Maybe, but Maxon's Brotherhood clearly has disdain for wastelanders ("If you aren't Brotherhood you're nothing.") and their fervor in removing "abominations" to humanity certainly smacks of Barnaky.

Regardless, I stand by my assertion that at this point, the Barnaky ending would feel redundant and unoriginal. I don't think we need another hard-core Brotherhood.

And it would be nice to see a faction that enforces mutant toleration by the end of a laser rifle. Haven't had that before frankly, and it would be interesting to see it coming from the Brotherhood.

Not at all. Only the Calculator's existence is integral to the high level events of the story. Everything else regarding Vault 0 is secondary at best.

The Bad Ending could have easily happened, and the MWBOS went through a sharp period of decline afterwards, causing them to quickly cede territory. Given the high rate of expansion, it would certainly make sense. Perhaps now they're centered around Missouri and Illinois. There's a myriad of ways you could play it to make the Bad Ending or the Good ending fit.

Question, what good is a Barnaky ending if he has purged his BoS and is all damaged? I don't get what so cool about that ending when it is stripped of everything that would make it cool, and it would be a relatively weak faction, and I would say MLA would be much, much stronger, humans(ex BoS even), Super Mutants, ghouls, Deathclaws...

What is so special after all about a brain in a computer, if you gotta do all kinds of changes to make them fit into the known canon universe?

This is why I think can get the best of both worlds with a Calculator destroyed, BUT a walking, talking, Barnaky Cyborg, who leads his own faction. Then, it isn't limited to Vault 0, nothing needs to be changed to fit, and his power level can be more local. Then you still get MLA and etc.

Regardless, I think it gonna be destroy calculator with a BoS that allows mutants, etc. We can only hope that in that scenario there is a Barnaky cyborg type faction or splinter faction.

I love FOT, but I don't want to deal with that computer ever again.

I am getting into the Brotherhood quest line... So Arthur is now in charge of Lyon's group and not only that he has Lost Hills seal of approval? Interesting. No mention (yet at least) that the West Coast Brotherhood is getting their ass handed to them or was.. or is even alive. Or was this done before the NCR Brotherhood War. It was when he was 15 right? So the math.... Calculating... 10 in 2077 and it is now 2287.. so 15 would be 2282. New Vegas is set in 2281. So he got approved when the West Coast guys were losing.

Also I find it interesting there are/were cults of Brotherhood who worship Roger Maxson as a God.

He wants to unit the Brotherhood groups. But from the sounds of it all of them but for the MWBoS are already united. Outcast are back in the Brotherhood and the West are on board with Arthur being leader. So does this mean in the future as others suspect, there will be a MWBoS/Brotherhood conflict?

And so far I don't see Arthur or his people along the lines of Barnaky. They keep saying feral ghouls.. not all ghouls and who doesn't hate super mutants? I also don't see any internment camps and or inquisitors, yet.

The fact that the MWBoS that was already a brutal faction IMO becoming darker under Barnaky is what makes them cool to me. I wouldn't consider them a weak faction, but it could be said that they became weakened for a long time and only recently started to become strong again. Who knows maybe with help from exEnclave remnants. The MWBoS wouldn't know of the Enclave because they left the West before Fallout 2. Under Barnaky, he would have very close views to what the Enclave had. Note I am not suggesting the Enclave return. But remnants like in Fallout New Vegas could have found a new home with them. There could have been a temp alliance in the years before the events of Fallout 3.

There needs to be something that makes them special and I don't like the idea of them being special because they are the ones who let everyone join even the mutants. I never got the peace and love vibe from them. I like the idea that they go out and help people, even if they don't want it. I like the idea that they aren't out to take all the tech for themselves and are willing to share it. But only if they are in control of who they share it with.

But that being said I think what will end up making them "different" and unable to reunite with the Brotherhood would be because they are white knight goody two shoes who give out hugs to ghouls.

I think it would be great to see Barnaky as 1984 Big Brother type character. With his Image on screens and posters in MWBoS bunkers and towns. People ruling areas in his name.

