Arthur Maxson: the Boy Squire Who Became Elder

Arthur Maxson is the Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 4, and the last descendant of the order's founder, Roger Maxson. He first appears as a ten-year-old squire at the Citadel in Fallout 3. By 2287 he has reunited the eastern Brotherhood and brought it to the Commonwealth aboard the airship Prydwen to destroy the Institute. (Fallout 3; Fallout 4)

Arthur Maxson in Fallout 3#

In 2277, Squire Maxson is the only child at the Citadel, and visitors make him nervous. Asked if he's too young for this, he explains: "I am descended from the great Roger Maxson, founder of our order. I am the last of his line. They say my soul was forged from eternal steel, but I don't believe that. I'm really just a normal boy." (Fallout 3)

He was sent to the Citadel years earlier to be fostered by Elder Lyons, before the West Coast elders lost faith in Lyons, and isn't sure he'll ever get home. He likes it anyway, mostly because of Sentinel Sarah Lyons, who has taught him a lot. She once took him on patrol. He insists he killed a super mutant, then admits he also "sort of shot Sarah", though only a flesh wound. (Fallout 3)

He knows the Codex by heart and struggles with it. It tells him outsiders can't be trusted, but it also tells him to defer to his Elder, so he accepts the Lone Wanderer because Lyons does. He has studied the Enclave from the Brotherhood's records and the local super mutants from the Citadel's walls. A diary entry on his terminal says Scribe Rothchild banned him from the lab for trying to make friends with Liberty Prime. (Fallout 3)

How did Maxson become Elder?#

Proctor Quinlan's records aboard the Prydwen tell the story. After Owyn Lyons died, Sarah took over, and after she was killed the chapter drifted under a string of weak Elders. Arthur, meanwhile, was making a name for himself. (Fallout 4)

• 2279, aged 12: he killed two raiders on a training patrol and saved the squad sent to protect him. (Fallout 4)
• 2280: he killed a deathclaw alone and was left with the scar across his face. (Fallout 4)
• 2282, aged 15: he killed Shepherd, a super mutant leader trying to regroup the Capital Wasteland's mutants, and was made a provisional Elder. (Fallout 4)
• 2283, aged 16: he made peace with the Brotherhood Outcasts and brought them back into the order. The Brotherhood made him Elder, the youngest in its history, with the newly built Prydwen able to reach anywhere on the East Coast. (Fallout 4)

Quinlan adds that the West Coast elders back him and have started stamping out cults that worship Maxson as a god, something Maxson himself hates. Lancer-Captain Kells puts it simply: "In a mere decade, he's grown the Brotherhood of Steel into a major military force." (Fallout 4)

What does Elder Maxson believe?#

Maxson's Brotherhood is harder than Lyons's. When it reaches Boston, he tells his troops the Institute is a cancer and its synths a danger on the scale of the atom bomb. "This notion that a machine can be granted free will is not only offensive, but horribly dangerous," he says, and orders them destroyed. Ghouls and super mutants are abominations to him too. (Fallout 4)

The root of it is the Great War. He tells Paladin Danse that "Millions... perhaps even billions, died because science outpaced man's restraint!" and sees the Institute repeating the mistake. He also insists he cares about the people of the Commonwealth: the Brotherhood is there "to prevent a war by starting one of our own." (Fallout 4)

That line gets personal in "Blind Betrayal". Danse, the paladin who recruited the Sole Survivor, turns out to be a synth who didn't know it, and Maxson orders the Survivor to execute him. The Survivor can obey, or find a way to save him. (Fallout 4)

Maxson and the Sole Survivor#

Maxson promotes the Sole Survivor to Knight on the Prydwen and hands out the Brotherhood's main missions: clearing Fort Strong of super mutants, getting Dr. Madison Li out of the Institute, and helping rebuild Liberty Prime. In the Brotherhood ending he fights beside them inside the Institute, which is then destroyed, and promotes the Survivor to Sentinel. (Fallout 4)

Siding with anyone else makes him an enemy. For the Institute, he arrives at Boston Airport by Vertibird in T-60 power armour carrying Final Judgment while a synth hacks Liberty Prime to shoot down the Prydwen. On the Railroad route the Survivor plants explosives aboard the airship, and Maxson can be fought on deck. The Minutemen can shoot the Prydwen down with artillery. (Fallout 4)

Arthur Maxson in the TV series#

The series, set in 2296, never shows Maxson, but his chapter is the one in charge. When Elder Cleric Quintus of the Knights of San Fernando plots against the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth sends an emissary, Paladin Xander Harkness. Yosemite's Elder McRae tells the man posing as Harkness that her chapter wants nothing to do with Quintus's insurrection: "All we hope is that Elder Maxson will remember us better in the future." (Fallout, "The Demon in the Snow")

A Maxson still leading from the Commonwealth fits a Brotherhood win in Fallout 4, but Bethesda hasn't named a canon ending. (Fallout, "The Demon in the Snow"; Fallout 4)