seem to be either in Lyons' Pride (obvious elite bodyguard unit) or guarding their home base rather than in command roles...probably due to the Outcasts betrayal leading to the need to concentrate the loyal Paladins directly under the Lyons control.

Frankly attrition of the more experienced knights is why Lyons' BOS recuits locals in the first place and this ignores that BOS is a quasi-religious group, the descendent of the Prophet (so to speak) is likely to find himself thrust into authority a lot younger than is normal and its not exactly a new thing to have a young officer in charge of more experienced soldiers.

I highly doubt the 17 year old for his first missions as well simply put when life expediently is low kids are considered advlts at a much younger age......the fact that he already holds a military rank at 10 years old shows that age isn't a prime factor in rank within the Brotherhood.

One thing that's working massively in Maxson's favor is the fact that he is already a prominent NPC in Fallout 3, and so is already familiar to the majority of the fan-base. Also, as Helljumper stated, he had outranked most of the BoS Initiates by the age of 10, and is therefore clearly a highly valuable asset to the CWBoS. True leaders are not given their position due to age or years of service, but based on their ability to lead. And this would in this case include an unusually high competence on the battlefield, especially at such a young age. This would actually give Lyons every reason to allow him to participate in live combat scenarios, as his effectiveness would far outweigh his apparent 'vulnerability' due to his age. Also, Maxson does not need to be portrayed as some kind of boy king (the examples I gave earlier are actually very rare), he just needs to be portrayed as being an exceptional soldier and a courageous leader.

Also, being Lyons' protégé means he is already learning from one of CWBoS' finest with a proven track record. And as we know, success breeds success, whether in the boardroom or on the battlefield. And so it would not be unusual for him to surpass others far beyond his own years and take a position of leadership, at least putting him as a Knight Captain by the start of Fallout 4.

It has also occurred to me that this could be one of the big reveals at the end of the QuakeCon demo, confirmation of Maxson's involvement. I can just imagine a scene, right before the demo ends, where Maxson introduces himself to the Sole Survivor. This would actually be epic! And it would certainly explain why the devs have been so 'cryptic' about the start date so far.

Also, I have a feeling that the demo will more than likely show more content from the Pip-Boy (possibly including one or two map markers), and so we should hopefully have something a little more concrete to work with than simply "200 years". It's possible that we will finally be seeing actual dates.

I hope we do get something concrete about the timeline, it will be strange if Fallout 4 is the first game to happen before a previous game, even if that game is an Obsidian spin off.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the demo takes place in the wasteland areas since that would probably cut down on any story spoliers.

How young is to young if he can fit in Power Armor, I was wondering this as it would allow quite young BOS members to participate in live combat scenarios while remaining at least nominally safe.