Letting mutants joins doesn't have to be for peace and love. Never really understood why that's assumed.

Just out of brutally enforced expediency. All glory to the Calculator etc. etc.

The Brotherhood hate Super Mutants. Always have. I see the debate the Brotherhood had all those years ago about being letting in humans. But when they were separated, some of the more radical people who wanted change opened the door to letting anyone in including super mutants and ghouls. Do to the War with the Calculator, the leadership (but not all of them) agreed to work with mutants. They didn't see them as equals by any means but they were useful. The enemy of my enemy if my friend deal.

It is interesting to note that the only endings in which the mutants are allowed to stay and laws put in place to prevent discrimination are the bad ending and the good ending. Both of which make the MWBos insanely powerful. We know they aren't or they would have steamrolled everything by now.

With the War with the Calculator over there would be no need to work with the mutants. So the neutral ending would fit that bill. But they wouldn't be all that different from Lyons/Arthur.

If there is nothing that makes them really all that different than what is stopping their reunification into the Brotherhood?

Which still doesn't mean they have to turn into Professor Feelgood to recruit mutants though. The Bad Ending implies they (or rather it) leveled the playing field to serve a purpose. The Calculator wished to eradicate divisions so that all may be united under it for the sake of expediency, which is the reason it wiped out the old Brotherhood leadership in a brutal coup d'etat.

I believe that will be the case. But at this point there would have to be a need for why they can't just be reunited into the main Brotherhood. Arthur already seems to be the leader of West and East. Which is odd because the West is getting wiped out and he's still hanging in the East. Institute is a bigger threat than the NCR I guess.

I guest don't want the MWBoS to be Professor Feelgoods.

Somewhat off topic. I wouldn't be shocked if the whole mutant thing become moot with Bethesda. I am getting strong hints that they are going to set the stage for ghoul/super mutant cure and a way to become instant ghoul/super mutant with Fallout 4. And I don't like it.

More like they couldn't get to the west even if they wanted too. It's mentioned in several places that the Prydwen really isn't that up for long distance travel, and that they don't have a huge supply of the reactor coolant needed to keep it aloft.

The Prydwen also can't carry enough supplies for an extended campaign. The BoS relies on strong arming local farms in The Commonwealth into giving them food, since they lack the on board supplies to keep their troops fed for a prolonged period of time.

Even if they made it to the NCR, they wouldn't have the supplies needed to fight them.

It was stated as far back as Fallout 1 that the effects of the FEV could be reversed if you had a sample of your original DNA.

And in Fallout 4

Honestly I just thought all that junk about Arthur having "cults" in the West was just propaganda BS. Meant to shore up his position.

But really, why bother going back west at all? Why should he demean himself before the Western Elders by coming to their aid? If anything the Western Elders should kneel before HIM and flee to the East for them to take shelter under the Lord and Savior of humanities' wing. (At least that's how I could see him rationalizing it.)

I did notice that part about the farms and not having enough ammo to just give it to their soldiers. They have to pay for it. Which would also be like the MWBoS. Not as powerful as they say they are. Not to mention all the people in the Commonwealth with PA of their own, and Fatmans weapons to boot. I watched three of them get nuked by one guy and another bunch get taken out by a mutant suicide bomber.

As for the cure thing. I didn't get to much into it but I did have some hope that it would be unique to him and his DNA only. But some future developer, possibly for a DLC might ignore all that.

I got the impression that the West and East kissed and made up and Arthur is now King an Elder. High Elder possibly?

There are supposedly "Cults" that popped up worshipping Arthur Maxson when they heard about him, that is what I took from it, and that the WC BoS was "eradicating" them. I dunno, that whole garbage makes no sense to me. I don't think the Cults were BoS cults though. I dunno, like I said, didn't make any sense to me.

