Is the Brotherhood of Steel evil?

[Charlemagne]

Mirroring another current thread which discusses if the Institute is evil. I know many people believe that the BoS is intrinsically evil. Sometimes you see people that viscerally hate the BoS, with an intensity that one rarely sees even in relation to other groups which are really and undeniably bad, like the Legion. This is based, I have noticed, in a conception mostly rooted in late 20th Century and 21st Century liberal political views, by which they are seen as fascist, racist or antidemocratic. But the counterargument to that IMO is, should they be peaceful, tree-hugging and democratic in a savage post-apocalyptic world? Would that even be viable?
Political views aside, I have noticed that in all the Fallouts even in Fallout 1, all the way to 76, the BoS can be considered among the various factions present, to be one of the good guy factions. Furthermore, I perceive that the game designers have always intended them to be. They are always quite easy for the player to befriend. They present themselves as rude, ill-mannered, ruthless with their enemies and closed minded, but once inside you notice they are ordinary, friendly and lawful people. They are a bit uncharitable with certain groups, like non-feral ghouls; but overall, it can be perceived that they have a sense of doing good. They are nothing like, for example, the raiders, the Legion or the Enclave.
In most Fallouts they play a critical role in the main story, sometimes essential, requiring that the player befriend them.

[Xenon The Noble]

Originally posted by Im doing my part!:

Originally posted by Angry Nord-Grunge Syndicate:

Gen 3 synth aren't robots though. They have organic bodies with organic brains, originating from Fathers DNA. Sure they have some cybernetic enhancements.

Curie is nothing but a Miss Nanny with a personality subroutine to the main scientists liking, responsible for preserving the gathered knowledge in vault 81, the very name stands for Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer (had to go check).

You transfer that personality to a gen3 synth and all the sudden say it has rights and needs to be free, that its "respectable sentient life", but the Miss Nanny wasnt? what changed outside their appearance.

Free Codsworth, it never wanted to be your butler, stop Sentry Bot murder, condemn the inhumane modifications made to Jezebel at the robot workbench. Freedom!

Robot Curie had no real emotions. Synth Curie has issues dealing with her humanity. Okay, other parts of the game it is claimed that synths have no real emotions (e.g. Covenant storyline)
IMHO from an engineering and sociologist perspective, it would be very unhealthy for any society to have made a device that for all purposes is indistinguishable from human and then de-humanize it, because dehumanizing other humans is less than a step away. If the synth is sentient or not is irrelevant; what matters is how people treat it and thus, treat other people.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Patriot03:

My generic view of the BoS is that they're well meaning tyrants that slowly establish themselves as the presiding government.

The BOS does not govern anywhere. They are not a government. They are more like a protectorate organization pledged to prevent another armageddon.

While conducting this mission the collect and preserve useful old world technology to rebuild.

Originally posted by Sensual_T_Rex:

The B.O.S. is evil simply because their policy is if you have something we want give it to us or we'll kill you and anyone who stands in our way.

Got an actual example for that? Good luck finding one.

[The Angriest Mongoose]

Yeah, they are good

[Sensual_T_Rex]

Originally posted by Sensual_T_Rex:

The B.O.S. is evil simply because their policy is if you have something we want give it to us or we'll kill you and anyone who stands in our way.

Got an actual example for that? Good luck finding one. [/quote]

Well besides the aforementioned Commonwealth invasion there's also the Scourge where they annihilated the people of the Pitt in order to "recover" some tech they wanted and also "appropriate" several healthy children to conscript into the Brotherhood. While not everyone in the Pitt was an innocent angel they also weren't all monsters or raiders either. It also left a power vacuum that lead to Ashur ( a B.O.S. member himself) becoming an evil slaver tyrant.

There's also the war they waged against the N.C.R. over disagreements over how tech should be controlled. The N.C.R. needed the tech to rebuild California while the B.O.S. wanted to hoard it and treat everyone in the N.C.R. like a peasant vassal state like the noble knights they fancy themselves. The N.C.R. disagreed and the Brotherhood decide that instead of just leaving California they'd try to take over resulting in them getting ran out of the state.

[Löthar Storm]

Originally posted by Sensual_T_Rex:

Well besides the aforementioned Commonwealth invasion there's also the Scourge where they annihilated the people of the Pitt in order to "recover" some tech they wanted and also "appropriate" several healthy children to conscript into the Brotherhood. While not everyone in the Pitt was an innocent angel they also weren't all monsters or raiders either. It also left a power vacuum that lead to Ashur ( a B.O.S. member himself) becoming an evil slaver tyrant.

