By the time Broken Steel ends, Lyons has basically stopped being the wasteland's protector.

1. The Enclave are destroyed.

2. The Super Mutants are out of FEV, and their numbers are dropping

3. Talon Company likely had their power broken as well.

4. Bigsley has already begun the process of shifting all the water caravan duties over to Rivet City.

Lyon's isn't the wasteland's protector anymore, he can get back to doing what he was originally doing, gathering tech, and Sarah mentions this herself, saying her and the pride have been ordered to pick up basically every blinking gizmo in D.C.

The only real problems left are raiders and slavers, but the BoS has never actively dealt with removing them.

Don't you think they'll stay for order as military for a new society? Or will they continue their new purpose of protectors and travel elsewhere to help humanity just like Jesus did?

I think they will do what they were doing all along, collect tech. Neither Lyons or his daughter have shown any desire to be rulers, nor did he ever try to be the military of anyone specifically, he just wanted to help the people of the wasteland, and he did. Lyon's personal mission is complete, now they can get back to cataloging all that Enclave tech they got from the mobile base crawler, finding parts to rebuild Liberty Prime, and just generally finding new tech.

I suspect more then anything, that when Arthur Maxson grows up, he might lead the Lyons BoS back west to reclaim his seat as leader of the BoS. Bethesda is not usually one to set up that much Arthurian symbolism and not follow through with it.

Running right smack into the NCR's tens of thousands strong army, and the complete defeat of the Western BOS. Have fun with that one King Arthur.

No, if Lyons is smart, he'll stay in the East and rebuild the BoS there.

That all depends really, Bethesda could easily write the BoS + NCR treaty in the Mojave as eventually effecting the entire west coast BoS.

Also, in my scenario, Lyon's would be dead of old age, dudes like 75 already.

First, Lyons didn't fight for the people of the CW because they were the people of the CW. He fought because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Second, no matter what will keep the BoS alive, it alwas has to do with them losing identity and becoming something else. A faction which prohibits outside relationships isn't going to thrive.

Lyon's fought because he saw how the BoS could help others, and he succeeded. The scourge of the Pitt, and the elimination of the Super Mutants and Encalve in D.C. have practically saved the east. Broken Steel also brings up the very real possibility that he is doing is because he sees how helping people gets people to like the BoS, and how he can use that to make sure his order doesn't die off, which he greatly succeeded at with the purifier, so his motives may not exactly have been entirely pure from the get-go.

The BoS will change and adapt to the ever changing world, or they will die, the MWBoS understood this, Lyons understood this, those that did, the west coat BoS and the outcasts, were doomed from the beginning. That is the natural and expected order of the world.

To convince both the Brotherhood leadership (whatever remains of it) and NCR High Command to agree to a full and lasting peace treaty would be a miracle in and of itself. But assuming it happens, the Brotherhood would be at best, a quasi-sovereign military order existing within the borders of far more populous and powerful nation and unable to exert any real power or influence beyond the confines of their bunkers, and at worst a vassal state/dependent or something amounting to it. In either case, the Brotherhood's continued existence would be dependent on the NCR's good will. Since there is no way in hell that even with reinforcements from the east, the Brotherhood could possibly defeat the NCR at this point.

There's no future for them in the west anymore. The Eastern BoS has a golden opportunity to restart in a relatively untamed part of the continent. Just like the MWBOS. Free from the NCR or any other significant organized state. They'd be complete idiots to throw that away and go down like the Outcasts are doomed to do. Especially when the Western Elders made it very clear that Lyons is on his own.

Stay put and rebuild. Chasing dreams back to the West is only going to lead to disaster.

I dont disagree, I was just pointing out its likely Arthur Maxson would try to go back west because "symbolism". I also don't think Arthur would try to fight the NCR, but rather, convert the west coast BoS into something more like Lyons and the MWBoS, or the Followers.

We do know from the quasi-canon fallout 3 epilogue from the official game guide that the BoS, or at least someone, is still guarding the purifier 20 years into the future, so if some did leave, It obviously wasn't all of them.

And as soon as they find another menace on the east coast, they'll say: "We won't help against these, because we only helped against enclave cuz they wanted to kill everyone and against the super mutants cuz they are dirty mutants. Talons also were in the way of collecting tech."

Given that the BoS has done nothing to try to stop the raiders, or slavers, and didn't even bother with the Talon Company until they started stealing their water. I doubt it.

