This is exactly why BoS was my choice as well. No other faction actually helps The Commonwealth's people with their daily struggle to survive. I suppose I could become Preston's errand boy but why bother once the Prydwen shows up? The BoS has better training, better equipment, and follows chain of command. To a pre-war human the BoS are sanity in an insane world.

I would really really really like to fully support the Minutemen.But they are just SOOOO ill equipped.I mean laser musket are strong if used the right way.But they just won't do it and so they just have rudimental slow as a sloth laser rifles and hats.

If Bethesda did something with them to make them less laughable.Why not change all default Minutemen armor to some kind of cool unique armor ala NCR ranger or something after you retake the castle??

As of now the BoS is the only faction you are genuinely happy to see at your back while in a bad spot.

I went with the MM the first time through. It was ok but the endless radiant stuff made me ragequit and just start over. Tried to make The Castle home and it didn't work out for me.

No, of course not. As I said, ~part~ of their rationale is legitimate: defending people from monsters. It's just that ~underlying~ that noble goal is a core of elitist only-we-are-worthy kind of mentality. Day to day, they LOOK like heroes. And most of the time, they are. But there is an undeniable arrogance behind them. Only ~they~ are suitable to recover and use pre-war tech. No one else can use it because they ~might~ abuse it. Only us. Only we are good enough. Even if a Supermutant or non-feral ghoul approached them peacefully with absolutely no ulterior motive and posing no possible threat, they would still kill it ~because~ it was a supermutant or ghoul.... not for anything it was doing (or had, to their knowledge, done).

The Minutemen's biggest problem isn't their equipment, it's their structure. The Minutemen are a militia. The majority of them are volunteer soldiers that have homes and jobs to return to. They do not have to respond if they don't want to. As has already been demonstrated, it takes a strong will and a charismatic leader to keep them together. The SS may have those qualities but will his/her successor? Will the Minutemen even survive or fall apart like it did the last time?

Right on, man.

the Brotherhood is kickin' rad.

For me, at this point, your claim regarding non-feral ghouls is tenuous and little more than a personal assertion.


For the super mutants, you're probably right. However, let me ask you this. Of the 30 years that the Brotherhood have been dealing with super mutants how many of them have they met that would do as you suggested? You, yourself, have only been able to name two in the entire Commonwealth. 30 years will have taught the Brotherhood time and time again some very clear lessons about super mutants.


In other words, in 30 years super mutants have never given the Brotherhood a good reason to act otherwise.

Anyone who's defending super mutants in the east is being intentionally obtuse to throw shade on the Brotherhood. It's a different strain of FEV -- especially in the commonwealth -- and they're largely hyper aggressive people eaters.

but hey we should hold hands and blow up the brotherhood for picking on the poor, innocent, harmless people eating super mutants right?

No, we should blow up the Brotherhood for picking on the poor farmers who have their crops stolen at gunpoint, or the ghouls who are in the Bros sights solely because they didn't have the good fortune to die from a heapload of irradiation, or the people who had some manner of techy stuff they rely on that the Bros wanted and again... took at gunpoint.

As I said in the first response... regressive dogmatic raiders with power armor.

They don't steal crops. You do. Lancer-Captain Kells announces that they protect merchant caravans to get discounts when trading.

They don't steal from caravans and they don't steal from farmers.

Next?

+1

And also if you don't want to 'steal' from them, you have the option to buy the crops from them if you really want to.

Yes, you. A commissioned Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel.

I said you because clearly he did it.

I bought the crops.

Does Maxson chide you for not buying the crops though? I'm speaking more about policy than I am about the actions of a single individual.

Seems to me The Brotherhood doesn't care how they're procured. If buying them is easier, cool. If taking them by force is easier. Good on you. Regardless, they need them. And the farmers saying no isn't an option.

I mean I'm not saying its evil. Armies throughout history have been consuming local supplies to feed their march. But they aren't exactly doing the farmers any favors.

Without reading the thread this is why I hate the Railroad.

They go out of their way to save machines. They reprogram them and don't seem to care about their [censored] ups at all. One of their mistakes ends up being a raider warlord. I haven't seen or read anything that says they try to deal with such mistakes.