BoS can become "dark" without a Barnaky brain ending. That is my point, and they don't have to be nerfed in order to make them a power. Frankly, I see the CW BoS becoming more like the "dark" BoS faction, and that is why I think they are going to end up warring the MW BoS in FO 5, and they will be "open" to mutants etc. Open to Mutants doesn't mean they have to be wussy, either. I don't think I would call a Deathclaw a big "wuss".

The Western "Cults" could be due to the Brotherhood's terrible position out there.

Of course, it could also end up with Arthur Maxson sealed within a specialized suit of golden Power Armor for eternity.

I only came across the dialogue once so far, I thought it was Roger Maxson that they were worshiping. It doesn't make much sense to go after your own people when at War in California no matter who they are worshiping. Unless they turned against Lost Hills. But we were told Lost Hills agreed to make Arthur an Elder.

The way I see it is that the MWBoS would be the ones who wanted change. They were the first. After the airships ran into that storm, they felt betrayed since some warned the Elders that storms would be a problem and they were ignored. It could all be a tragic misunderstanding. Still the survivors had a chance to create the Brotherhood to their ideals. But things went wrong. Letting in outsiders had their own sets of problems and they become harsh and brutal in their methods. Letting in large numbers of outsiders caused them to forget pretty much their entire history and what the original survivors of the airships wanted for their version of the Brotherhood. They took the dark path.

I see them as the example of what not to become. Right now Arthur seems to be taking them down that road with some great results. Look what they could do in just ten years. But in time things could start going wrong for them like they did with the MWBoS. As they grow and expand they would have to take in more and more people. Which means more and more complications.

If the two groups ever come into contact. Which they did and Lyon's didn't seem to like them. Arthur could be confronted with the reality of what could happen if they go down that path. People in his group could see him as a tyrant.

I even without Barnaky the MWBoS are pretty "dark" group of people IMO. He just take it up to 11.

I would call them a wuzz because they would be nice guys where everyone holds hands and sings kumbaya. They didn't like Mutants and they lived in a area that really didn't like mutants. So to have them start loving them doesn't make sense to me.

And if there is any Enclave connection. That would give more reason for the two groups to hate one another.

Well, working together with SM, ghouls, Deathclaws, etc. doesn't mean they sit around holding hands and sing kumbaya, imo. They would probably be at war with people who hate mutants and the like, and if they came into contact with CW BoS, they would be at war with them, too. I like the idea of a BoS with mutants(these mutants would be remnants of the master's army and not like the CW or Commonwealth mutants), and I think it would be a pretty cool war with MW BoS vs a Barnaky Cyborg faction vs CW BoS, with various civilian factions caught in the middle(and who may have their own agendas).

I like the discussion going on here... but...

I think we are all forgetting about the fact that Bethesda is pretty much trying to sweep Fallout Tactics under the rug. As a result, I don't really see any complex plots about a brain powered computer with an army of robots just showing up somewhere in the Midwest fitting anywhere into Bethesda's Fallout Universe.

As lame as it may sound, the most boring and simple answer is usually the most effective, and that is clearly that the Calculator got destroyed.

You can stretch this and stretch that and tweak these things over there to fit this... or you can put the square peg in the square hole and go with a dead Calculator.

It takes no stretching, no complex plot, no retconing the entire location of the game, no far fetched plans about a civil war between Barnakey and the Elders, no fancy technology that allows them to miraculously contact the Brotherhood in Cali or DC... It just works, the Calculator being dead just works without anything else having to change and it fits the attitude Bethesda has taken toward Tactics.

I know you might not want to hear it, as it is clear you liked Tactics as much as I, but it seems clear to me that they are dead, all the people that you knew and loved from the game are dead, along with their faction, their power armor, any remembrance that there ever was a Calculator and a robot army... All dead. It is the answer you don't want, and that is why it is so clear to me that it is the answer that is the truth.

A "We killed The Calculator" ending could still be pretty damn interesting in my opinion.

MWBoS could still be inclusive or exclusive so you could still have an interesting environment with the Raiders, Super Mutants, Ghouls, Beastmasters (meh), Tribals, Brotherhood, and the Reavers.