The BoS deals with forces normal people can't fight on their own, of which, there really isn't anything nearby. The only force, that we know of, left on the East that the BoS might fight is The Institute, but I doubt Lyons would REALLY want to get dragged into ANOTHER war with a technologically advanced faction after how draining the war with the Enclave was for them.

My thinking is if Ronto is a military power. There must be some industry. Maybe not on the scale of the Pitt. But it would have the ability to produce weapons and sustain a large population (army) with other goods. Unless Ronto is sitting on a huge pre-war stockpile but I am tired of that. It would be nice to learn of factions being producers and not scavengers.

I would agree that the Pitt would out match any industry that would be found in and around Toronto. But what should be in that area wouldn't be something to sneeze at ether. That and Ronto if it is Toronro would be in a great area for trading with communities around the Great Lakes. Would be awesome to learn of Great Lake tanker ships still functional and controlled by factions and or trading companies. Moving resources like iron ore around.

I really see three possibilities for the CWBoS:

-Progressive members maintain power and, while they give up leadership in the Capital Wasteland by handing it off to a capable power (which I guess is Rivet City), they become a fixture of it and a part of whatever government (might) form out of it. If/when this government expands, perhaps the Brotherhood of Steel would expand with it and occasionally accept outside members (but not as often as they did in F3). They would be a faction within that government, using their advanced technology to assist it every so often but primarily focusing on gathering technology and researching it.

-Semi-Progressive members gain power and hand off power to Rivet City as quickly as it can before turning their focus to gathering technology. They would stay relatively isolated and apathetic to the government that (might) rise from the Capital Wasteland as long as it leaves them to do what they want to. They expand without care for the government in the CW's borders.

-Traditionalist members gain power, hand off power to Rivet City as quickly as possible, and then head back West to find whatever's left of the BoS.

I would love that.

Just imaging the idea of a nation on the former US-Canadian border acting as both a large trading hub and the strongest military power in the region is interesting. If it has an industry (which I hope it does) then it would likely produce weapons for a decent amount of the country (which could be an excuse for new types of guns).

I'd also like to imagine their culture, if they are descended from soldiers in Toronto then perhaps the society itself is based on the military chain of command structure (everybody gets a rank, whether they're civilian or not). I'd be really interested in that but I also think that they should either only have subdued elements of them believing themselves to be American (as in a continuation of the US government or a part of it) if at all (hopefully not at all). If this is all true then I think that they won't because they chose to name themselves Ronto instead of anything directly referring to the US (assuming they named themselves).

I also wonder what lands they rule over. I think it'd be interesting if they ruled everything from London, Ontario to Buffalo, New York to Syracuse, New York to Smiths Falls, Ontario (with their sights set on Ottawa). This would give them a massive amount of land and resources, making them one of the strongest nations on the East Coast (if not the strongest).

And perhaps instead of individual trading companies within Ronto itself, it would be a branch of their societal/government structure.

Just thinking about it, if there are industrialized dictatorships across the Commonwealth that are locked in a constant state of war (idea from the last page), a massive military power on the US-Canadian border, (possibly) an industrial slave-run dictatorship in western Pennsylvania (possibly the Empire of the Pitt), and a democratic nation with links to advanced technology in the DC area (possibly the Capital Union, which I'd love) then the main complaint I had for Bethesda's East Coast would be entirely gone.

Anarchy's boring. These nations would be incredibly interesting and I like their apparent lack of permanence. They seem destined to fail and that's how civilization seemed to have risen in reality, so why not in Fallout as well (NCR doesn't really seem doomed to fail, it just seems as though that it's going to have to stop expanding and fix its internal issues, hopefully ending its plans for expansion but surviving).

If D.C., The Pitt, and The Institute, are any indication, they rule over their specific city, and little else.

The Pitt's reach extended as far as D.C., yet they didn't actually control even Moneroeville, which is like 14 miles away from The Pitt's playable area.

https://i.imgur.com/daB9jMc.jpg

Oh, I know that.

I was just thinking about what it might be at the time of the next East Coast Fallout game.

EDIT: I was thinking that maybe it could be in the mid to late 2290s.

Around 2297 perhaps, so that it's been twenty years since Fallout 3 and there has been some time for things to develop. I could see Rivet City and the other major settlements having signed an agreement to become a union of settlements, Three Dog expanding his radio signal's strength to reach a larger amount of the East Coast (if Three Dog is in the next game, I'd rather this happen than him moving), and the Pitt begin expanding its territorial control (possibly with Ashur in charge, maybe he stays true to his promise and is conquering so that the raiders have something to do and stay in line).