I dig the Fallout 3 mod that gives you the option to go ahead & eat the babby.
It's a tough fight to get outta Steel Town after that one i can assure you. :D

[Sensual_T_Rex]

Originally posted by entom6ed:

Originally posted by Sensual_T_Rex:

Well besides the aforementioned Commonwealth invasion there's also the Scourge where they annihilated the people of the Pitt in order to "recover" some tech they wanted and also "appropriate" several healthy children to conscript into the Brotherhood. While not everyone in the Pitt was an innocent angel they also weren't all monsters or raiders either. It also left a power vacuum that lead to Ashur ( a B.O.S. member himself) becoming an evil slaver tyrant.

I dig the Fallout 3 mod that gives you the option to go ahead & eat the babby.
It's a tough fight to get outta Steel Town after that one i can assure you. :D

It's the bones that make it so crunchy.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Sensual_T_Rex:

The B.O.S. is evil simply because their policy is if you have something we want give it to us or we'll kill you and anyone who stands in our way.

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Got an actual example for that? Good luck finding one.

Well besides the aforementioned Commonwealth invasion.....

The BOS did not invade the Commonwealth. Invading implies conquering. They did not conquer anyone because as I pointed out previously, the BOS do not rule over anyone.

The BOS came to the Commonwealth in response to having lost the second recon team led by Paladin Brandis. If the player help Paladin Danse then they lost contact with another recon team led by Paladin Danse. If the player did help paladin Danse then they are contacted about the Institute threat. The Institute threat is what brought the BOS to the Commonwealth.

Originally posted by Sensual_T_Rex:

While not everyone in the Pitt was an innocent angel they also weren't all monsters or raiders either. It also left a power vacuum that lead to Ashur ( a B.O.S. member himself) becoming an evil slaver tyrant.

The BOS eliminated a bunch of slavers. They did not harm innocents.

As for someone else taking control that is not their fault. Ashur was no longer BOS, so that means it was not the BOS who put him in power, the people living there allowed it.

Originally posted by Sensual_T_Rex:

There's also the war they waged against the N.C.R. over disagreements over how tech should be controlled. The N.C.R. needed the tech to rebuild California while the B.O.S. wanted to hoard it and treat everyone in the N.C.R. like a peasant vassal state like the noble knights they fancy themselves.

The tech in question was the weapon technology cache gained in the fall of the Enclave. You do not rebuild with weapons. The BOS did not want to give the NCR high tech weaponry because they would use it to conquer their neighbors. The NCR were the ones who tried to seize it by force. Think about it, if the BOS had the weapons, and the NCR wanted them, then the fight over them, that says the BOS defended themselves.

Originally posted by Sensual_T_Rex:

The N.C.R. disagreed and the Brotherhood decide that instead of just leaving California they'd try to take over resulting in them getting ran out of the state.

The BOS were not run out of California. The chapter of BOS in Vegas were a separate chapter and they were the ones in hiding because they lost contact with the BOS. Which you also seem to forget the BOS helped the NCR defend Hoover Dam from the Legion.

You had nothing even remotely proving they are evil.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by Sensual_T_Rex:

The B.O.S. is evil simply because their policy is if you have something we want give it to us or we'll kill you and anyone who stands in our way.

Well besides the aforementioned Commonwealth invasion.....

The BOS did not invade the Commonwealth. Invading implies conquering. They did not conquer anyone because as I pointed out previously, the BOS do not rule over anyone.

Invasion implies only entering territory occupied by someone else with a hostile force. All three other factions (Brotherhood, Minutemen, Railroad), for example, invade the Institute.

The arguable point there would be whether or not you consider the Commonwealth in general or the airport in particular to count as already occupied, as the Commonwealth doesn't have a single general owner (which is also why people describing the Institute as "stealing" when they scavenge is incorrect), and the airport was just full of feral ghouls.

The Institute likely considers the Brotherhood to be invading the Commonwealth (and they have the widest distribution of forces in Commonwealth land), and some other settlements might not consider the Brotherhood benign either. Ultimately, it's a question of who occupies the land when it comes to invasions.

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

The BOS came to the Commonwealth in response to having lost the second recon team led by Paladin Brandis. If the player help Paladin Danse then they lost contact with another recon team led by Paladin Danse. If the player did help paladin Danse then they are contacted about the Institute threat. The Institute threat is what brought the BOS to the Commonwealth.

The Brotherhood arrival at the Commonwealth isn't described as being a response to the loss of Brandis' team, who they considered lost (that's stated in-game). They task the Sole Survivor with a search after their arrival, but it wasn't a factor in their decision to deploy to the Commonwealth in the first place.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

The BOS came to the Commonwealth in response to having lost the second recon team led by Paladin Brandis. If the player help Paladin Danse then they lost contact with another recon team led by Paladin Danse. If the player did help paladin Danse then they are contacted about the Institute threat. The Institute threat is what brought the BOS to the Commonwealth.

The Brotherhood arrival at the Commonwealth isn't described as being a response to the loss of Brandis' team, who they considered lost (that's stated in-game). They task the Sole Survivor with a search after their arrival, but it wasn't a factor in their decision to deploy to the Commonwealth in the first place.

