Economics of the Brotherhood of Steel

[Xenon The Noble]

Gunners are mercs that will take any job for a price. They have better weapons and armor, but nothing like the BOS who has T-60b power armor, better body armor, snappier uniforms, vertibirds and even an airborn carrier the Prydwin.

How does the BOS afford all this? I don't see any BOS civilians to support military spending.

Honestly asking cuz I hardly get past Fort Strong when Paladin Danse goes into his kill all synths lecture.
What. A. Karen.

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Originally posted by jerrypocalypse:

I never use Danse, but I'd be interested to know what his reaction would be. Let us know what you find. It might also be informative to know if there any likes/dislikes status changes for any companions for it as well.

I didn't see any associated companion dialogue, and the only reactions I could see that weren't listed as UNSET were for X6-88 of all people. He dislikes the "donation" and demand choices, and likes paying for food, but only if you haggled to get it.

For those curious, here are the dialogue lines for the "owned" options (I took my screenshots visiting an unowned settlement). There is only one response line for each, and no owned/unowned change to the other two dialogue choices available.

Donate Crops
Sole Survivor: The Brotherhood needs food. Better to donate it willingly and keep them friendly.
Farmer: Don't worry, we don't want to get on your bad side. We'll have crops to "donate" come harvest.

Hand Over Goods
Sole Survivor: The Brotherhood of Steel demands your tribute, citizen. You will hand over a portion of your crops to the Brotherhood.
Farmer: We'll give you what you want. But we won't forget this.

Interesting find!

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Donate Crops
Sole Survivor: The Brotherhood needs food. Better to donate it willingly and keep them friendly.
Farmer: Don't worry, we don't want to get on your bad side. We'll have crops to "donate" come harvest.

This is definitely indicative that they don't feel like they have any real choice. They're donating to avoid the possible repercussions if they don't.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by jerrypocalypse:

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Donate Crops
Sole Survivor: The Brotherhood needs food. Better to donate it willingly and keep them friendly.
Farmer: Don't worry, we don't want to get on your bad side. We'll have crops to "donate" come harvest.

This is definitely indicative that they don't feel like they have any real choice. They're donating to avoid the possible repercussions if they don't.

It also directly shows the Sole Survivor being aware of the threat potential with their warning that if the farmers don't hand over the food the Brotherhood won't stay "friendly".

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Originally posted by jerrypocalypse:

This is definitely indicative that they don't feel like they have any real choice. They're donating to avoid the possible repercussions if they don't.

It also directly shows the Sole Survivor being aware of the threat potential with their warning that if the farmers don't hand over the food the Brotherhood won't stay "friendly".

Yep, exactly. And it's likely this view of the BoS didn't manifest out of nowhere either. Whether it be their actions or their appearance, the BoS has given a hostile impression to the settlers.

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by Courva:

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

It also directly shows the Sole Survivor being aware of the threat potential with their warning that if the farmers don't hand over the food the Brotherhood won't stay "friendly".

the ss is using the bos authority and name without any agreement, for his personnal deal.
this is a speculation.

At the settlers already appear to have a preconceived idea of the BoS due to them acting this way even on the first interaction. Which would indicate they have some notion of the BoS from past interactions with others.

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by Courva:

Originally posted by jerrypocalypse:

Yep, exactly. And it's likely this view of the BoS didn't manifest out of nowhere either. Whether it be their actions or their appearance, the BoS has given a hostile impression to the settlers.

the cw farmers already had a bad opinion of the bos the day they arrived. in fact everybody dislike the bos. Because they are a military group coming from nowhere.
it's pretty normal for a population to be suspicious about a stranger military group coming from another coiuntry, since they don't know anything about them and don't know if they will be hostile or not,

but you talk like the settlers knew who the bos are and that, therefore, their opinion is a valid point. it's funny.

Are the opinions of the native settlers unimportant? The BoS doesn't appear to be doing much to change the locals' view of them

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by Courva:

Originally posted by jerrypocalypse:

Are the opinions of the native settlers unimportant? The BoS doesn't appear to be doing much to change the locals' view of them

yes the opinion is unimportant, do you know why ? because Bethesda made them be dumbs.
just look : they are surrounded with raiders, supermutants, gouls and synths ( they hate synths too ) etc... they live in total chaos with high probability of death and the world is falling apart.
then a military group will come saying that their intentions are pacific.
then the cw peasant will say with dedain : who are those bos ? what do they want ?

they even don't think of the eventuality that the bos might be there to help them.
no, this eventuality is discarded in this game.

the story is stupid and therefore the settlers are shown as stupid people with their one way of thinking..

I'm not discussing the writers, sorry.

[The Inept European]

The BoS started out with top line pre war US military and have leveraged that advantage ever since to build up more and more pre war military hardware, obtaining which is their primary mission. It's not about economics - it's glorified scavenging and occasional outright robbery. They do not work for money, and don't use it as their main means of acquiring tech or weaponry.

You could be more skeptical of the economics of the Gunners, who are mercenaries, and therefore need to make a profit. I see way too many Gunners who are not on active contracts. You hardly ever see them on what looks like a paid assignment. They don't even go on raids that would net anything worth them taking. They seem less entrepreneurial than Raiders.

Raiders make economic sense. What little they have is easy to justify by their demonstrated activities.

The Gunners economy on the other hand is hard to justify on grounds of history, ideology or economics. I suspect that exactly zero thought was put into the rationale for the equipment level of the Gunners. Other than "game logic", ie providing a threat tier of humans that is up from raiders and triggermen, but below the BoS tier.

