<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nTo be fair, they were never very bright. But at least they were dummies with a goal. Let’s just hand-wave the massive avalanche of contrivances and coincidences needed to explain how they somehow knew what Dad was doing and showed up five minutes after we turned on the power at the purifier, even though this place was free for the taking for the last 18 years. Fine. They’re here. Let’s talk about why<\/em>.<\/p>\n Let me ask you about the Enclave in Fallout 3: What do these clowns want<\/strong>? At the end of the day, how are they hoping to improve their lot in life? What do they need? Land? Not likely, and this land is worthless anyway. Food and water? These people don’t have any. Slaves? The Enclave has a doom fortress of robots and magical technology to do their work for them, so the last thing in the world they need is a bunch of hungry, disease-ridden, irradiated slaves stinking up their nice clean base. And besides, what work needs to be done? <\/p>\n Sure, you can invent some reasons if you like. It’s not like pointless wars are some anomaly in human history. But in the game we’re not even given an excuse for why President Eden would launch the war, why the soldiers would give their lives, or why the people at home would support it. Nobody<\/em> in this circus even has a notion of what they might get out of it. I’m not even asking for the bad guys to be smart<\/em> at this point. I’m only asking that they have some basic inkling of motivation for why they’re doing the things they’re doing.<\/p>\n Here in the game, there is no reason given why the Enclave would invade the capital wasteland and seize control of a broken water purifier. The inhabitants have no resources, no technology, no power, and the land they’re on is a lifeless poisoned hellscape overflowing with mutants. It’s a waste of lives and ammo for the Enclave to come storming in here and gunning down civilians, and the purifier itself would be useless to them even if it worked<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Even if the Enclave wants to control the populace, they already have the power to do so by simply pointing their guns at people. And even if the guns weren’t enough, the purifier wouldn't help control people because people seem to be doing well enough with the water they've got.<\/p>\n The chapter of Brotherhood of Steel in this game has supposedly gone off-mission. They’ve abandoned their quest for technology and instead are trying to help the locals. I am okay with this. In fact, this is one of the points in the story where the “200 years later” idea actually works. 200 years is a long time for a single group to adhere to a set of ideals, and it’s not surprising at all that eventually some people would try to shake things up. Maybe this doesn’t “feel” like the Brotherhood to Fallout fans. You can make an argument that rather than trying to justify the Brotherhood crossing the continent it would have been more expedient story-wise to simply make up a new faction. But whatever. That’s not the kind of argument we’re here for.<\/p>\n My problem with the Brotherhood isn’t their change in mission and mindset. My problem is that nothing they do makes any sense. They spend most of their time downtown fighting super mutants, and the rest of their time helping a radio DJ. (Who is himself an idiot and an asshole of dubious value.) If they actually wanted to help people, they could share technology, or guard towns, or escort traders. Instead they’re mounting assaults on entrenched forces that aren’t a threat to anyoneAny HUMANS, anyway.<\/span>. <\/p>\n Part of the problem is that it’s hard to help people who don’t seem to need anything. The people of Megaton do no work, have no income, and produce no goods. They’re not thriving, but they seem to be getting by. It’s not clear how you can help people that have no goals. <\/p>\n We can hand-wave and say that without the BoS, the mutant problem would run out of control and threaten the surrounding towns. It’s pretty hard to justify fighting them so inefficiently. From the perspective of the player, it looks like Brotherhood could just camp the subway exits and keep the mutants bottled up in the city rather than fighting them in the open. But whatever. In broad strokes, this works well enough: We can just pretend the BoS is solving a mutant problem and the game is just careless about portraying it.<\/p>\n This could actually work, story-wise. There’s a lot you can do with the idea that a fighting force is really bad at doing humanitarian aid. This would put them out of their element, and would even help justify their usual practice of not getting involved. The game even seems to be trying to do this. Sort of. AwkwardlyIt kind of falls through because the BoS guys that stayed on-mission are even MORE dumb and useless.<\/span>. <\/p>\n But in a world where everyone else is also a moron, it doesn’t give us any payoff. They aren’t a great army turned into a poor peacekeeping force. They’re not being contrasted against a more competent foe. They’re just another group of swaggering dunces, wandering around shooting shit instead of being useful. <\/p>\nThe Brotherhood of Steel are all idiots with stupid brains.<\/h3>\n
<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nPresident Eden is a numskull who can’t think.<\/h3>\n
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