Maybe, though it seems like Bethesda has written off the east coast as "several major powers/minor cities with tons of nothing in between".

According to the popup before you use the train cart thing to go the the Pitt, the area between D.C. and the Pitt is a wasteland with little to no supplies, and that covers a distance of like 215ish miles.

If you went that same distance south of D.C. you would just reach the beginning of the thin landmass that forms the outer banks, which is where the largest major settlement down south is according to Quinn and Tobar, and given that we have no knowledge of anything between D.C. and the Broken Banks......... Not looking too good there.

Going north that distance would take us to NY, and we know Philly, which is between the two, is considered " that dump" which makes it not a prime candidate for anything, and we haven't heard anything from NY itself, likely it got nuked into a place worse then the Pitt. Then the distance between New york and Boston, where the Institute is, is, again, 215 miles.

So, if Beth keeps the pattern up, there's lots of 200+ miles wastelands full of nothing of note. Though, that isn't too different from Fo1/2's combined area going from Klamath to the Boneyard, making a stop at San Francisco along the way

It says "supplies will be scarce and the going will be rough." Which doesn't necessarily mean its a barren wasteland with absolutely nothing, but if you're going along a track through a really complex network of tunnels and old highways, its probably a good bet that in a post-apocalyptic world supplies will be scarce by any stretch of the imagination.

There may be towns/settlements a few miles off the path you're traveling, but you don't exactly have time to go scavenging and exploring. So you ration what you have and what you find along the road and keep going.

I don't necessarily see that as meaning there's absolutely nothing between the Pitt and the Capital Wasteland.

Maybe they put large distances of nothing in between those potential nations so that they could expand into decently large countries without tripping over one another.

It not having much of anything there now doesn't mean that it would stay that way. The CW could colonize it and build settlements and make irrigation systems and stuff (if they were to adopt widespread farming).

The Capital Wasteland could be a country that's about 500 or so square miles without even touching another country.

And I don't see that as really saying that Broken Banks is the only major settlement in the South. At most, that'd mean it's the only major one on the coastline.

EDIT: And going by what Lt. Andronicus says, they could just be smaller settlements that aren't that notable or who just avoid the railways (I bet Pitt raiders often use them and it'd be dangerous for the average person to travel on them).

I doubt they would ever make the C.W. into a nation, they would likely make crops and stuff, and then spread that knowledge across the wastes or something, but I doubt they became a nation. If the Fallout 3 game guide is to be believed, even 20 years after turning on the purifier everyone was just the same way they are, but with clean water. Moria makes no mention of Megaton coming under some unfied governmental power.

Such large empty distances wouldn't be unheard of, in Fallout 2 there was nothing between The Den and San Franciso, which is 350 miles away, for nearly 160 years until Redding was founded just a few years before Fallout 2 begins.

I totally disagree.

20 years before the game began many things in the wasteland, such as supermutant attacks, were worse and the only thing that even kind of unified settlements were the BoS (who had and have no interest in being an authority) and the same trade caravans we seein F3 (which are pretty much independent merchants).

Now the largest settlement in the wasteland is constantly traveling around to bring water to people. The supermutants's base in V87 is going to be destroyed by the BoS, the DC ruins, while very much unsafe, are better than they've ever been, and people have more of a reasom than ever to want to ban together.

Regular travel between settlements is possible and the entire bottom-righthand quarter or so of the map (where most of the settlements are) is as peaceful as it's ever been and the settlements there would like to preserve that.

Megaton and Rivet City would almost certainly be in, along with Vault 101 if Amata is in charge. Maybe Underworld and the escaped slaves at the Lincol Memorial as well. The BoS could also help them achieve this.

Then they would expand outwards. Paradise Falls would likely be attacked and dismantled (if the people at te Memorial have enough of a say). Big Town would be added in afterwards (they'd probably be happy about that), as would the Canterbury Commons (which might actually grow into a major trading hub).

Little Lamplight would be pressured into it (if it's ever mentioned again, I would like it just to be called Lamplight to imply that it is a normal settlement in caves now) and the Republic of Dave would join if Dave dies.

The Regulators and Reily's Rangers would probably both be willing to ally and join it at that point, probably becoming the seeds of separate branches of a military.

Way down the road, I could see the ruins of DC being built into a city between the settlements within and around it growing and people from other parts of the wasteland moving there. It could be the staging ground for a large democratic nation.

