If you want a "fresh and neutral" faction you don't use the Brotherhood of Steel at all. Using the Brotherhood of Steel is always a way of drawing upon their appeal from previous games and in Bethesda's case this will be Fallout 3 and Lyons. Going back to Tactics for the Brotherhood of Steel when you already have a group your playerbase knows and that you went to some trouble to bring over to the East Coast in the first place makes absolutely no sense.

You don't need to spend a separate game setting that up as New Vegas showed with the completely unheard of Legion and House and for most of the Fallout 3 fanbase the NCR. For Bethesda to bring back the Brotherhood of Steel and not have it be Lyons would be like Obsidian having the Brotherhood of Steel in New Vegas only for it to be a group of Lyons' guys. It doesn't make any sense.

From everything we knew about the Brotherhood of Steel their sudden appearance in D.C. made no sense either until Bethesda threw a few sentences together justifying it. I don't understand why this move would be such an incredible unbelievable step even if we accept that it is literally however long after the war and not just an approximation of the actual date. Maybe the Brotherhood is going up to Boston to see if the Institute can provide them with the assets to fix Liberty Prime or track down the person who helped them get it working the first time and they found the airship designs in Eden's dream diary. Or they just built them as Tactics so elaborately explained. There you go it already makes more sense than the initial move to D.C.

Again there is no way of avoiding that the argument for the Brotherhood being from Tactics rests entirely on the airships and we already have a clear example of Bethesda reusing a Tactics asset without it having any in universe connection to Tactics. Not to mention that its at least as baffling for the MWBOS to have vertibirds as for Lyons to have airships.

^This

The video explains nothing that hasn't been discussed here.

You have Arthur Maxson in FO3. He plays no major role..yet. He writes poems that are similar to actual Arthurian poems(found on his terminal). Prydwen comes from another Arthurian poem. Also, according o the video, we're suppose to change West Coast SM into behemoths now..how convenient.

You don't need to include the Brotherhood of Steel, yes. But Bethesda is including them nonetheless. It's more or less their poster child at this point. I will say the BoS being on the East Coast is essentially, and most likely partially, a result of Bethesda's initial inexperience with the lore of Fallout and overall hesitancy to create their own factions when doing Fallout 3 - it was safer to use pre-existing ones. However, now that they're a little more grounded, we're seeing players like the Institute, Minutemen, and Railroad pop up.

Again, it's not a mystery as to why the BoS is on the East coast. Hell, the B.o.S existence (at least within close proximity) on the Eastern side of the US predated Bethesda's BoS lovechild. Tactics established that they were out looking for the Super Mutants. Lyon's group went out looking for the MwBoS. How complex does the answer need to be?

It's not just the airship that leads me to conclude that it's the MwBoS - here's two other possible explanations:

-Mariposa strain Super Mutants and the fact that the MwBoS were fighting them in Chicago. Their presence in Boston leads me to believe that the MwBoS followed them.

-Androids running around. The MwBoS are probably a little hesitant about robots running around all willy nilly - especially considering their history with robots in general.

We'll find out in due time, though. Regardless of which BoS faction it is I'll be having fun, but until the game is out I'll stick to what I believe to be true and respectfully (or at least try my best to) disagree with those that feel it's the CwBoS.

That video is also just speculation. Not a fact. This the game could still take place later as it is possible Bethesda is misleading us.

Lyons' Brotherhood is their poster child and it is why they will appear and not the red-headed stepchild from a spinoff title that they have openly stated isn't fully canon released over a decade ago. Right which is why the MWBOS showing up is even stranger. If they're going to bring the Brotherhood back yet again, and they are, it will be their Brotherhood.

Lyons group did not go out looking for the MWBOS anywhere other than a Prima game guide they went out looking for tech and to investigate rumors of super mutants despite neither of those objectives making much sense or being explained at all. Nor does it make sense that if they were looking for the MWBOS that they kept going east aafter they found them. If you accept that terrible explanation for the isolationist faction of declining strength suddenly appearing on the other side of the continent I have no idea why Lyons' Brotherhood showing up in Boston with some new toys despite the trouble in D.C. is inherently so incongruous.

A behemoth has been clearly identified. Mariposa super mutants do not become behemoths. This also relates once again to it making little sense for Bethesda to drag over Mariposa mutants when they already setup their own strain of mutants in Fallout 3. They didn't do all this just to immediately discard all these aspects of their Eastern setting a game later. The presence of androids is in game a reason the MWBOS might be involved but again it is not actually evidence they are involved. The only evidence that has led anyone to conclude that the MWBOS is a possibility is the airships.

Not going to link to it but the date is known now.

Yeah from that I would say a strengthened Lyon BoS is present in Boston. Likely with a few known faces.

Edit: deleted

Lyon's BoS could have found an airship in one of the hangars at Adams Air Force Base and it was just a matter of of repairing it.

The new info regarding the date means that it is all but confirmed that it is Lyons BoS returning.

What new info?

Leaked screenshots from someone playing the PS4 version. They show a shot of the Pipboy map screen, and you can see the date. I won't spoil it, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

Leaked screenshots show the game's date as 2287

giving Lyons 10 years to build all this stuff

I'm curious how strong they are going to make them, especially in the span of 10 years.

And finally puts to rest the whole it's at the same time as F3 thing. Codsworth's 2 century's line clinched it for me way back in the E3 presentation.
I am glad they have continued to move forward with the timeline. Not so glad that it probably means it is CWBoS in Boston rather than the MWBoS.

Edit: I also think if it is CWBoS, Arthur Maxson will only be a knight/paladin, he will still be way to young to be in any kind of command position.

Assuming the poems found on Arthur Maxson's terminal turn out to be true.

Pretty powerful, as they imply Arthur will conquer all of the east coast.

I agree, the return of the eastern bos (most likely being a prominent faction again) is thoroughly disappointing.This also confirms that we'll probably see Liberty Prime again.

If they are coming to Boston as conquerors, they have expanded a lot in the last 10 years,

Edit: Missed leak above, now it probably is CwBoS, it could be anyone with that gap in time.

Not really.

Fallout 3 implies that most of the east coast is ruinous wasteland, with only a few towns/settlements spread out like 100+ miles from eachother. Its a lot of land, but a lot of empty land.

The Great Khans are said to conquer most of the northwest in a short perod of time in one ending for NV, and thats FAR more land then this, but all of that land is mostly empty.

Welp that pretty much ends the speculation, I mean i could only throw out wild guesses at this point. The time frame that some of us thought supported a MwBoS airship in Boston vs Lyons having one in Boston after F3 is out the window.

Yea I am out of speculation on that.

I personally hope I don't hear "STEEL BE WITH YOU!" from whatever division is in Boston.

Cool now that i know the date, this explain a lot about Lyons BoS on Boston. =D i like this i hope Bethesda keep moving 10 year head on each game is a nice time jump, not so big no so small.

I really hope that doesn't mean they'll be main factions white knights in every Bethesda game on the East coast.

That phrase was only in Fallout 3, and it was openly mocked on Bethesda's own forums. I don't think they'll make that mistake again.

I am aware the phrase was only in Fallout 3, but that is news to me that it was mocked at on Bethesda's forum. That actually breathes some hope for the BoS division in Boston then, whatever division it is, East or not, I want a grey area BoS.