[The Inept European]

Talking about the lore, background, or story without acknowledging the glaring deficiencies of the writing, is never going to be any more than a desperate attempt to try to retcon away those obvious deficiencies.

[Von Faustien]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

The BoS started out with top line pre war US military and have leveraged that advantage ever since to build up more and more pre war military hardware, obtaining which is their primary mission. It's not about economics - it's glorified scavenging and occasional outright robbery. They do not work for money, and don't use it as their main means of acquiring tech or weaponry.

You could be more skeptical of the economics of the Gunners, who are mercenaries, and therefore need to make a profit. I see way too many Gunners who are not on active contracts. You hardly ever see them on what looks like a paid assignment. They don't even go on raids that would net anything worth them taking. They seem less entrepreneurial than Raiders.

Raiders make economic sense. What little they have is easy to justify by their demonstrated activities.

The Gunners economy on the other hand is hard to justify on grounds of history, ideology or economics. I suspect that exactly zero thought was put into the rationale for the equipment level of the Gunners. Other than "game logic", ie providing a threat tier of humans that is up from raiders and triggermen, but below the BoS tier.

Probably a reason both corneal mustard and the "writters" behind the fusion city branch of mods both independently decided the only way to justify the gunners tech.was tying them to enclave remanents

[The Inept European]

Yes that's a good retcon

[MagicMarker]

Originally posted by Courva:

you see some pictures of dialog that douglasgrave has selected with care for an optional quest with others dialog options but you decide to conclude " it's this, the bos are evil ".

I did no such thing. I've seen more of the BoS' missions that seem to suggest they're thugs. Also, I clearly stated that I'm willing to entertain the notion that the BoS in general isn't a bad faction at all, but that there is a corrupt element in the CW section. In other words, I've NOT firmly concluded that the BoS is evil, just that some missions show the Commonwealth chapter as being headed by a not very honorable guy.

Do yourself a favor and don't try to put words in my mouth that weren't mine to begin with. You're only making yourself look worse.

[MasterShake]

Fun fact from F3 (at least as I got it, feel free to correct me). Colonel Autumn's plan was actually to secure and activate water purifier and distribute water throu the wasteland. Unfortunately for him, he made his entrance a bit too dramatic and ruthless and in addition made it personal with protagonist, who goes gunz blazing and collateral damage mode.
Still, the Enclaves plan remained the same. The only difference for the people outside was -who would patronage the process - E or BoS. Since protagonists pass was railed, the outcome was obvious.

Now the interesting part is that technically Enclave are legitimate successors of U.S. goverment and army. While BoS are a rogue fraction of that same army, founded and lead by senior officers, with primal reason to go rogue and break potential chain of command (that is open and confirmed information). De jure - it is called renegates.
De jure, we have a story about goverment people, securing key infrastructure object and defending it with their lives, while being attacked by renegate forces, who unleash tactical nukes, when they feel so, Guess, who are good and who are bad guys in a typical movie like that?
I mean, de facto, it's more complicated, but I still find, it's very interesting mix to think about. What, if James didn't try play hardarse and Autumn took his sedatives in the morning? Would there be any serious reason to choose one faction over another?

Also fun fact, since Broken Steel happened, it was legitimately possible to bombard BoS to dust in the aftermath right along the Enclave. Quite an irony coming from devs, don't you think?

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

The Gunners economy on the other hand is hard to justify on grounds of history, ideology or economics. I suspect that exactly zero thought was put into the rationale for the equipment level of the Gunners. Other than "game logic", ie providing a threat tier of humans that is up from raiders and triggermen, but below the BoS tier.

It could also be that (as Deacon hints at at one point) the Gunners are supposed to be backed by someone else.

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Originally posted by The Inept European:

The Gunners economy on the other hand is hard to justify on grounds of history, ideology or economics. I suspect that exactly zero thought was put into the rationale for the equipment level of the Gunners. Other than "game logic", ie providing a threat tier of humans that is up from raiders and triggermen, but below the BoS tier.

It could also be that (as Deacon hints at at one point) the Gunners are supposed to be backed by someone else.

I don't know who that could be. I can't imagine any of the factions doing that since the Gunners kinda run counter and interfere with a lot of each factions goals. So it would have to be some other independent person/group. But that person/group would have to be wealthy enough to bankroll the Gunners.

Hmm. I do like the idea of a rich pre-war guy that was ghoulified and is backing the Gunners - or even had a hand in their formation - for their own agenda.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by jerrypocalypse:

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

It could also be that (as Deacon hints at at one point) the Gunners are supposed to be backed by someone else.

I don't know who that could be. I can't imagine any of the factions doing that since the Gunners kinda run counter and interfere with a lot of each factions goals. So it would have to be some other independent person/group. But that person/group would have to be wealthy enough to bankroll the Gunners.

Hmm. I do like the idea of a rich pre-war guy that was ghoulified and is backing the Gunners - or even had a hand in their formation - for their own agenda.

I'd have to assume it's a "Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film" deal, where they meant to include someone who would be their backer, but never got around to it.

Of the groups in Fallout 4, I think the Cabot family would make a good candidate. Expand their use of mercenaries a bit, and you'd have Edward Deegan running the Gunners for them as a kind of self-funding private army (which would explain a ghoul symbol). They've got money, technology, and some general disregard for the post-war world.