I don't give a crap about the whole "are synths people" at all. When I finished the main quest line for the Brotherhood

Yes, you. You are given multiple options for acquiring supplies. If you choose the violent option to steal the food over more peaceful options, it tells me far more about you than the Brotherhood. Especially when your choices are not in line with other Brotherhood actions, as has already been pointed out.

Unless you lose favor with the Brotherhood for choosing to take the crops by force, or if they explicitly order you not to, it really doesn't. Kind of like how you can threaten to have Dr. Li shot and Maxson doesn't care.

I personally don't care if The Brotherhood steals food or not. Its just sensible to levy tribute from local supplies after all. But its not benevolence.

The Brotherhood had a mission to accomplish. The current mission is paramount, especially given its magnitude. They will do what they need to do to accomplish it. No, they don't chastise you because you accomplished your mission to acquire the supplies, supplies needed to accomplish their mission. It does not mean that your choice to steal is their preferred method of operation. That is made very clear by the fact that they use protection and defense to get what they want from merchants. It very clearly suggests that they would prefer you to treat the farmers similarly.


No one ever claimed it was benevolence. For me, it's an objection to the "The Brotherhood is the evulz because they steal from farmers" crap. People coming into these threads screaming that the Brotherhood is bad because of the choices they made. The Brotherhood steals only because you chose to steal. Anyone that code the more peaceful option has a Brotherhood that doesn't steal.

The way I look at it, The Brotherhood doesn't care how its done. Just as long as its done. As I said before, if its easier to just buy it. That's fine with them. If you take it by force. They don't care either. Much like Dr. Li. If you can convince her to work on Prime of her own volition, cool. If you have to force her at gunpoint to do it. That's fine as well. Just so long as the jobs done.

At the same time though, clearly they aren't doing the Commonwealth farmers any favors. And presumably, sometimes they refuse to sell (my guess is you aren't the only one going around and extracting tribute). Either because they can't since they need the food themselves, or because they just don't want to hand it over. At which point The Brotherhood will probably just take it.

Doesn't make them evil. Its just normal operating procedure for occupying armies to feed themselves from the local populace. For the most part, that's how its been done throughout history. Brotherhood's no different.

So calling them evil for doing this isn't valid (IMO), but at the same time, faulting people for disagreeing with this levying of tribute isn't valid either.

Which doesn't seem to contradict anything I said.

Maybe because I wasn't trying to contradict you?

It doesn't matter how you look at it. The entire quest is done under the table and we see the official policy is "protect people to get cheaper goods." from the Lancer-Captain Kells, who is basically third to Maxson, right after you.

Kells is still higher up on the "people who give orders" chain then you are. He is literally the second in command.

Is it ever stated that Maxson or high command don't know about it? Genuine question by the way, because I don't know.

I find it hard to believe Maxson or Kells doesn't question where Brotherhood food stocks are coming from. And if they don't, that really only adds to my point that they don't care how the food is acquired. Either by buying it or by forcibly taking it. As long as their men are fed, it doesn't matter how.

I also wouldn't call that "official policy" so much as just illustrating that The Brotherhood is acquiring what they need via a variety of different tactics.

I like the Railroad's idea, I'm not a big fan of the whole slave race the Institute is doing nor do I like that they're kidnapping people and possibly murdering them (given the FEV lab also at one point turning said captives into super mutants) and how much they general screw over the commonwealth like how they completely destroyed University Point for no reason other then to get research on a pre-war project for more efficient power (which turned out to be for a gun) then you have the whole CPG incident but the railroad just seems to small to work.

The Railroad doesn't have many resources or people behind them, I'm even certain some of their contacts are listed as Institute assets and informants. Dead drops are constantly in hostile territory, they don't have much safehouses and if it wasn't for the Sole Survivor I doubt they'd live long enough on their own if they tried to go after the Institute or the BoS. Even when it comes to espionage and guerrilla tactics I doubt they could do anything serious, they're a mosquito compared to the BoS and the Institute if they don't have the Sole Survivor behind them, at most they would leave a small annoying mark that goes away in a day but they're easily squashed.


Or Teagan is just not telling them where the supplies come from.