I agree with most of this, but the skeleton is the scientist we see above ground in the trailer who died inside the vault. And the weapons in the PCs inventory will be for demo purposes only.

Or, you know. Codsworth could just re-iterate 200 years.

The PC has just recently come to. It is understandable they will be a bit out of it, and need time to process. So he asks Codsworth, "200 years?"
Or
Since there is nothing we have been shown that he would know how long he was supposed to be in stasis, he could be somewhat shocked he was out for so long and ask again, "200 years?"- much like one would do a double take.

The option to ask "200 years?" does very little in suggesting that the number is different.

There's probably going to be some kind of combat tutorial pre-leaving the vault, whether that's in a simulation or otherwise, who knows. But I would be surprised if we left the vault without a weapon.

The combat tutorial appears to be the section at the Red Rocket garage where we first find Dogmeat, and the 10mm pistol will be from the security guard also seen topside of the vault during the trailer who clearly suffered a similar fate to the scientist. Also, if we had a better weapon by that stage, we would have used that on the mole rats instead.

Given the importance of keeping the story under wraps, as emphasised repeatedly by Todd Howard and Pete Hines, we are clearly being kept in the dark about the actual start date. And so the option for "200 years?" was not selected. Codsworth simply repeating the same statement would be very bad writing on Bethesda's part. The most likely explanation is that he would clarify the exact amount of time since the Great War, which would be longer than 200 years. Broader approximations than this have even been used in scientific journals, and yet have also been expressed as a rounded figure.

They are telling you 200 years to give you a general time frame of the game. It isn't 100 years after the War, It isnt 100 years after FO3. It is a generalization people do everyday. Why wont they just tell us the year? It was specifically asked and all we get again is the same 200 years short, avoiding the question answer.

uh, no. we are clearly being kept in the dark about the story line.
the start date may reveal what is possible as far as story goes, but it doesn't say anything about what that actually story is.

And they did clarify. When Pete was asked if it were 200 years, or if that was a ballpark figure, he said 200 years. He could have opted to not answer if it were different.
I realize this is counter to many peoples theories as well as when they would want the game to start, but those theories are just that- theories.

Time will tell.

....or it could be 200 years.
If it is 200 years, there is nothing else they can tell you other than 200 years.
And indeed. It was asked specifically and they said "200 years"
Not everything has to be a conspiracy.

The truth of the matter is this could quite literally end up going either way, as both arguments are valid. But as you said, time will most certainly tell. Whatever start date Bethesda have decided on, we'll all find out in 35 days

Unless they've removed all references to dates in the entire game, of course.

Ok lets say your right, tell me what branch of the BOS is in Boston, Midwest BOS?

As you say, if it is exactly 200 years, they would have nothing else to say.

If it isn't exactly 200 years, it wouldn't be necessarily mean they were intentionally trying to mislead us. As for not clarifying...

Once you get a person talking, especially about something they are passionate about, they have a tendency to continue talking. This is the way most humans are wired. With a few people you damned near have to lay a 2x4 up side their head to get them to shut up. BGS likes to keep its cards fairly close to its chest so it wouldn't be surprising that everything from the reveal to release is carefully scripted to build hype but not give too much away. If this is the case and if it isn't exactly 200 years but about 200 years then the reason they keep repeating 200 years is because that is what is in the script. Not really a conspiracy so much as a desire not to let the cat out of the bag.

Either way, we are going to find out next month...

Unless, BGS is a bunch of total [expletive deleted] and the date is never mentioned in game at all.

Perhaps.

It could be MWBoS. If they were victorious against the calculator, in a non Barnaky ending way- as that ending has them flourishing- they could easily push East between the events of Tactics and 2277 (79 years).

Or.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncUp8nk1_lk, it could be the BoS that were exiled along with those who would become MWBoS, only they didn't crash over Chicago, like the BoS who became the MWBoS did. The intro does say that the main airship crashed. Not that the others did.