You should not bother arguing if you can not read what I wrote. If you can not figure out what is wrong with what you said, then it aint worth discussing this with you.

[Cliff.uckingBooth]

I see them as Fallout equivalent of medieval Templar knights.
And they are trying to rebuild the civilization while saving the prewar technology.
If you want classic bad guys thats the Enclave.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

The Brotherhood arrival at the Commonwealth isn't described as being a response to the loss of Brandis' team, who they considered lost (that's stated in-game). They task the Sole Survivor with a search after their arrival, but it wasn't a factor in their decision to deploy to the Commonwealth in the first place.

You should not bother arguing if you can not read what I wrote. If you can not figure out what is wrong with what you said, then it aint worth discussing this with you.

You should not bother saying there's something wrong if you cannot articulate your objection.

To clarify:

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

The BOS came to the Commonwealth in response to having lost the second recon team led by Paladin Brandis.

This is incorrect. The Brotherhood did not come to the Commonwealth in response to having lost the second recon team led by Paladin Brandis.

The loss of Brandis' patrol did not play any significant part in their response to the Institute threat.

[galacticcorgi]

Originally posted by Im doing my part!:

Originally posted by Anakha:

The Brotherhood was prepping to annihilate them. To the last man. Institute had also shown willingness to annihilate them. They certainly tried. (See: Switchbard happened.) We've seen what both the Brotherhood and the Institute do. University Point is what awaits the Railroad if they're caught, and I can easily see the Brotherhood doing the exact same thing.

If you're a group of radicals set on unleashing mind wiped dangerous tech into the wild willy nilly because you're more concerned about their feelings than the physical integrity of other people, if you kill folk for the sake of helping a robot run free somewhere, aren't you as much a problem as the folk running the assembly line? perhaps not even just part of the problem, you are THE problem, the creators at least set up divisions to reign it in, railroad instead want it as widespread as possible.

The same way all you do is assume what the BOS does with tech, i'll go ahead and assume that half those synths conflict with humans elsewhere, get bored of them (like the ones in the institute are) wipe everyone out. Good plan?

For all the talks of BOS "supreme, immense power, domination", not once have they acted on it, instead they largely keep to their goals and themselves. In Fallout 4 they get access to 2 or 3 warehouses worth of nuclear payloads, a giant robot which apparently nothing in the CW is able to match, and outside extinguishing the deadly-threat-to-humankind fire, they do nothing with either of them.

As an interesting fact, the residents of diamond city are eventually put side by side with bos members who are now shop customers and etc, between dialogues of "thank you for everything, heres some money", NPCs will mention the likes of "these BOS aren't so bad after all", or compliments about how good they are in the sense that they pay for everything they need/want. DC guards are also appreciative, but i forget half the dialogue the NPCs had for them.

Not too shabby for racists, xenophobes, nazis, probably puppy kickers too.

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not gonna listen to some pnk with a saluting soldier for an icon who seems to ignore the lore of synths which is they're bioengineered. They're not EXACTLY robots, or killing a gen 3 synth wouldn't have them all bloody and human-like with the ONLY tell being the synth component. They are, from what I can tell, small-scale clones with some mechanical parts put in to keep them controlled.

Also, "they haven't acted on it" is BS because you choose their line, they WILL wipe out other factions in a grand show of strength with their Liberty Prime because ♥♥♥♥ free will, you're with them or against them and they want to hoard tech because only THEY get to use it while whining about how dangerous it is for humanity. Again: they would have done the same thing as University Point.

But you're acting like a brainwashed "authority always good" soldier. The only people you HAVE to kill for those "robots" btw? Are raiders. You know, people you're ALREADY killing. And the Institute, who want to cleanse the Commonwealth of impurities as it is. Which includes everyone not THEM. The BoS is a group of misguided hypocrites playing soldier and hoarding tech who WILL wipe you out if you get in their way. Fallout 4 not really showing this doesn't mean much because it's not the best game story-wise. I don't think they're evil--I think they're extremists who're misguided as all heck.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by Anakha:

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not gonna listen to some pnk with a saluting soldier for an icon who seems to ignore the lore of synths which is they're bioengineered.

If I'm recognizing it correctly, the avatar/name there appears to be a Starship Troopers reference.

[galacticcorgi]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Originally posted by Anakha:

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not gonna listen to some pnk with a saluting soldier for an icon who seems to ignore the lore of synths which is they're bioengineered.

If I'm recognizing it correctly, the avatar/name there appears to be a Starship Troopers reference.

It's still something I'm wary of, because a lot of people I've met who have icons like that also uh. Tend to ignore military atrocities and such.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by Anakha:

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

If I'm recognizing it correctly, the avatar/name there appears to be a Starship Troopers reference.

It's still something I'm wary of, because a lot of people I've met who have icons like that also uh. Tend to ignore military atrocities and such.

Pretty fitting for a thread about the Brotherhood, though.