Perhaps the Reavers have been working on converting any remaining Calculator Army bots. Pissed off that the BoS killed a technological wonder.

While I agree it is more likely that Calculator is destroyed, I don't think Bethesda is trying to sweep FOT "under the rug". They have made mention to it in FO 3, NV, and FO 4, and if they trying to distance themselves from it, they wouldn't have mentioned it.

I also don't think it would be lame if the Calc is destroyed. I prefer it actually, because if it isn't destroyed, eventually it would have to be dealt with again, and I'm not a fan of going back and doing something a second time. Even with Calc gone, there will be a unique BoS in the MW, with or without Mutants in it, more than likely with.

With no brain placed inside the Calculator, it isn't a stretch to have a Barnaky cyborg exist, because it is a robot it can thus still be alive, and it could form it's own group, composed of BoS who hate mutants, and some salvaged calculator army robots. Then you have the BoS along with mutants, who were forged by the actions of the Warrior. Other factions that can then appear in the region(assuming it is around Chicago, Detroit, etc) would be Enclave remnants, and eventually CW BoS moving further west. Throw in some new factions, etc and you have the makings of an interesting game, with a MW vs CW BoS war, which like Skyrim probably wouldn't be the MQ, but a world shaping Sidequest.

I don't consider them mentioning a faction in Chicago counts as them mentioning it in Fallout 3, because any real Fallout Tactics faction would have been discovered far west of Chicago, with Chicago being the very outskirts, the barren edge of any possible Brotherhood territory as far as humanly possible from the core... much further than logically advisable from the core.

It would take a very, very powerful faction, much bigger than either costal Brotherhood of Steel to still hold relevant control in Chicago... And well... if they were that big and powerful and spread from Cheyenne Mountain to Chicago... then I'm pretty sure Lyons would have seen them while cutting straight through the center of their territory.

So any faction in Chicago is only connected to Fallout Tactics in bloodline and armor and nothing else. Based on the research I have done, if Bethesda picks up Chicago as a project, I would bet my money on it being Enclave town.

And my use of the word 'lame' was more to make a point about the simple answer usually being the right one as opposed to the flashy answer with a dozen different things that could go wrong. In my personal opinion simple is good, simple is a much better foundation for building a good story.

The quickest way from point A to point B is a straight line.

So, in my mod the story of the so called 'Midwest' faction of the Brotherhood of Steel goes something like this.

After the long fight at Vault 0, a valiant effort by Dagger Squad to hold the line, and an unexpected betrayal of the Calculator and return to the Brotherhood by Robobrain Barnakey, it is time for a big decision. Betty, the hero of the Brotherhood of Steel must now decide what becomes of the Calculator. As an initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel it was preached into her head daily that the most important thing in the world is collecting and protecting pre-war technology... and this... this was the most advanced piece of pre-war technology she ever had or ever would see in her life.

But a crazy robot that was build by Vault-Tech, a company that turned its own customers into unknowing test subjects for horrific experimentation. A crazy robot with brains that have atrophied beyond the point of being any good and no longer has any morality or humanity holding it to tell you any sort of truth. A crazy robot that would say anything, in a desperate enough situation it would tell any lie to convince you to not kill it.

Would she really believe this thing, after seeing first hand how Barnakey's mind was twisted and turned around by this very same Calculator. The choice was clear to Betty, it would be nothing short of illogical, irresponsible, and gambling with the lives of the entire Brotherhood of Steel she had sworn her life to protect if she let this mechanical monstrosity survive.

As she stood there, next to the burning circuitry of what was once the demon of the Midwest, she knew beyond any doubt that she had made the right choice. Regretfully however, Simon Barnakey was no longer the man he used to be and could not bear having his loving wife or son see him in his current state. After the destruction of the Calculator, he committed suicide.

So the Brotherhood decides to use Vault 0 as their new base of operations and HQ as they try to rebuild their ranks. Disappointingly, however, even with the technology at their disposal at Cheyenne Mountain, they are unable to restore contact with their Brothers on the west coast.