Lastly, as I have stated to you before, it is entirely possible to have F4 start in October of 2277 (exactly 200 years after the bombs fell)- Allowing it to take place after the events of F3- yet in the same year, and have CWBoS branching out for reasons I would assume the game would address.


Which will it be? Time will tell. I am hoping for the middle option, myself. It takes from a previously untapped bit of FO lore and doesn't have to crate some huge backstory for them that might conflict with other events.
But as you can see the BoS being present doesn't pose much of a problem for the start date being 200 years.

Then you have the speculation that they've retconned the Great War back to 2075... It'd be an incredibly silly thing to do, but it DOES fit with having a recreation of the Minutemen, which AFAIK were largely disbanded after 1775-76 (and most of the action they were involved in post-1775 were further south, in New York state).

Why is that?

I don't think the Minutemen being present needs to have the great war coinciding with the anniversary of the revolutionary war.
We likely see the minutemen around the Minute Men National Historic Park, outside of Concord.
They have re-enactments there, every year. The park stages battle re-creations every year.
Docents dressed in period costumes are there every day the park is open.
Therefore, there doesn't need to be some tricentennial festival going on for the period costumes to be present.
As for the faction's name. It is Minute Men Park. They likely named themselves after the location in which they reside. At the same time, it is also possible that pre-war plaques, museum installations, books and other materials allowed wastelanders to learn about the Minutemen, with some fashioning themselves after it.

Based on what we know, it would almost have to be the Midwest BoS, or at least a part of the same expedition that resulted in the Midwest Brotherhood.

At the beginning of FO3, the East Coast Brotherhood is hip deep in supermutants and has just recently (within the last few years) suffered a schism that has fractured them and reduced their numbers. The resurgence of the Enclave was an unwelcome distraction that further drained their resources. After the destruction of Raven Rock and the crawler at Adams AFB, the EC Brotherhood is in better logistical shape than they were before the Lone Wanderer left Vault 101, but the effort against the Enclave futher reduced their numbers and by that time they would really be hurting. Even with the Lone Wanderer's protagonist superpowers it is going to take them a few years to clean up the Capitol Wasteland, recruit and train replacements, build at least one airship for heavy lift, and consolidate their position enough to mount a major effort anywhere else. They would need to find a warehouse chock full of deployable Liberty Primes the day after you last logged out of the game to be able to go to Boston in the same year.

This brings up the airship, Prydwen. The Brotherhood of Steel has always had a connection with Arthurian Legend. It became blatant with Fallout 3. Young Arthur, Round Table, it can be argued that Guinevere is Sarah Lyons and the Lone Wanderer (if male) is Lancelot. The only thing missing is Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake. But as I said, there have been other references to Arthurian Legend in connection to the BoS so it isn't entirely outside of the realm of possibility that any branch would name a ship Prydwen. It just makes more obvious sense if it is an East Coast Brotherhood ship.

Basically, if it is exactly 200 years after the war, it can't be what we know as the East Coast Brotherhood unless BGS decided to shoot their own lore and continuity out the window with a Tactical Junk Jet. It has to be some other branch and the only reasonable candidates are the Midwest Brotherhood or an element from the same expedition that did not crash in Chicago.

The calendar in the pre-war kitchen says http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/7/7a/Fo4_Pre-War_Nuka-Cola.png/revision/latest?cb=20150616183742.

Scribe Rothchild says the group in Chicago is a small detachment. I seriously doubt it will be them. So I guess they just put Arthur in FO3 for no reason, the only living descendant of Roger Maxson and they just don't want to use him, even though we have a ship named Prydwen and 2 poems written by Arthur in Fallout 3 clearly associated with the King Arthur legend. We see the BOS have vertibirds in 4, like they do in 3. What do the BOS do at the end of the Broken Steel DLC? Ask Sarah Lyons what will they do next. She says Elder Lyons will probably have them scavenge the entire Eastern seaboard. What about Dr. Li? You honestly think she went to Boston all by herself? Would it not make sense she would require an escort?