I also really think it'd be democratic because all of the settlements that seem to make it up have relatively democratic systems and an understand of democracy (mayors, the fact that DC having once been the capital of the US being common knowledge, etc.).

The BoS will never touch the super mutant base in Vault 87, they have no means of reaching it except via Little Lamplight, which they aren't exactly going to force their way through, and they have no reason to go there now given the super mutants are out of FEV anyways, and they, at least Lyons, have no desire to play politics, and Lyon's is still allows racism to ghouls, so they wont be helping anyone achieve anything unification wise.

The Regulator and Reily's Rangers are mercs, and would never realistically become the foundation of ANY sort of military. The only thing they will do is continue being mercs, just like how the Followers kept on being the Followers.

And while I do believe trade will most certainly increase, the cities dont have more of a reason to ban together, in fact, they have even less reason now that they can make their own food, instead of having to rely on the trade routes to bring them the things they need.

Paradise Falls is simply doomed no matter what due to the Pitt cure removing the need for slavery.

I could see the various people banding together to remove a lot of the raiders, likely with the BoS's help, but not form a nation.

Anyways, we dont need yet another huge, homogenous, single-minded, empire growing in the post war world. we already have that in the NCR, the Legion, and the MWBoS(to an extent).

1) I'm pretty sure he says something about that when you tell him where Vault 87 is and what's going on there. Either way, the supermutant threat is gone.

And you just contradicted yourself, if Lyons isn't into politics, why would he stop the Underworld from joining a union of settlements? I really, really doubt he would do anything like that. At the worst, he'll just be mad about it.

2) I can see your perspective on this but still disagree. In the NCR, the Gun Runners are separate from the military but so closely tied to it that some consider it another branch, now I think that the only reason it remained separate is because the NCR isn't about to nationalize a large company.

I think that would happen definitely to the Regulators and maybe to Reilly's Rangers. The Regulators care more about doing what they think is right than actually being mercenaries while Reilly's Rangers are just people who generally want to do good.

3) Once again, I disagree. I believe that they would not be short sighted enough to think that they should just do nothing when things are good because the general situation in the wasteland has fluctuated from bad to worse to better over the past few decades and will likely continue to. I think they would establish it to preserve the good they have and try to make it better.

4) I know that the Pitt is a significant customer to them but are they just doomed without it?

5) Why wouldn't they form a nation? Forming a larger society or a union of societies seems to have been about preservation and protection, which they would most certainly want.

6) Single minded? The NCR is having rising tensions between the corrupt, inept government and the people they have colonize and conquered. The Legion is going to collapse, or at the very least be incredibly weakened and divided, at Caesar's death, and the Midwestern BoS (likely) fought a huge war against the mutants in its land. There is conflict brewing in every nation there.

And the Capital Wasteland's nation would not be huge, at least not for a very long time. The Capital Wasteland does not have a very large population and it would take decades for their population and land to grow to include even a hundred miles.

We need more nations, not continue the insane idea that anarchy would reign for centuries after a nuclear war.

1. All Lyons says is that you learned more in the last two weeks then he has in the last 20 years of fighting super mutants.

I said Lyons wasn't into politics, and that he is racist to ghouls, and thus, wouldn't be helping anyone unify. That isn't a contradiction, i never said he would STOP them from joining, I said he wouldn't be helping them do so.

2. I've never heard anything in any Fallout game where anyone treats them like a branch of the NCR military, at most, they are a military contractor, along with the Crimsom Caravans, and the Far-Go traders. I could see the Regulators and the Rangers doing something similar, taking on contracts of a possible D.C. nation, but never as actually part of them. If anything, the Rivet City security forces would form the basis of a military.

3. Increasing trade, helping each other to fight off the remaining slavers and raiders, and generally just helping each other out is not doing nothing, you don't need to become a nation to do stuff and help each other.

4. The reason why D.C. has such a huge slaver presance, yet so few in-game salves, was explained by The Pitt being the ones who buys most of them. Almost the entire slaver operation for 200+ miles in all directions from the Pitt is to feed The Pitt's massive need for slaves. There are a few local salve owners, such as Tenpenny, but the VAST majority of slaves are sent to The Pitt. The entire city of Rockopolis was sent to The Pitt after it got enslaved. Once the cure is distributed, the very core of the slaver operation from The Pitt to D.C. will have next to nothing to sustain itself.