'Bunker Hill had sent them out east to die', was still the though on the back of their minds as a unanimous vote decided that it wasn't worth the effort to send messengers back west to receive further orders. As the last vote was counted and the crowd cheered, General Dekker stood up and made a surprising nomination. For the first time in the short history of the 'Midwest' faction, they needed to have an Elder to turn to for leadership, and who else but the girl that had just saved them from not only the Beastlords, Reaver Movement, and Gammorin, but the very demon of the Midwest itself, Vault-Tech's Calculator.

Betty becomes the first Elder of the 'Midwest' faction and becomes the start of a matriarch dynasty much similar to the patriarch dynasty of the Maxson family.

The Brotherhood thrives for many years under the wise leadership of Elder Betty. The few remaining citizens of Vault 0 are integrated into the ranks of the Brotherhood, what few robots could be salvaged were refurbished and put to use fighting for the Brotherhood, work on the supermutant sterility cure continued as relations between the mutants and Brotherhood remained healthy, the Deathclaw went back to their homes, and even the Reaver Movement remained peaceful... cautious but peaceful.

One of the robots that was pulled from the wreckage of Cheyenne Mountain started telling Elder Betty of the time he spent working for the Calculator, the time he had fought Gammorin and barely survived, how he had infiltrated and kidnapped the already kidnapped Barnakey from Gammorin, and the respect that he had gained for Barnakey during the time he spent escorting him to Cheyenne Mountain and being his body guard after he became a Robobrain. This particular robot had taken a rocket from Betty to protect Barnakey during the final battle of Vault 0. He had bought the time necessary for Barnakey to notice the locket that Betty carried and re-gain his humanity.

Betty named this robot Cal, after his father, the Calculator. This robot became her personal bodyguard and over the next 40 years of Elder Betty's rule, he rose up the ranks of the Brotherhood to become a Paladin General. Cal is sworn to protect the decedents of Betty long after she dies.

However, this new era of prosperity came with a down side... a down side that would eventually lead to the end of the so called 'Midwest' faction of the Brotherhood of Steel.

The most simple way to put it... people became comfortable.

Betty's daughter became Elder after her mother's death. She was a charismatic and intelligent leader and had no problem keeping things running in a peaceful and prosperous way. She was not however, the warrior her mother was, she didn't spark the flame that made people willing to fight and die for the Brotherhood the way her mother could. She was more of a mayor of the Brotherhood of Steel than a commander.

As time went on, the Brotherhood stationed men all across the Midwest, protecting local settlements, brokering trade pacts with the locals, and building up a new infrastructure for society.

However, ghouls were still loyal to the betterment of ghouls, the supermutants were still loyal to the cure of their sterility, the tribals that joined were still loyal to their towns and families back home, and even the most loyal of Steel blooded Brothers started mingling with locals and falling in love and starting families. Pretty soon many of the Paladins were more concerned with the local concerns of their settlements than the concerns of Brotherhood headquarters. "Why should I leave my family in St. Louis and go risk my life because somebody out in Cheyenne Mountain decided to pick a fight they couldn't handle? What has Cheyenne Mountain ever done for me?"

So in the end, there was no final battle of the 'Midwest' faction of the Brotherhood of Steel. There was no grand last stand, no story to tell, no scorched Earth littered with the bodies of the fallen. There are no graveyards filled with the fallen heroes that made up the Midwest faction.

If you travel across the lonely planes of the Midwest the only signs you will find that the Brotherhood ever did exist is in the laughter of children who can now play safely because their town is protected from Raiders by men with power armor and proper weapons... Men who are descendants of a once mighty faction of the Brotherhood of Steel.

Headquarters is gone, the last Elder is dead, anything even remotely recognizable about the remains of the Calculator has crumbled away. Vault-tech records on Vault 0 were all destroyed long before the bombs fell, and anyone alive to remember the battle that happened that fateful day is long deceased. No glory, no monuments, no lessons learned.

