Brotherhood of Steel: Fallout's Techno-Knights Explained

The Brotherhood of Steel is a military order of soldiers and scholars that collects pre-war technology and keeps it out of everyone else's hands. It was founded by a US Army captain who turned against his own government on the eve of the Great War, and by the 2280s it flies airships and fields armies in power armor. It's the only faction to appear in every main Fallout game and in the TV series. (Fallout; Fallout 4; Fallout, "The End")

How the Brotherhood began: Roger Maxson's mutiny#

The Brotherhood started at Mariposa Military Base in California. Captain Roger Maxson's unit was guarding scientists there, and in October 2077 his soldiers found out the scientists were dipping military prisoners in the Forced Evolutionary Virus. Maxson ordered interrogations, the senior researcher was shot, the base commander killed himself, and on 20 October Maxson declared his unit's secession from the United States. Days later the bombs fell. (Fallout)

Maxson marched his soldiers and their families south to the Lost Hills government bunker. Raiders picked off the families on the way, since only the soldiers had armour. The survivors made the bunker their home and it became the Brotherhood's first headquarters. (Fallout)

Fallout 76 adds the step from army unit to order. Maxson reached an old friend in Appalachia, Lieutenant Elizabeth Taggerdy, by radio, and she brought her own soldiers over to his cause. Maxson invented new ranks, symbols and traditions to give his people something to believe in after the old flag had failed them, modelled on the knights and scribes who preserved learning after Rome fell. (Fallout 76)

What the Brotherhood believes#

The order's mission is to recover and protect technology. Members swear to a code, and the rank structure splits fighters (initiates, knights and paladins) from scribes, who study and maintain what is found. Elders sit on top. Outsiders are rarely trusted, and the Brotherhood takes technology from others rather than sharing it. (Fallout; Fallout 3)

Different chapters read that mission in different ways. The Lost Hills elders keep to themselves. Elder Lyons in the east decides that protecting people from super mutants matters more than hoarding. Arthur Maxson goes further the other way and adds a crusade against anything he calls an abomination: super mutants, ghouls and synths. (Fallout 3; Fallout 4)

The Brotherhood in the West Coast games#

In Fallout (2161), the Brotherhood is a closed society at Lost Hills, led by Elder John Maxson with Head Paladin Rhombus commanding its soldiers. The Vault Dweller earns entry by recovering a holodisk from the Glow, a radioactive crater, and can bring the Brotherhood into the fight against the Master's mutant army. (Fallout)

By Fallout 2 (2241), the Brotherhood has opened outposts across New California to watch the Enclave. At the San Francisco bunker, it asks the Chosen One to infiltrate Navarro and steal the plans for the Enclave's improved vertibirds. (Fallout 2)

In Fallout: New Vegas (2281), the order has fought and lost a war with the NCR over technology. The Mojave chapter held the HELIOS One solar plant until an NCR assault in 2276 killed more than half of its members. The survivors locked themselves inside the Hidden Valley bunker under Elder McNamara. They are short on morale and air filters, and the Courier can help them, ignore them, or wipe them out for Mr. House. Veronica, one of the Courier's companions, is a Brotherhood scribe. (Fallout: New Vegas)

The East Coast Brotherhood: Lyons and the Citadel#

Fallout 3 (2277) moves to Washington, D.C. Elder Owyn Lyons was sent east by the West Coast elders, but in the Capital Wasteland he chose to defend the population from the local super mutants. Members who disagreed split off as the Brotherhood Outcasts. Lyons's chapter holds the Citadel, built in the ruins of the Pentagon, and his daughter Sarah leads its elite squad, Lyons' Pride. (Fallout 3)

When the Enclave seizes Project Purity, the Brotherhood rebuilds a giant pre-war robot, Liberty Prime, and uses it to retake the purifier. In Broken Steel the order and the Lone Wanderer carry the fight to Adams Air Force Base and break the Enclave's remaining force in the region. A young Arthur Maxson already lives at the Citadel in Fallout 3. (Fallout 3; Fallout 3: Broken Steel)

Fallout 4: Elder Maxson and the Prydwen#

In Fallout 4 (2287), Arthur Maxson is Elder of the eastern Brotherhood and has made it harder and stricter. The order flies the airship Prydwen into the Commonwealth, lands at Boston Airport and sets out to destroy the Institute. The Sole Survivor first meets a stranded recon team led by Paladin Danse, who later turns out to be a synth himself. (Fallout 4)

If the Sole Survivor sides with the Brotherhood, the order uses a rebuilt Liberty Prime to break into the Institute and the Institute's reactor is blown up. Siding with the Institute, the Railroad or the Minutemen can end with the Prydwen shot down instead. (Fallout 4)

The Brotherhood in the TV series#

The series is set in 2296. Maximus is an aspirant in a West Coast chapter, bullied and desperate to earn a suit of power armour. A knight pulled him from the ruins of Shady Sands as a child. The chapter's mission comes from "the highest clerics in the Commonwealth": find a defector from the Enclave named Wilzig and the artifact he carries. (Fallout, "The End")

At the end of season one, the chapter under Elder Cleric Quintus storms Griffith Observatory, the base of Lee Moldaver's NCR survivors, and takes the cold fusion device that came out of Wilzig's head. Quintus tells Maximus privately that he thinks the Brotherhood has lost its way. (Fallout, "The Beginning")

Season two shows the cost of that ambition. Quintus's chapter, the Knights of San Fernando, uncovers Area 51 and makes it a new base. He invites the elders of the Coronado, Grand Canyon and Yosemite chapters and wins them over with an endless supply of charged fusion cores. He leaves out the Commonwealth chapter, which now leads the whole order, and the Commonwealth's envoy Paladin Xander Harkness arrives to say it knows a civil war is coming. (Fallout, "The Golden Rule")

Maximus kills Harkness to stop him from massacring ghoul children, and Quintus brands him a heretic. When Dane takes the cold fusion relic, the alliance falls apart in a gunfight between the chapters at Area 51. In a scene after the finale's credits, with the fighting still going on outside, Quintus gives up on uniting the Brotherhood, calls himself "Quintus the Destroyer" and unrolls the blueprints for Liberty Prime Alpha. (Fallout, "The Profligate"; Fallout, "The Demon in the Snow"; Fallout, "The Strip")