This militia probably dates back to just after the war when settlements were starting to form and a need arose to protect themselves from raiders. It is conceivable that more than one Minuteman organization was formed and they may have merged over time.

I can just see it now...

A small group of men and women in a basemant of a building in their settlement, discussing the raiders.

One: "We really need to set up a defense against those bastidges. If we don't they will eventually kill and eat us all."

Two: "We could alway build a wall to keep them out."

One: "But the wall will have to be defended. Otherwise the raiders will just go over it."

Three: "Ok, then we need a force of armed people to defend the wall."

Four: "Yeah, but we don't have enough people to mount a permanent defense force. It is going to have to be a militia of sorts."

Five: "Ok, who do we put in charge of our militia?"

Two: "It was One's idea. Put her in charge."

Six: "Ok, what do we call our militia. It needs a name."

One: "Take a guess."

Six: "Oh, I know. The Commonwealth Posse."

One: "This is frikkin' Boston, you moron." {slaps Six hard}

Two: "The militia will be made up of farmers, you moron." {slap}

Three: "And Shopkeepers" {slap}

Four: "And Blacksmiths" {slap}

Five: "And has to be ready to defend the wall on a minute's notice" {slap}

One: "guess again" {slap slap}

...

Six: "The 60 Seconders?"

{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}{slap}

A half hour later:

One: "Sorry about your husband Mrs. Six, but really, he was just too stupid to be allowed to breed."

That was in response to a question that basically asked, which Brotherhood chapter would be present in Boston if Fallout takes place exactly 200 years after the war.

Yes, I know, thank you...I guess . It's just crazy not to think the BOS in Boston isnt the CWBOS. It is amazing to me how many people think FO4 is going to take place in the year 2277..."200 years" is vague time reference, that's it. But lets ignore all the other evidence and not use common sense.

It's astonishing that people will insist on blowing off tweets confirming a start date.

Continue being skeptical boys.

35 days to go!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Shoe-Lovers-Cookbook-Occasion-ebook/dp/B00AI21VM6

You did't say anything about the rest of the air ships that didn't crash in Chicago.

Vertibirds are seen in the F4 intro as being present in the Boston setting pre-war. So there's nothing to say they couldn't be in setting, regardless of who is flying them.


What Rothschild says is:
"There's also a small detachment in Chicago, but they're off the radar. Gone rogue. Long story."
It could easily be that he is talking about how they were sent away from the WCBoS, and they lost comms while they were over Chicago.
Also, if they are "off the radar" and he has been in in the CW for over 20 years by the time we see him in F3, how does he know what they are up to, or what their numbers are? Seems unreliable to me.


The name of the ship may mean something relating to Arthur Maxson.. It may not. But I also never said it couldn't be the CWBoS, either- so I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.

I remember the amount of [censored] I got on the Skyrim forums because I was confident that the stealth gameplay (i.e. the guard's reactivity to his buddy getting shot with an arrow) wasn't indicative of the final product. Lo and behold, the AI reacted more appropriately on launch than the quake con alpha footage.

I'm not gonna give two [censored]s if I'm wrong or if I am right, and I certainly won't be going thread to thread saying "SEE I WAS RIGHT, I TOLD YOU SO."

I'm just going to insist that the crack pot theories that Pete's being a deceptive snake-oil salesmen are full of horse [censored]. They haven't even shown footage about romances in the game and people are eating that [censored] up like it's gospel. But, oh no, a tweet by Pete reaffirming a start date, nah mate it's a red herring intended to way lay the actual story because a number has so much bearing on how it'll turn out.

Please.

But you're side stepping the real issue here. Are you still going to eat your shoe?

EDIT: I was only messing with you with the link, but you did say this earlier in the thread!