However, there are actually 2 squads that remain in the Midwest. I can continue if anyone is actually interested. If not, I won't waste my time re-typing all of this. In my mod I tell the story through dialogue with different characters and it unfolds over time, so in order to make it readable on a forum like this, I have to re-write it in a more linear format.

However, in the story of FOT, the closer they get to Vault 0, the more remote, and less staffed their bunkers become, to the point they are not bunkers but makeshift camp. I don't see them abandoning their bunkers, and not every BoS moves west, it turns into a very small group that is actually going to make the attack. They nuke Vault 0, then say they go down and destroy the Calculator, there isn't any reason to stick around(the area is nuked, no matter what). I can see them saluaging what they want, destroying the rest and sealing the rest of Vault 0 up, and leave the makeshift camp behind and head back to their main bunkers.

They leave skeleton crews in some of the bases, mainly staffed by local recruits(hence why any contact Legion had with them in they don't know much about anything of BoS history), with their main forces all heading back towards Chicago.

The MW BoS has vehicles, so mobilizing and moving back isn't hard, what with the entire Calculator army no longer a threat.

Anyway, the biggest flaw in your story is the fact Vault 0 is nuked, leaving 0 reason to stick around, salvage what they can, destroy the rest, and move back to actual bunkers, and the majority of their forces. The MW BoS is very mobile, so moving back isn't hard, and with taking care of the threats along the way it is actually pretty easy. When fight a war, and it is over, people want to go home, and home for the MWBoS is Chicago(and it is the home of the Warrior).

Plus, you may not consider them mentioned in Chicago in FO 3 as the MW BoS, but clearly they are, there is nobody else that would be there, and it isn't very far fetched or complicated to think they went home after the final battle with Calculator, and as I pointed out, there isn't any reason to stick around, it nuked. Plus IIRC, the final battle location is quite a far distance from the final makeshift camp.

Now, I can see what you are saying to any BoS they leave behind in the more western areas, but the further east you go towards Chicago, the stronger the BoS is.

We only know three confirmed things about tactics:

1. The MWBOS exists

2. The MWBOS used airships

3. The "high level events" are canon.

Beyond that, anything is up to interpretation. Its not a matter of "stretching and tweaking everything" because Bethesda hasn't decided a canon ending or even if any of the defined endings are canon. We don't know how exactly the events of tactics played out at all.

I mean, you can pretend you know exactly what Bethesda is going to do. But you don't, none of us do. I mean, is it really that complicated to create a custom ending to tactics? Bethesda has professional writers on staff. It shouldn't be that complicated to write something unique and indeed wouldn't.

Most simplistic ending is not necessarily the best nor is it necessarily the most "correct." Because everything is up in the air.

Every ending of Fallout Tactics makes it very clear that the Brotherhood of Steel makes Vault 0 their base of operations. And I am going to go with what Fallout Tactics actually says and not retcon everything.

The argument that Bethesda can basically 'do what they want' is true, but it isn't going to affect me unless they do something very out of character and decide to revisit Tactics in a DLC. So until they do that, I am going to go with what Tactics says, no retcons.

As a modder there is always the chance Bethesda will go make something that will ruin my story, but in this particular case I feel rather confident that won't happen anytime soon, because like I said before, Bethesda doesn't care about Tactics.

If I were to make up an ending that went against how Tactics played, then I would no longer be making a tribute to Tactics, and I might as well just make up new factions for my mod and not worry about the lore.

Also, Chicago was a crash site, not some planned out home for the new Brotherhood. They crashed there, and then left. Not much reason to return.

And I am willing to be that it is the whole driving around in Hummers thing that makes Bethesda want to throw out Tactics from Fallout canon in the first place. I'll throw out the Hummers to fit better into the mood of Fallout 3, 4, and NV before I am going to totally retcon where the story takes place.

By all means man, write your mod however you like. More power to you. You just can't pretend its anything other than head-canon is what I'm saying.

Actually, according to the official Fallout 3 game guide, the "Eastern" BoS assimilated super mutants into its ranks.

So we know that part of tactics is canon also.