5. Becuase you dont NEED to form a nation to help eachother.

6. The Legion is, as of NV, a single minded entity, the NCR, as of NV, is a single minded entity, the MWBoS already destroyed the bad mutants during Tactics, and is now, a single minded entity. Nations are fundamentally counter productive to a interesting game setting.

While I agree that total anarchy gets boring, nations are not the way to go about solving that, stable, independent, cities are. The greatest part of Fallout 1, 2, and 3, was interacting with a variety of various towns, and the people in them, each with their own culture and identity, often times wildly different from each other. Nations fundamentally ruin this idea by making everyone the same, with homogenous thought and action, something NV suffered from greatly. Even though the Mojave was only at the edge of the NCR lands, no town outside the Strip, Nellis, and Jacobstown, had a clearly identifiable individuality, it was just this big collection of "normal people doing normal things like any normal city in the modern world", it's boring.

The development of nations also introduces massive story problems, becoming so large would naturally result in the removal of most raiders, mutant animals, and other hazards, thus giving the player little to do in-game if the game is inside the nation borders. On top of that, there is very limited story development one can take, either they suffer from a civil war, at which point the entire game is just hearing two slightly different variations of the same ideal thrown at you.... or nothing happens, and even that is limited as either the civil war succeeds, which just results in the next game being those two, now separate nations going to war, and hearing the EXACT same slithgly different ideals over and over, or those two nations ally, while staying seperate, thus effectively negating the civil war plot to begin with.

If the game isn't set inside the nation, but rather on the outskirts like NV was, then you are stuck with JUST a NV style plot, this massive nation fighting whatever villain of the week enemy managed to somehow grow large enough to fight them, which just becomes increasingly less believable as the nation gets larger and more powerful, and NV pushed the limits of believable with CL being able to match the NCR already.

Nations are dead ends plot wise, even more so then the west coast BoS was back even in Fallout 1, they are limited to two or three interesting storyline, which everyone has seen already a million times over and thus offer nothing new to the series.

However, independent cities not only manage to retain the charm towns in Fallout 1-3 had, and NV lacked, but also offer a far greater variety of possible plotlines, and things to do, because they are far less secure from outside threats, making the outside threats actually threatening and believable, and the lack of some massive government to enforce things like racial equality and similar things, allows for far greater ways to take the story. You dont need total anarchy with independent cities, but you also dont run into the total lack of believable threat having large nations create.

While I dont agree with the wording he used, or even really the method he wanted to destory them with, I totally understand why Chris Avellone wanted to nuke the NCR and Legion, they are boring dead ends plotwise.

Not really, The Pitt was there best customer but it wasn't here only customer, the slaves from the Head of State quest weren't from The Pitt so they have other clients Ashur is just buys in bulk. Unless the LW or the BoS comes in and burns it down they'll likely continue regardless of what happens At the Pitt. It could take decades to develop the cure, and once they have it, you need a whole generation of proven successes to attract settlers which could mean another couple decades of slavery.

The only true way for Paradise Falls to be doomed is if Bethesda man's up and says certain events are canon, while the original creators of the series were find in establishing certain choices being canon, following the basic guide line. "Good Karma." Bethesda's history of the Elder Scroll games indicates they don't have the stomach for canonizing choices. Rather then invalidate some people's choices by deciding what's canon and what's not they prefer to invalidate everyone's choices by having the sequel never mention which happened.

Now if they did follow the precedent that "good karma" is canon, one could assume the LW destroys Paradise Falls at some point.

Well The Legion has a good chance of collapsing, and all indicators seem to show that already happened to the MWBoS. So that just leaves the NCR which has a host of its own problems it might not survive the coming decades.

If that was true the NCR would never have existed. The settlements on the west coast didn't band together to fight raiders and other threats, they were able to band together after The Vault Dweller eliminated those threats which is why they have a giant statue of him outside the capitol building. What allowed the NCR to come into being was The Vault Dweller knocking out the raiders which allowed Shady Sands to become the center of an Empire.

Again you miss the point you could have four or five NCR sized countries and still have huge swaths of frontier wasteland, especially when you consider it took the NCR fifty years to become a great power.

The operation was in place... before Ashur arrived at The Pitt.

Yeah the slavers are in no way completely dependent on the Pitt. Paradise Falls was there before the Pitt showed up, and it'll still be there if the Pitt suddenly stops buying slaves (which probably won't happen for awhile, if it happens at all).